Sarah Norton



As mentioned on the previous page, Sarah Norton is one of the few occupants of Rose Hill cemetery and the wife of Noah Norton, the man who founded Nortonville, one of the most successful mining towns in that area. This is the legend associated with her.

Back in the days of the coal miners lived a woman called Sarah Norton, known to most of the townfolk as the White Witch. People weren't as bad during those times as during Burning Times so she was spared persecution for most of her life. One day, some vengeful man convinced he was cursed by Sarah killed her children by throwing them onto one of the train rails while the mine carts were coming by. Here, the story gets fuzzy, she might have been killed by the same towns person, she might have killed him and then gotten executed, died from grief or just from old age later on. Anyways, before she died, Sarah cursed all in the town and the area to misfortune. Now, if you go to the mines or cemetery late at night and call out "White Witch, I killed your children!" a ghostly white cloud in the form of a woman will appear and God only knows what will happen next.

I would just like to clarify some things on this. Sarah Norton is/was/will never be the White Witch. She died at 68, so said on her gravestone which was erected by her two sons. She was, however, a midwife and very accomplished with the arts of medicine, something that only women who were witches did. It is said that she scoffed at the idea of religeon (which makes one wonder how they got her into the stritcly Protestant cemetery) and three times her family tried to have a chruch service at her grave after she was buried and three times a terrible storm arose, causing everyone to leave. Across from Sarah's grave, to the left, is a small, partially fenced in, stoneless grave between two cemetery trees, which I have heard to be the grave of the White Witch. (Now why would the townfolk kill a witch then bury her in their sacred grounds?) Although I don't believe Sarah is the White Witch, I believe she does exist. Any book on California hauntings has Rose Hill Cemetery listed in it. I have never seen a ghost there, maybe they don't feel like they have to scare me away. My dad has talked about it before and most importantly, my aunt told me of her encounter with the ghost. It goes like this:

My aunt and a group of her friends decided to go to the mines late at night. (Back before it was gated off.) They were at the main picnic area, below one of the mines when one of the girls started joking around and said "White Witch, I killed your children." A second after she said it, a white cloud appeared and the girl started making choking noises. The other girls grabbed her and ran out and soon her choking stopped. She said it felt like two icy hands around her neck.

I have always believed this story. My aunt always told me about the hills around here, as a young girl, she loved walking around them as much as I did and she had even more to explore since she knew some of the property owners. Even more importantly, she's a Jehovah's Witness which means she doesn't believe in ghosts or the supernatural or anything, so why would she lie about the story?