Remains of 8 in Pioneer Family Believed Found

Workers clearing ground for a planned housing development unearthed the skeletal remains of eight people believed to have been part of a pioneer family who settled here more than 100 years ago.

The bones, surrounded by crumbling coffins, are thought to be those of the Jenkins family--ranchers who settled the area in the 1890s. A forensic archeologist is conducting tests to determine when the bodies were buried.

A longtime resident said she warned officials of the Genstar Land Co. that crews working on the 4,000-unit North Lake housing development last week were digging precariously close to the old family cemetery, near the intersection of Lake Hughes and Castaic roads.

“A lot of us old-timers knew about it,” said Donna Chesebrough, 46, a third-generation resident of this tiny truck-stop town off the Golden State Freeway, 60 miles north of Los Angeles. “When I was young, in the ‘60s, we’d go hiking up there in the mountains with our BB guns. I remember seeing three crosses. They were old and falling apart even then.”

Los Angeles County coroner’s investigators were called to the site Tuesday after a lawyer for Genstar alerted authorities to the grisly find. Work has been halted at the site.

“What we wanted to know was if these bodies were buried after a crime,” said coroner’s investigator Erik D. Arbuthnot. “As it turns out, they were not.”

Arbuthnot said he and another investigator identified the bones of seven people who appeared to have been adults, and the skeletal remains of a child who probably died at birth. Too few bones were recovered to determine the genders, he said.

The bones, as well as a metal cross that sat atop one of the coffins, were taken to the coroner’s office in Los Angeles to protect them from grave robbers, authorities said.

“Neighborhood kids have apparently been coming and digging up and collecting the bones,” Arbuthnot said.

Arbuthnot said he was told by several longtime residents of the area, including Chesebrough, that the bones belonged to William W. Jenkins and his descendants.

Jenkins, according to local lore, was a rough-and-tumble horse breeder and pioneer oilman who liked to play poker. For decades, he claimed to have purchased the rights to Alcatraz Island, only to lose the property in a Chicago card game.

He also had a reputation as a swindler. In 1895, Jenkins heard that swampland could be purchased cheaply under a special government program so long as the land was surveyed by boat. Castaic had no swamp, so Jenkins--following the letter of the law--mounted a boat on wheels and had it pulled by horses.

In that way, he claimed most of the land between his Lazy Z ranch and the current site of Magic Mountain.

His family’s violent and long-running feud with the Chormicle clan cemented his local notoriety. The feud was said to have started in 1890 over a parcel of land. Over the next 26 years a series of barn-burnings, ambushes and horseback gun battles claimed as many as 22 lives.

“Yup, that’s the same family,” said Chesebrough, a housewife who counts herself among a dwindling number of old-timers in the area.

She watched as coroner’s investigators removed bones and artifacts Tuesday from the site, including old-fashioned pine coffins, narrow at the foot and wider at the shoulders. The baby’s tiny casket had a plate of glass covering the infant’s face.

Along with the metal cross, investigators recovered a woman’s brooch, buttons and a rosary.

“It was eerie to look at,” Chesebrough said.

Gary Reinoehl, an archeologist for the state Office of Historic Preservation in Sacramento, said there are no laws governing inactive cemeteries unless they contain the remains of Native Americans.

He said the bones would be regarded as an archeological discovery. Reinoehl said he asked that the developer hire an archeologist to excavate and evaluate the site before continuing work.

Dennis Moser, vice president of San-Diego based Genstar, said his company intends to cooperate fully with authorities.

“We’re going to make sure to respect the site and stay away from it until the authorities tell us what the appropriate action is,” Moser said.

Chesebrough praised the developer for taking the time to investigate the family graveyard, and not just “coming through with a bulldozer.”

“There are very few of us old-timers left in the area,” she said. “And with every development that comes in, a little bit more of our heritage is taken away.”