Adelaida Cemetery

Adelaida was settled in 1859 and grew up around mercury mines, farms and sheep ranches; the cemetery was started by Wesley Burnett in the late 1800s, with the first burial — Mary K. Burnett — in January 1878. The woman reported here has a name and a grave. Charlotte M. Sitton, born 22 June 1871, was a Mennonite woman married to a pastor. In 1890 both of her children died of diphtheria, and in December of that year Charlotte died by suicide. She was nineteen. She is buried in the cemetery, and her children are said to lie beside her. The legend holds that she returns on Friday nights, between roughly ten and midnight, to lay flowers at the children's grave before walking among the trees and headstones in a long white nightgown, weeping. The cemetery is small, rural and still standing on Adelaida Road.