Yorba Cemetery is a one-acre burial ground inside Woodgate Park, on the line between Yorba Linda and Anaheim Hills. Bernardo Yorba set it aside in his 1858 will for family and neighbors on Rancho Cañón de Santa Ana. It is the oldest private cemetery in Orange County. The ghost story attached to it is the Pink Lady. The records support the rancho graves, not the apparition.
Yorba, son of a soldier who came north with the Portolá expedition, received the rancho grant and ran cattle, orchards, and a vineyard from a large adobe. In the will he gave the Catholic Church a parcel that included a chapel then under construction and land for a cemetery. The first recorded burial was in 1862. Families interred here include the Yorbas, de los Reyes, Peraltas, Dominguezes, and Navarros, along with ranch hands, a midwife, and infants. Estimates of the dead run from about 120 identified graves to more than 400. Only a fraction still have headstones.
The last burial was in 1939. After that the plot was abandoned and vandalized. Teenagers broke stones and stole markers. Orange County accepted the deed in 1967, dedicated the site in 1976, and began a cleanup in the 1980s. It is California Historical Landmark No. 225, placed in 1981. Bernardo Yorba himself was reinterred here in 1924. What had been a corner of a vast rancho is now a fenced acre between a park, tennis courts, and houses.
The Pink Lady is the local haunting. The story says a young woman in a pink or white dress appears in a glow around midnight on June 15, often described as every other year. Tellers identify her as Alvina de los Reyes, a Yorba descendant killed in a buggy accident on the way home from a dance. Sightings were a teenage rite for years. Wikipedia notes there are no official reports of an appearance since the 1980s. The name, the date, and the accident do not line up cleanly in the burial record. It is a suburb legend told at a real pioneer cemetery, not a documented event.
Other claims are the usual cemetery set: shadows between stones, footsteps on the path, a cold spot, a tug on a sleeve. They come from night visits the county does not authorize. The site is locked except for tours.
Docents lead a free tour on the first Saturday of each month, about 10 to 11 a.m. The location is Woodgate Park, 6749 Parkwood Court, Yorba Linda, CA 92886. The cemetery has no street address of its own. Group tours can be requested through OC Parks at George Key Ranch. It is not open for new burials.
The history here is the 1858 deed, the rancho families, and a cemetery the county had to rescue from vandalism. The Pink Lady is the story people added later.
Relevant links
- OC Parks: Historic Yorba Cemetery FAQs — address, tour hours, and the 1939 closing
- Yorba Cemetery, Wikipedia — the 1858 deed and the Pink Lady legend
- Voice of OC tour report — restoration, vandalism, and the count of burials versus stones
- Historical marker text — Bernardo Yorba, the rancho, and who is buried there