6th-Grade Project Brings Pioneer Town Back to Life

CHOWCHILLA, Calif. —  The family cemetery of Jonas, Abby and Rowland Minturn held the secrets of their pioneer lives until a sixth-grade class decided to research them as a history project.

The effort snowballed as Bill Coate’s students learned more and more, and now a Rhode Island class has been drawn into the research.

The idea was simple enough. Coate detected enthusiasm in his class last September at Howard School and proposed answering several questions in his mind about the Minturns.

Instead of memorizing names and dates from a book, the children set out to discover some new ones worth learning.

And instead of reading a history book, they would write one entitled “The Minturn Chronicles.”

“We didn’t know what we’d find,” Coate said. “As it was, we discovered that every new document raised new questions.”

Minturn was a town that gave its name to a post office, railroad stop, school, store and saloon, but its history was erased over time with the death of relatives.

The gravestones along the Chowchilla River were the framework for study. Jonas died at 65 in 1884, his wife, Abby, followed 15 years later, and their son, Rowland, committed suicide by cutting his throat in 1894.

A check of records at the Madera County courthouse produced a will filed by Abby Minturn in 1892, listing a son, James, and a daughter as heirs.

An obituary for Rowland ran in the Merced Star, prompting student Joel Cripe to buy a coroner’s report and death certificate from the Merced County recorder.

The son was born in South Carolina, leading students to fantasize about a Southern plantation family.

Another student, Aaron Leavitt, asked for help from Audrey Pool, president of the Madera County Genealogy Society, and more documents turned up.

The Minturns had six children and were natives of Bristol, R.I.

Coate telephoned Bristol teacher Eileen Borges to enlist her support, and students there joined the project.

“It was great,” Coate explained. “Bristol is a town about the same size as Madera, and now we have kids on both coasts researching the Minturns.”

Pool of the Genealogy Society led students to documents of 30 land transactions that placed the Minturns’ arrival in the Chowchilla area in May, 1870. Jonas bought property with $49,200 in gold coins.

The Minturns were wheat farmers who turned to grape growing, opening the Minturn Vineyard Co., a winery that still stands. It has been used as a dairy barn for 25 years.

Tracking the couple’s ancestors, students found that Abby Minturn belonged to a prominent New England family called the DeWolfes, and Jonas Minturn was related to William Robinson, an early Rhode Island governor, and another Minturn who owned seven Yankee clippers.

The family has now been traced back to England in the 1690s, Pool said.

Following the Minturns into the 20th Century, the class discovered a direct descendant, Mrs. Wayne Denning of Santa Cruz. She invited the class to lunch this month and pledged $500 to keep their work going.

Students in California and Rhode Island have been assigned the task of writing diary entries covering one year at a time in the life of Abby Minturn.

The writings will include historical details dotted with the political, social and religious touches students have uncovered.

“It’s something important for a town that died out,” said student Susan Rhodes. “We’re bringing Minturn back to life.”