Some four score years before 1948, a young Spaniard and his señora arrived at Señor Castro's old hacienda near the present Pinedale Court tract in Hayward and received food, lodging, and fresh horses. They rode off toward the lone tree, a prominent landmark when Castro owned hundreds of acres with no nearby settlement in sight. Later an elderly Spanish man, said to be the girl's father, came in pursuit, asked after the couple, and followed in the same direction before eventually returning to take his leave and head back toward his home in Mexico. When the young couple did not return, Castro sent men to search, and they found the lovers lying dead beneath the great lone oak tree, shot by the avenging father. According to the story, that tragedy drew early pioneers including Edmund Dole, Dr. Edwin Kimball, Leander Linekin, and Joel Russell to establish a cemetery on about thirty-five acres around the site, naming it Lone Tree Cemetery because burials had already taken place there, including that of the eloping couple. The original lone tree still stood there years later, and many of Hayward's best-known pioneers and their families, including founder William Hayward, were buried there.