Aurora
Cemetery |
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Aurora Cemetery is located between Boyd and Rhome,
south of Aurora.
From Rhome go west on Hwy 114 about 2 miles. Turn left
(south) on Cemetery Rd. The Cemetery is about a mile down the road on the left.
The main gate is a walk-through gate, but there are also
three drive-through gates on the road.
Thank you to Addie Ruth Green Steele and Diane Russell for helping to take pictures at this cemetery. We found 1540 headstones in August of 2001.
The text of the Historical Marker at the main gate reads as follows:
Aurora Cemetery The oldest known graves here,
dating from as early as the 1860’s, are those of the Randall and Rowlett
families. Finis Dudley Beauchamp (1825-1893), a confederate veteran from
Mississippi, donated the 3-acre site to the newly-formed Aurora lodge No
479, A.F. & A.M., in 1877. For many years, this community burial
ground was known as Masonic Cemetery. Beauchamp, his wife Caroline
(1829-1915), and others in their family are buried here. An epidemic which
struck the village in 1891 added hundreds of graves to the plot. Called
"spotted fever" by the settlers, the disease is now thought to
have been a form of meningitis. |
Picture of Finis
Dudley Beauchamp sent in by his Great-Great Granddaughter, Barbara Byrom Short fivetonbridge@yahoo.com
There is another Historical Marker at the Bledsoe headstone. The text follows:
George Lawson Bledsoe Georgia native George Lawson Bledsoe (b. 1805), a carpenter and cotton gin builder, came to Texas in 1834. A veteran of the Texas Revolution and The Battle of San Jacinto, he received a pension for his military service and patented land grants in Brazoria, Cooke, Jack, Fannin, and Wise Counties. He was married to the former Ellen Bowdre (d. 1850) and had five children. Bledsoe is buried here along with his daughter Georgia and a brother-in-law, Preston E. Bowdre, Ellen Bledsoe and the couple’s other four children are buried in Fannin County, probably in Bledsoe Cemetery near Dial. |
According
to the local legend the "space alien", that is mentioned on the
Historical Marker at the gate, was buried under a round rock under the limb of
this oak tree. (See picture below) The rock has been stolen.
The story of the 1897 landing of this alien was made into a
movie in 1985 called "Aurora Encounter" staring Jack Elam and Peter
Brown.
There is a pavilion building in the center of the cemetery. It overlooks the newer section of the cemetery down the hill.
An infamous gave in this cemetery is that of Ricky Lee Green. He was the serial killer of at least 2 men and 2 women. He was convicted of the Dec 26, 1986 murder of Steven Fefferman, and was executed on Oct 8, 1997.
Click Here to go to 'Layout Order' of headstones according to the map below.