Marking Time #22 - Aurora Cemetery

Wow, it's been awhile since we've done a "Marking Time" entry.  To make it for it, we've got a cool one: The Aurora Cemetery in Aurora, TX.

You're probably thinking, "So what?  Lot's of cemeteries have historical markers."  True, but this one has quite a bit going on.  Let's start with the first marker:

It reads:

"Georgia native George Lawton 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"

Not too far from the marker is an unusual grave.

I've searched for information on "Loreta" but can't seem to find anything other than listings of her grave.  Basing my information strictly on what I learned from her tombstone: She was a bird.  She talked.  She was the "world's."

Odd bird graves notwithstanding, it's the historical marker at the cemetery entrance that gets most people's attention.

It reads:

     "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 though to have been a form of meningitis. 

     Located in Aurora Cemetery is the gravestone of the infant Nellie Burris (1891-1893) with its often-quoted epitaph: "As I was so soon done, I don't know why I was begun." This site is also well known because of the legend that a spaceship crashed nearby in 1897 and the pilot, killed in the crash, was buried here. 

     Struck by epidemic and crop failure and bypassed by the railroad, the original town of Aurora almost disappeared, but the cemetery remains in use with over 800 graves. Veterans of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts are interred here."

Yep, there's a legend that not only did a spaceship crash her in the 19th but also that the alien pilot is buried somewhere in the cemetery.  So of course we had to look for his tombstone.  Want to know if we found it?  You'll have to watch the video to find out: