Auburn Cemetery
Ellis County, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pioneer settlers used this site for burials as early as 1856. In 1865 it was part of 20.5 acres deeded to the Methodist Church for a school and church by Rezi Jarvis Banks (1817-1889), a Confederate army veteran born in Tennessee. Among the earliest marked graves is that of Banks' wife Minerva (1822-1893). In the late 1800s, Auburn was a thriving farming community with four churches, stores, and a post office. Later the lack of high school facilities and the bypassing of Auburn by the railroad compelled residents to move away. The cemetery is a link with the town's past.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Pioneers began burying their dead at this Ellis County site as early as 1856, and in 1865 it became part of a tract that Confederate veteran Rezi Jarvis Banks deeded to the Methodist Church for a school and church. His wife Minerva lies among the earliest marked graves. In its heyday Auburn was a thriving farming community with four churches, stores, and a post office, but the lack of a high school and the railroad's bypass eventually emptied it, leaving the cemetery as its chief remaining link to the past.
Why it matters
A surviving cemetery beside a vanished town shows how the coming of the railroad — or its absence — decided which nineteenth-century farming communities lived and which quietly disappeared.
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Related people
- · Rezi Jarvis Banks
- · Minerva Banks
Themes & tags
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