DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Auburn Cemetery, out in Ellis County. Now, before a town fades, it usually leaves something behind — and Auburn left a cemetery. Pioneer settlers were using this ground for burials as early as 1856.
That's before the war, before the railroad era, before most of this part of Texas had much of anything you'd call permanent. Just people, and the hard fact that some of them weren't going to make it to wherever they were headed next. In 1865, a man named Rezi Jarvis Banks — born in Tennessee in 1817, a Confederate army veteran — deeded this site as part of 20.5 acres to the Methodist Church.
The land was meant to carry a school and a church along with it. A man thinking about the future of a community does that kind of thing. Among the earliest marked graves here is that of Banks' own wife, Minerva, born in 1822 and laid to rest in 1893.
She's still there. By the late 1800s, Auburn was doing just fine, thank you — a thriving farming community with four churches, stores, and a post office. Four churches.
That's a town with opinions. But then came the things that hollowed out so many little Texas communities: no high school facilities, and the railroad didn't come through. When the railroad bypasses you, the future tends to follow the tracks.
Residents moved away. The stores went quiet. The post office closed up.
Auburn didn't survive the twentieth century the way it meant to. What's left is right here — this cemetery, a link, as the marker says, with the town's past. Some places leave their whole story in the ground.
What the marker says
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.