Aurora Cemetery contains the oldest known graves of the Randall and Rowlett families, dating from as early as the 1860's. In 1877, Finis Dudley Beauchamp, a Confederate veteran from Mississippi, donated the 3-acre site to the newly formed Aurora Lodge No. 479, A.F. and A.M., and for many years this community burial ground was known as Masonic Cemetery. Beauchamp, his wife Caroline, and others in their family are buried here. An epidemic that struck the village in 1891 added hundreds of graves; settlers called the disease spotted fever, and it is now thought to have been a form of meningitis. The cemetery also contains the gravestone of the infant Nellie Burris, who died in 1893, with the often-quoted epitaph, "As I was so soon done, I don't know why I was begun." The site is also well known for the legend that a spaceship crashed nearby in 1897 and that the pilot, killed in the crash, was buried here. Although the original town of Aurora almost disappeared after epidemic, crop failure, and being bypassed by the railroad, the cemetery remains in use with over 800 graves, including those of veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.