Aurora, Oregon’s Mystery Grave

History is hiding beneath your feet on the outskirts of Aurora, near the former town of Champoeg.With trails, fields and the Willamette River connecting them, it’s helpful to understand their unique and also shared backgrounds, going way back.

Champoeg was located on Aurora’s doorstep and considered a lifeline, connecting Aurora colonists to the outside world, with both postal service and river commerce. Land claims stretched between the two settlements, plus Aurora’s early mills served the surrounding countryside, so the communities shared a tightly connected frontier economy. Aurora survived and Champoeg essentially vanished, yet the two towns weren’t simply neighbors…they were interdependent.

But there’s a mystery around these parts that few have ever heard. Deep inside these woods is a clue. That’s because there’s a grave here, with very little explanation. Most people would ask “Who was this person and why is this headstone located here, in the middle of a forest with its own trail?”A little digging reveals both the story of a young woman living nearby and one of the strangest archaeological searches in Oregon history.