“DIAMOND BESSIE”
Almost everyone in the state has heard the story of “Diamond Bessie” and her murder, but not every one knows that a few years ago the Cemetery Committee, Mrs. Arch McKay and Mrs. H. A. Spellings, working late on the grounds, returned early the next morning with their crew of men and found erected on the grave of “Diamond Bessie” a new monument with the simple inscription, “Bessie Moore—12-13-1876.” The monument that had marked the grave was entirely removed. The marking of this old monument, having been done in indelible ink, had faded away.
The first stone is said to have been placed over the grave by noble-hearted citizens of Jefferson, but no one, other than the person who placed it on the grave, knows just when the last stone was erected or by whom, though various reports have been circulated—all different. We only know that it was placed between the setting and rising of the sun.