Research

Scope and Content Note

This series consists of four burial registers, cemetery plot maps, and administrative files and reports relating to the maintenance, operation, and administration of the Willard Psychiatric Center cemetery. The burial registers are arranged chronologically and name indexes appear at the front of each volume. Formats vary slightly over time. Volume 1 (July 1870 - July 1885) includes the following information: name of deceased, age, nativity, date of death, date of burial, whole number, form, lot (which all refer to the location of the body in the cemetery), witness name, and remarks (indicating whether an autopsy was performed.). Volume 2 (July 1885- June 1890) includes identical information. Included in Volume 2 is a separate section for the Soldiers' Cemetery. Soldiers' ranks, companies, and regiments are noted. In Volume 3 (Oct. 1891 - April 1929) soldiers are identified in the name index.

Disinterments are noted in red pen; included is date of disinterment, cemetery removed to and whom taken by. Interleaved in the soldiers' section are additional sheets of paper which contain duplicate information to the burial records. Volume 4 (July 1929 - Jan. 2000) includes separate sections for the Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant cemeteries. A separate section marked "Soldier's Cemetery" is left blank. A memorandum concerning the burial of lab specimens is interleaved in Volume 4. As reflected in the registers, it was common practice to bury body parts, such as limbs amputated for medical reasons, in separate containers or caskets in graves with corpses. Such information is noted in the "Remarks" column of patient interment registers. In rare instances deceased infants born to patients are included in the registers.

The plot maps were drafted in 1989 from medical records and an old undated plot plan. Maps are not drawn to scale and do not depict double grave rows. Plot keys duplicate information graphically represented in the maps. Administrative files contain facility and maintenance reports, memoranda, copies of burial record inquiries, and correspondence, historical anecdotes, and receipts related to a 1989 cemetery restoration project. An additional folder consisting of handwritten notes and photographs documents aspects of the restoration such as grave remarking.