Research

Administrative History

The original cemetery was started at Willard Asylum for the Insane (as the facility was then called) in 1870. Included in the original cemetery grounds was a Civil War cemetery for patients who were veterans. Patients were accorded burial according to religious denomination. A Jewish cemetery was started on January 15, 1932 and a separated Catholic cemetery was started on February 3, 1959. Approximately 5757 patients are buried in the cemetery. The registers usually indicate graves where disinterment occurred when a family member requested that a body be moved to another cemetery of their choosing. During 1989 staff at the Willard Psychiatric Center initiated a project where graves were remarked and the entire cemetery remapped.

After the Willard Psychiatric Center closed in 1995 the cemetery was still used and maintained on the grounds of the facility. Some patients who were at Willard at the time of the closure requested that they be buried in the hospital cemetery. The cemetery is administered with respect to these patients' wishes; as these patients die they are interred in the Cemetery.