Terrell State Hospital Cemetery
Terrell, Kaufman County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Soon after the Terrell State Hospital opened in July 1885, a portion of the property was set aside for burial of patients who died while hospitalized. The first burial here occurred Oct. 22, 1885. The oldest gravestone is dated Jan. 19, 1888, but most of the graves are unmarked. A fence separates the Jewish section of the cemetery. Some graves date from a smallpox epidemic in 1907. During the 1950s and 1960s, there were 30 to 35 burials a year, but the number gradually declined.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the Terrell State Hospital opened in July 1885, the institution set aside part of its grounds to bury patients who died in its care, with the first interment that October. Most of the graves are unmarked, a separate section serves the hospital's Jewish dead, and some burials date to a 1907 smallpox epidemic. Burials ran thirty to thirty-five a year through the 1950s and 1960s before gradually declining.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a quiet record of how America once cared for and buried the institutionalized mentally ill, whose lives and deaths were too often left unmarked.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · 1907 smallpox epidemic
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Kaufman
Kaufman, TX
Nine charter members gathered in 1871 to organize the First Baptist Church of Kaufman, meeting in homes until their first frame sanctuary rose in 1883. A women's Benevolent Society formed in 1885, and after a second church burned in 1937 the present building was dedicated in 1944. From those first nine, the congregation grew large enough to support a full staff, including a bilingual pastor for its Latin-American mission.
Rose Fountain
Wills Point, TX
German-born brothers B. W. and Isaac 'Ike' Rose arrived near Wills Point in 1873 and opened Rose Dry Goods Store, with Ike later making his fortune as a Dallas entrepreneur while B. W. stayed on. In 1916 Ike, wanting to thank a town he loved, worked with Mayor Henry Gilchrist to give Wills Point a fountain rather than a memorial. The ornate concrete fountain, with its stepped base, water troughs, and globe-lit central column, has served ever since as a gathering place and gateway to the historic commercial district.
Fox Cemetery
Kaufman, TX
London-born physician Joseph Fox, who settled in early Kaufman County, set aside this ground as a burial place after his daughter Sarah became the first person laid to rest here in August 1852. Fox himself died in 1872, and many prominent pioneers of the young settlement are buried alongside him. Generations of descendants and friends have tended the grounds ever since.
Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Site, WWII
Seagoville, TX
After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government not only relocated more than 120,000 Japanese Americans but also detained thousands of German, Italian, Japanese, and Latin American "enemy aliens" through the Justice Department and State Department. Originally built in 1941 as a women's reformatory, the Seagoville site was transferred to the immigration service in 1942 and held German and Italian couples and single women, plus Japanese Latin Americans housed in a "colony" of 50 Victory Huts. By 1943 its population peaked at 650 internees before it closed in May 1945 and reverted to a federal prison.