A burial ground for more than 2,000 patients of the former Weston State Hospital, most now unidentified.
Near Asylum Drive (off the former Weston State Hospital grounds), Weston, WV
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The burial ground itself has no admission. Access varies by parcel; treat it as an active historic cemetery and check current access before visiting.
Access
Limited Access
Open ground and slopes; few standing markers; uneven footing
Equipment
Photos OK
Weston State Hospital Patient Burials · Institutional Potter's Field · Cemetery Preservation Effort
The cemetery served the Weston State Hospital, the long-running West Virginia psychiatric institution begun in the mid-19th century and best known today by its earlier name, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. The hospital was planned as a self-sufficient institution, with its own farm, dairy, waterworks, and a cemetery on or adjacent to its grounds in Weston, Lewis County.
Over the decades of the hospital's operation, more than 2,000 patients who died there were buried in the associated cemeteries. Many had been at the institution for years and were unclaimed by relatives at death, so they were interred in what amounted to a potter's field for the hospital community.
Time and changing care of the grounds left most of the dead unidentifiable. Many markers were lost, became illegible, or were removed, and large stretches of the cemetery now hold no individual stones. In recent years a preservation effort has worked toward taking responsibility for the burial grounds, placing memorial stones and restoring numbered markers so that the people buried there are documented rather than forgotten. The cemetery was also under consideration for the National Register of Historic Places.
This is a site about institutional care, mortality, and people whose names were nearly erased. We treat it history-first, with the dignity owed to patients who died in state custody and were buried without families to claim them.
Sources
Most of the lore around Weston attaches to the asylum building itself, which operates today as a tour destination. The cemetery is quieter in the record. What gives it weight is not a catalog of apparitions but the documented reality of more than 2,000 patients buried over the institution's history, many unclaimed and most now without a name on a stone.
In keeping with the dignity owed to people who died in state custody, we do not invent paranormal narratives for the individuals buried here. Visitors who come do so as they would to any historic burial ground that has been neglected and is now being restored: to acknowledge the dead and the preservation work underway to mark their graves again.
If reported phenomena specific to the cemetery surface in credible accounts, they can be documented with sources. For now the entry stands on the history of the place and the ongoing effort to identify and memorialize those interred there.
The cemetery holds the graves of more than 2,000 people who died at the former Weston State Hospital. It is best approached respectfully as a historic burial site. Access differs from parcel to parcel and a preservation group has been working toward formal ownership and marking; confirm current access before going.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Forest Park, IL
Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, grew from two adjacent cemeteries — German Waldheim (established 1873) and Forest Home (1876) — which merged in February 1969. The 220-acre site was chosen as a non-denominational burial ground, a policy that made it the only Chicago-area cemetery willing to accept the bodies of the Haymarket defendants in 1887.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPMannington, WV
Highland Cemetery sits on a rural road outside Mannington in Marion County, West Virginia. It contains a grave recorded to Serilda Jane Whetzel, who died May 29, 1909, whose marker is the subject of a widely circulated 'witch's grave' legend documented by regional folklore writers and geocaching and travel sources.
Parkersburg, WV
Riverview Cemetery, one of Parkersburg's oldest, began as a burial ground on the Cook family farm. It holds West Virginia governors Jacob B. Jackson and William E. Stevenson and U.S. Senator Peter G. Van Winkle, along with early Parkersburg families. It became part of the Julia-Ann Historic District in 1977 and is known for a late-1800s statue at the Jackson family plot.