The Austin State Hospital Cemetery is a place of solemnity, abandonment, and sadness. It's where the old stigmas of mental illness and addiction seem to seep out of the ground; where 3000+ people who died at the Austin State Hospital and whose remains were not claimed by families are buried under small numbered markers half-sunk into the Earth, out of sight and far far away from loved ones. It's haunting: a place that will stay with you if you visit.
The Austin State Hospital Cemetery, on 51st street and North Loop Boulevard in Austin, the final resting place for over 3000 anonymous and forgotten people. Only a few have headstones, erected by family members after the departed were buried under a small cement block marked only with a number.
Amos Hartley's grave is marked with a WoW tree-trunk tombstone that reads as follows:
"[WoW Medallion]
AMOS HARTLEY
Nov 27, 1879
Oct 20, 1918"
We were able to find his death certificate on Ancestry:
"AMOS HARTLEY
Single white male, age 38, born 1880 exact date unknown, died 20 Oct 1918 at the State Lunatic Asylum (SLA) of influenza, which he had suffered from for 6 weeks, and of pneumonia, which he had suffered from for 7 days.
He was a laborer by trade, with no family members named listed. He was buried at the SLA Cemetery on 21 Oct 1918."
We were able to find Mr. Hartley on Ancestry in the 1910 US Census, where he was an inmate at what was then called the Texas State Lunatic Asylum:
"Ward 4, Travis County Texas, State Lunatic Asylum, Enumeration District 136:
Hartley, Amos, Inmate, White male age 31, married, born TX, father and mother born in the US, can read and write."
In 1900 he was living in Milam County TX, boarding with the Ditto family. Mr. Hartley was a single white male, age 21, born in April 1879, born in Texas, father born in TX and Mother born in Missouri. He was working as a farm laborer, and could read, write, and speak English.
On 01 Oct 1908 Mr. Hartley, age 28, born in Texas, registered to vote in Maricopa County, Arizona Territory. He was then living in Creighton AT.
He was admitted to the State Lunatic Asylum on 7 Jan 1910, per Find-A-Grave: (
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