Projects :: California Memorial Project

Updated Facts 4/1/02

Agnews Developmental Center:

According to the information from DDS there are 607 documented burials here from 1889-1906. We counted 386 markers. This means that there are 221 missing Gravesites. This is quite troubling as this cemetery is in the middle of a construction site for Micro Sun.

Camarillo State Hospital:

Camarillo is now closed. It is now a California State University Campus. We have been unable to determine whether or not there was a cemetery on the grounds, as we have gotten conflicting stories from former Camarillo employees.

Mendocino State Hospital:

Mendocino Closed in the early 1970's. At that time, approximately 282 people's bodies were exhumed and moved to the Ukiah Cemetery. 1,660 people's cremated remains and the cremated remains of 7 people's limbs (arm or leg) were also moved to this cemetery and placed in a community grave.

Napa State Hospital:

Approximately 4,368 people were buried at Napa from 1876-1923. From 1924 to 1964 Napa used their own crematorium. It was torn down in 1964 and approximately 5,000 cremated remains of people were moved to Chapel of the Chimes in Napa. These remains are buried in a community grave.

Patton State Hospital:

There are approximately 2,022 people buried in a weed field with a dirt road that runs through it. The cemetery was full by 1930. After that when people died and were unclaimed, their bodies were donated for research to what is now Loma Linda University.

Sonoma Developmental Center:

There are 1,418 people buried in an unmarked field and there are approximately 500 cremated remains of people interred in a vault on the cemetery. Sonoma hired a company to scan the cemetery to find the gravesites. They have a great detailed plot map of all the gravesites and have identified exactly who is in each gravesite.

Stockton Developmental Center:

There are 2,284 cremated remains of people who died at Modesto State Hospital and Stockton Developmental Center. They are buried in two mass plots, one containing 982 people's remains and one containing 1,302 people's remains at Park View Cemetery in Manteca. There are two unidentified plots at the Rural Cemetery in Stockton. These two plots have an unknown number of people in them, and it is unknown who is in these two plots, which were purchased by the state in 1990.

Pauper's Field at St. Helena Public Cemetery:

When Napa stopped using the crematorium in 1964, people who were unclaimed and indigent are now sent to the pauper's field here. In 1965, the first year Napa stopped using the crematorium, there were 76 people from Napa buried in this field.

The current practice when someone dies at a state institution and are unclaimed and indigent, is that they are sent to the local pauper's field and placed in either unmarked graves or cremated and placed in mass graves.

For more information, contact the Peer/Self-Advocacy Unit at (916) 488-7787.