About

The Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic, later known as the Pennhurst State School and Hospital, admitted its first resident in 1908. Its population grew rapidly and overcrowding was constant. It reached its peak population of over 3500 residents in the mid-1950s. Although the Pennhurst cemetery is relatively small, the institution itself is historically significant because of its role in the legal movement for deinstitutionalization. The classic news series Suffer the Little Children exposed horrific conditions within Pennhurst in 1968. In 1974, parents of Pennhurst residents filed a class-action suit that resulted in a District Court ordering the institution’s closure. Pennhurst closed in 1987, and today the campus operates as a tourist attraction, offering year round historic tours and, in autumn, a controversial haunted attraction.

Unlike many large state institutions in Pennsylvania, Pennhurst did not maintain a large cemetery. Administrators instead typically sent unclaimed deceased residents to their counties of origin for burial. Pennhurst’s cemetery appears to have been established as a result of the high death rates experienced during the 1918 influenza pandemic, as well as perhaps local refusals to accept influenza victims for burial. Markers include names, dates, and R.I.P. There is also a memorial stone, which was dedicated in 1978. The cemetery is also known as Pennhurst Memorial Cemetery, Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic Cemetery, and Pennhurst State Center Cemetery.

The cemetery is accessible to the public by means of the Cemetery Path on the Indy Trail.