This cemetery is located in La Grange, Fayette, Texas at the corner of Mode Lane and Reynolds Street. The cemetery is a little over an acre in size and it is enclosed by a chain link fence. Few graves have any marker. A few have head stones and a few have metal markers.
There are approximately 166 people known to be buried in this cemetery. The earliest known grave is 1900. There is the possibility that people were buried here prior to 1900. As yet no record appears to exist to confirm this. The Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives asks that they be contacted at [email protected] if anyone has any information concerning occupants of this cemetery.
This cemetery was surveyed by Kathy Carter and Helen Muras on 10-25-1987. Additional names were provided by Isaac Hughes on 05-15-1990. These names were found in Fayette County Court Records. More names were later added by Kathy Carter on 02-23-1993. These names came from a ledger in the local courthouse. The ledger's title is "Record of Inmates in Fayette County Poor-House, Hospital and Asylum", La Grange, Texas. This ledger covers the period from 01-07-1902 to 03-24-1924. Some names and dates were corrected based on information found in Fayette County Death Records which were researched on 02-23-1993. Not all names were researched at that time. It should also be noted that many buried here were not inmates at the Hospital and Asylum. Many were simply boarders at the farm and simply did not have family in town or the means to pay for a burial plot or burial expenses.
In 1881 the county established a "poor house" in La Grange. This became a place for people with little means of support, to live. Some time later a cemetery was laid out near the farm for the county to bury those that passed away while living there. By 1920 the farm was known as the Fayette County Poor House Hospital and Asylum. In 1930 it was called the County Hospital and Poor Farm. In actuality, it was more like a nursing home or assisted living facility. For some it was simply a boarding house. There never were any skilled medical people at the facility so the name is a bit misleading. Not all buried in this cemetery resided at the Poor Farm. as mentioned, its original use was for the people of the farm. Later it became the practice to bury people not associated with the farm.