CLOSE Up to 7,000 bodies are buried on 20 acres of the University of Mississippi Medical Center campus. They are former patients of state's mental institution, built in 1855. UMMC is exploring the possibility of placing the remains in a memorial. 
 
 In this 2013 UMMC photo, Forrest Follet from the Cobb Institute of Archaeology, Mississippi State University, removes the soil from the lids of the dozens of unmarked graves uncovered during construction on the UMMC campus. (Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger) 
 
 Experts estimate up to 7,000 bodies are buried on the University of Mississippi Medical Center campus. 
 
 They are former patients of the state’s first mental institution, called the Insane Asylum, built in 1855, and underground radar shows their coffins stretch across 20 acres of the UMMC campus, where officials have wanted to build. 
 
 But those officials have faced a steep cost — $3,000 to exhume and rebury each body, as much as $21 million total. 
 
 Now UMMC is studying the cheaper alternative of handling those exhumations in-house, at a cost of $400,000 a year for at least eight years. It also would create a memorial that would preserve the remains with a visitors’ center and a lab that could be used to study the remains as well as the remnants of clothing and coffins. 
 
 Dr. Ralph Didlake, who oversees UMMC’s Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, believes the lab would be the first of its kind in the nation — giving researchers insight into life in the asylum in the 1800s and early 1900s. 
 
 “It would be a unique resource for Mississippi,” said Molly Zuckerman, associate professor in Mississippi State University’s Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures. “It would make Mississippi a national center on historical records relating to health in the pre-modern period, particularly those being institutionalized.” 
 
 ALSO READ: 195 jobs, 85 positions cut at University of Mississippi Medical Center 
 
 Didlake, Zuckerman and others have formed the Asylum Hill Research Consortium, made up of anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and even an expert in dating the wood of the coffins. 
 
 It was the consortium that developed the memorial/visitors' center/lab plans. 
 
 “We have inherited these patients,” Didlake said. “We want to show them care and respectful management.” 
 
 Asylum's history 
 
 Mississippi’s first mental institution became a reality when reformer Dorothea Dix of Boston rallied support among Mississippi lawmakers to fund construction of the $175,000 asylum, completed in 1855. 
 
 The Mississippi Lunatic Asylum included a main building and several wings. (Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger) 
 
 Before the asylum, those suffering from mental illness were chained in jails and even attics, said Dr. Luke Lampton, chairman of the state Board of Health. 
 
 While the asylum provided a better place for patients, life remained harsh. Of the 1,376 patients admitted between 1855 and 1877, more than one in five died. 
 
 After the Civil War ended, the facility expanded to house 300 patients, and the area became known as “Asylum Hill,” a neighborhood that included houses, a school and Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, a church for former slaves. 
 
 At its height, about 6,000 patients stayed at the asylum, and the facility provided many jobs to the area, which saw construction of a fertilizer factory, a Baptist orphanage and a sanatorium for those suffering from tuberculosis. 
 
 In 1935, Mississippi moved the asylum to the present location of the State Hospital at Whitfield. 
 
 Two decades later, construction began on the same hill for UMMC. 
 
 In 2013, UMMC officials discovered 66 coffins while constructing a road on the 164-acre campus. 
 
 When the university began work in 2014 on a parking garage east of the dental school, underground radar revealed 1,000 coffins. More radar work revealed at least 2,000 coffins total. 
 
 Didlake said current estimates put the number as high as 7,000. 
 
 The consortium is hoping grants can make it possible for other researchers to join the study, he said. 
 
 SEE ALSO: Mississippi rejects entrepreneurial program for inmates 
 
 Personal connection 
 
 Karen Clark of Clinton would like to see a grant given to collect DNA from all the patients. “It would make these people identifiable if family members came forth,” she said. 
 
 Karen Clark of Clinton says her great-great-great grandfather, Isham Earnest, is believed to have died at the Mississippi's mental institution between 1857 and 1859. (Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger) 
 
 She is willing to donate her own DNA to see if it matches her great-great-great grandfather, Isham Earnest. The War of 1812 veteran moved to Neshoba County in 1842, was ruled “insane” in the 1850s and is believed to have died at the asylum between 1857 and 1859. 
 
 “Hundreds, if not thousands, of descendants are here today because of Isham Earnest,” she said. “Many are teachers, nurses, educators and ministers.” 
 
 When she recently went through old asylum records and read about patients there, she felt overcome with emotion, she said. “I thought, ‘This person could be saved if modern medicine were there.’” 
 
 This is a registry of admissions from the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum. (Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger) 
 
 Her sympathy runs high for those in the asylum “because I’ve had mental issues in the distant past,” she said. “No one took me and dumped me.” 
 
 Some research has already begun. Mississippi State University’s Cobb Institute of Archaeology has been examining the remains of the 66 exhumed patients, and three master’s students have completed theses on them. 
 
 Zuckerman said one master's student used genetic sequencing to reconstruct oral bacteria from skeletons, shedding light on health conditions at the time the individuals were alive. A second student studied missing lines of tooth enamel, pointing to nutritional deprivation and other severe stress. A third student found evidence in asylum records and in skeletons of pellagra, a disease caused by Vitamin B deficiency, which was extremely common in the South during the early 20th century. 
 
 Zuckerman said records reflect up to 35,000 patients stayed at the asylum between 1865 and 1935. She said a total of 9,000 died there, with about 6,000 of them buried in the asylum cemetery. 
 
 She said a list of all the asylum patients would eventually be available online. 
 
 RELATED: Unclaimed remains honored with Oregon hospital memorial 
 
 The Old House Depot in Jackson has some of the iron security grates from the mental institution, including some from where electroshock therapy was done. 
 
 Some grates have been sold for a new, eight-story hotel in Jackson called The Fondren, slated to be built where Kolb’s cleaners was previously located, just blocks from the UMMC campus. 
 
 Roy Decker, a partner with the Duvall Decker architectural firm, said they decided to buy the grates for the 101-room hotel because “places should carry forward their stories. Mississippi is a story-telling place.” 
 
 Plans include installing the grates in the top floor, which will house a bar with a bird’s eye view of the capital city. 
 
 A name being considered for the bar? The Asylum. 
 
 Contact Jerry Mitchell at jmitchell@gannett.com or (601) 961-7064. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://on.thec-l.com/2pSwHE3 ||||| 1,000 bodies may have been asylum patients; more might be revealed on campus. 
 
 This area near the University of Mississippi School of Dentistry was slated to become a parking garage, but the plans were shelved after 1,000 bodies were found in a graveyard, presumed to have been patients who died at the Mississippi State Insane Asylum almost a century ago. (Photo: Rick Guy, The Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger) Story Highlights University of Mississippi Medical Center had planned to build a parking garage east of the dental school 
 
 Testing in the area revealed 1,000 bodies, believed to have been patients at the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum a century ago 
 
 Future expansion plans might be halted because other bodies may lie beneath the earth %u2014 former slaves, TB victims and possibly even Civil War dead 
 
 JACKSON, Miss. — Future progress for the state's longtime medical school has collided with the ghosts of Mississippi's past — the discovery of a 1,000 bodies buried on its campus and the likelihood of more. 
 
 Officials of the fast-growing University of Mississippi Medical Center had planned to build a parking garage east of the dental school, where a grove of trees now sits. 
 
 But testing in the area revealed 1,000 bodies, believed to have been patients at the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum a century ago. 
 
 "None have names," said Dr. James Keeton, dean of the medical school. 
 
 Paying for reburials elsewhere would cost about $3,000 a piece, or $3 million total, he said. "We can't afford that." 
 
 New plans include building the parking garage next to the dental school, he said. 
 
 Others plans may have to change, too. Medical center officials had hoped to use the property west of the dental school for future expansion, but Keeton said they might have to rethink that approach, because other bodies may lie beneath the earth — former slaves, TB victims and possibly even Civil War dead. 
 
 The UMMC ground on which Keeton and Gov. Phil Bryant recently stood to announce construction of the $11 million American Cancer Society Hope Lodge is believed to contain yet more bodies. 
 
 For that reason, UMMC officials said both the lodge and a new Children's Justice Center would likely have to be relocated on the 164-acre campus, where both space and parking seem to be growing scarce. 
 
 The State Lunatic Asylum opened on the site in 1855, housing 150 patients. 
 
 Eight years later, the Union's 46th Indiana Infantry Regiment arrived at the asylum. One soldier wrote that the patients "were terribly excited and were seen at the windows shouting to the soldiers." 
 
 James Roncki of Tennessee Valley Archaeological Research measures the length of a coffin on University of Mississippi Medical Center property in 2012. (Photo: The Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger) 
 
 Readying for the siege of Jackson, the soldiers set up camp, built fortifications and grew vegetables to sustain themselves, said Jim Woodrick, director of the Historic Preservation Division of the state Department of Archives and History. 
 
 During the ensuing battle, Confederate soldiers fired back and hit the asylum, injuring at least one patient, he said. 
 
 By the time the Union Army left, one soldier penned that Jackson is a "ruined town," he said. 
 
 After the Civil War ended, the mental facility expanded to house 300 patients, and the area became known as "Asylum Hill," a neighborhood that included houses, a school and a church for former slaves, Cade Chapel M.B. Church. 
 
 The area eventually saw construction of a fertilizer factory, a Baptist orphanage and a sanatorium for those suffering from tuberculosis. 
 
 The hill had several cemeteries: one for asylum patients, one for M.B. church members and one for paupers. Some have suggested there may be Civil War graves there, too. 
 
 In 1935, Mississippi moved the asylum to its present location at Whitfield. 
 
 Two decades later, construction started on the University Medical Center, and officials dubbed the area "Education Hill." 
 
 It didn't stick. 
 
 Dr. Luke Lampton, chairman of the state Board of Health, said his father, who taught at UMMC for four decades, told him every time the institution broke ground, they found more caskets. 
 
 "There are probably thousands more bodies that we've never seen," said Lampton, who has researched and written about the days of the asylum. 
 
 By 1926, the patient population had swelled to 2,000, and the patients grew their own crops, Lampton said. 
 
 In 1990, The Clarion-Ledger reported about 20 tombstones had been discarded in a gully behind UMC. 
 
 After the article appeared, archives officials warned UMC that hundreds of bodies might be buried there, saying, "This site is a potential Mississippi Landmark and may be adversely affected by any development on it." 
 
 A UMMC official responded: "Should any development occur in the future in that area, I know the information you sent will be helpful." 
 
 A few years later, workers found 44 unmarked graves while putting in a steam line for a new laundry. 
 
 During 2012 construction on the crossing of East University Drive and University Drive on campus, workers discovered the first of 66 pine coffins that held bodies, leading UMMC to contact state archives and Mississippi State University. 
 
 Medical center officials announced plans to rebury those in a small cemetery there. 
 
 But that option isn't possible with the discovery of 1,000 bodies, Keeton said. 
 
 Biological anthropologist Nicholas Herrmann, an associate professor at MSU, said through recent testing, they've been able to get a good idea of the location of the asylum graves. 
 
 What is less certain, he said, is where other cemeteries might have been. 
 
 In most cases, anthropologists have been able to determine gender and approximate age. 
 
 Mable Daniels is hoping such information might help to confirm her great-grandmother, Epsie Seals, was indeed buried there. "It would be closer than what we know right now," said Daniels, whose great-grandmother died at the asylum on Valentine's Day in 1916 after "14 days of paralysis." 
 
 Woodrick said the crescent-shaped earthworks on the UMMC campus are part of the only two military fortifications left from the 1863 siege The other is in Battlefield Park, marked by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, he said. "They identified them as Confederate trenches. They are actually Union trenches. They also put cannons there that are actually Spanish-American War guns, and they're pointed the wrong way. Other than that, they got everything right." 
 
 If a bulldozer ever tries to disturb the earthworks on old Asylum Hill, Woodrick vows to do all he can to halt it. "I'll go down," he said, "and lay in the road." 
 
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– On some 20 acres of the 164-acre University of Mississippi Medical Center campus, there's something unexpected underfoot: bodies. The Clarion-Ledger reports there are as many as 7,000 bodies buried on the campus, and they likely belong to patients of the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum, which in 1855 opened as the state's first mental institution. During the course of 2012 road construction, 66 bodies were uncovered on campus. "In size, they are fairly uniform," wrote the school of the pine coffins that were discovered, "about six feet long but alarmingly narrow, as if each held a pair of stilts instead of a human skeleton." The newspaper in 2014 reported a subsequent 1,000 were found when the school did radar testing in preparation for the construction of a parking garage in a wooded area near the dental school. The number of coffins verified by radar is now double that figure, with estimates topping out at 7,000. The number is the problem: Engaging an outside company to handle the exhumations and reburials would cost $3,000 each, or up to $21 million. So UMMC is weighing doing it itself in an 8-year effort that would cost closer to $3 million. It's possible that in addition to a memorial, a lab would be created that would allow researchers to study the remains and gain insight into asylum living; the asylum was operational until 1935, and the school opened 20 years later.