Oddsconsin: Dane County Asylum and Home Cemetery

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Oddsconsin—where we explore peculiar and sometimes mysterious features of Wisconsin’s human landscape.

Dane County Asylum and Home Cemetery is one of the state’s most unforgettable cemeteries. It lies sandwiched between two strip malls in Verona, just west of Madison, and contains the graves of former residents of the Dane County Poor Home and Asylum for the Chronic Insane. 

The Poor Home was located south of East Verona Ave and west of Old County Road PB, near the Verona Park and Ride. A historic plaque at the site states that the Home was established in 1854. In 1883, the Asylum was built to the north. Both buildings are now demolished. 

The cemetery is to the west of the location of the old Asylum, at the northwest corner of East Verona Ave and Hometown Circle. The cemetery parcel is now owned by Dane County according to the 2024 Statewide Parcel Map. The surrounding parcels are privately owned. 

At least 500 burials took place here between 1880 and 1950. What is especially haunting about the cemetery is that its grave markers do not contain names and dates. Rather, each is embossed with a single number, each of which corresponds to a Poor Home or Asylum resident. Records compiled by area citizens list the people who lived and worked at the Poor Home and Asylum and were buried in the cemetery. A monument at the south end of the cemetery, placed there by a group of local residents, poignantly states, “On these beautiful grounds lie the remains of the mentally impaired and poor who spent their last earthly days here.” 

Over the years, many of the grave markers have been removed, including some purportedly to the backyard of a Verona home, where they were used as a patio. Development pressures have led to concerns that the cemetery may be further disturbed, despite Wisconsin’s strong burial laws, including Chapter 157 of State Statutes, which specifies rules for maintaining cemeteries and the human remains located within them. 

The starkness of the anonymous grave markers will leave you chilled—even if you visit on a warm summer day—as you stop to ruminate on the fates of individuals whose unfortunate circumstances led them to this as their final resting place.

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