The Whitegate Cemetery is thought to have existed for about 100 years, but no one is quite certain because of gaps in records.

Nor does anyone know precisely how many men are buried in the peaceful Marshall County setting, and it is unlikely that anyone ever will.

Some of those who lie there died from electrocution. Still others died from hanging. Most, however, died of natural causes such as a wave of tuberculosis which swept the West Virginia Penitentiary decades ago.

Whitegate Cemetery is where the bodies of prisoners are laid to rest if no one claims them.

Complete documentation of who is buried in the neatly tended plot near Moundsville-and why- is forever lost, but one thing is certain: the prison cemetery has long filled a need which exists to this day.

Just last Thursday, an inmate was buried there- the first interment since 1989. There was another one in 1986.

"It used to be in the 1930s, 40s and '50s that almost all the inmates who died in prison were buried there, , said John Massey, prison records manager. "Now it's just the opposite.

"Maybe insurance or whatever helps pick up the costs of the funeral now."

The burial ground, which is about the size of a football field is along

Tom's Run about three quarters of a mile from the main route into

Moundsville on Fourth Street.

The grave markers are not the customary granite so common in cemeteries. They are square metal plates on which are painted inmates' names, and dates of birth and death. The plates are affixed to metal stakes imbedded in the ground.

Some of the older markers appear not to have any lettering, and a few of these sadly are riddled with bullets holes.