WATERBURY, Vt. (WCAX) - Vermont historians are launching an investigation into state hospital patients believed to be buried on Perry Hill in Waterbury.Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield/Berlin, has spent over a decade working to identify their unmarked gravesites.“It seemed to me that we owed it to them to identify them, to give them their identities back,” Donahue explained.Beginning in the 1890s, patients from the then-Vermont State Asylum for the Insane, many stigmatized and abandoned by families, were relegated to the unceremonial burials. Records indicate dozens were buried on Perry Hill and in nearby areas.“I just thought that was that was such a loss of dignity, such an indicator of how little those lives were valued back at that time,” Donahue said.A marble plaque, installed in the 1990s, adorns the hillside to honor the patients but Donahue wants more. She convinced the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation to investigate the site for burial shafts. If found, a fence will be installed around the site to protect it from the nearby mountain bike path.Donahue and project partner the Vermont Old Cemetery Association hope the investigation brings patients’ identities into the 21st century.“If people still remember your name, you never die,” VOCA President Thomas Giffin said. “I think, people who died in a state hospital, people don’t remember their name.”Through her research, Donahue believes she’s identified 18 of the 19 patients believed to be buried on Perry Hill. She’s even helped families find loved ones, like the fourth great-aunt of a woman in Connecticut.“‘Now I know what happened,’” Donahue says the woman told her. “‘I know where she’s buried. And that means so much to me. Thank you so much for your work.’ And that’s what it’s about.”The state will kick-start its archeological investigation of the site in the coming months.