The Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery is the main prison cemetery of the U.S. state of Texas, located in Huntsville and operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). The colloquial name for the cemetery is Peckerwood Hill. The name originates from "Peckerwood", an African-American insult towards poor white people, because many of those buried at the cemetery were poor. It is the place where prisoners not claimed by their families are buried. It is the largest prison cemetery in the State of Texas. Byrd's first prisoners were interred there in the mid-1800s, and the prison agencies of Texas have maintained the cemetery since then. The warden of the Huntsville Unit (nicknamed the "Walls Unit") maintains the cemetery. History In the 1850s officials from the Texas prison system had accidentally buried prisoners on the wrong plot of land. The owners of that plot donated the land to the state so it could be used as a burial ground. The cemetery's current name derives from Joe Byrd, an assistant warden at the Huntsville Unit who, in the 1960s, helped restore and clean the cemetery. Byrd was also the state executioner, overseeing electrocutions at Huntsville. He was best known for the dignity and respect given to the inmates that were executed and their families. As of 2011, each burial has the presence of either the Huntsville Unit warden or a deputy of the Huntsville Unit warden. Prisoners serve as pallbearers, chisel names in headstones, and dig graves using shovels and backhoes. In 2011, 160 prisoners were buried in the cemetery. As of 2012 TDCJ officials confirmed that the cemetery includes remains of 2,100 prisoners. Franklin T. "Frank" Wilson, an assistant professor of criminology at Indiana State University, and a former PhD student at Sam Houston State University, did a study of the cemetery in 2011. He photographed all of the graves and concluded that there are over 3,000 graves at the cemetery. As part of his research he found that at least 30 to 40 of the prisoners were veterans of wars. As of 2012 much of the remaining land at the cemetery is prone to flooding. In 2012 James Jones, the warden of the Huntsville Unit, stated that the state needs to find a new burial ground within two years. Geography It is located on of land on a hill, from the Huntsville Unit and in proximity to Sam Houston State