Dwight Hays Townsend (1834-1906) donated land for this cemetery about 1870. The graves of two children relocated here from the Leesburg schoolyard are thought to be the earliest burials on the site. The oldest marked grave is that of Tapley Wylie (1836-1870). It became the primary burial ground for the rural community of Leesburg, where those interred include pioneer settlers, community leaders, many infants and children, and veterans of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam.