On October 23, 1845, James K. Polk, Jr. and others acquired this land as a family cemetery for the descendants of Ezekiel Polk. Colonel Polk, the patriarch of the Polk family in Tennessee, was the grandfather of President James Knox Polk. The elder Polk was instrumental in framing the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and served in the Revolutionary War. He lived in Maury County before settling in Hardeman County.