In 1883, a congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church North erected a log church, possibly named Pleasant Hill Methodist Church, beside this cemetery, and the church served as Arab's first school. The earliest marked grave dates to 1883, though older unmarked graves are likely present. In 1897 the congregation moved to Union Hill. The cemetery continued in use into the early 1940s by the Methodist Episcopal Church South, founded in 1892 and later known as First United Methodist Church. Those buried here include town founder Stephen Tuttle Thompson, other early settlers of the area, and Civil War veterans including Confederate Private James L. McWhorter and Union Captain James Walter Elliott.