White Lake Cemetery was established by Robert Garner after his nine-month-old child, Mary, died in 1837. White Lake Road, which runs past it, was once an Indian trail. Garner, a pioneer of White Lake Township, helped establish the First Presbyterian Church of White Lake and served as superintendent of a pioneer Sabbath school there. Many of the township's pioneer families are buried in the cemetery, including the Garners, Seeleys, and Voorheises. Also buried there are twenty-eight Civil War veterans and just over forty veterans of later wars. In 1856, the cemetery was formally deeded to the Board of Health of White Lake Township.