The Winston family settled this area in the early 1820s. Andrew Jackson purchased the property at the U.S. government land sale and conveyed it to Col. Anthony Winston, who lived nearby in a two-story brick Federal-style house. The property later became part of William H. Winston's plantation. Capt. Anthony Winston and his wife, Kezia Jones, were the first burials here, and other early families buried here include the Abernathy, Armistead, Burt, Cooper, Figures, Goodloe, Jones, Lindsay, Nathan, Sherrod, and Steele families. Veterans from the American Revolution through the Vietnam War are interred here, and the cemetery is owned and maintained by descendants. Capt. Anthony Winston, a cousin of Dolly Madison and Patrick Henry, commanded Virginia troops in the Revolutionary War. Isaac and Catherine Jones Winston bought Belle Mont Plantation southeast of Tuscumbia. In 1833, William H. and Judith McCraw Winston bought Winston House Campus of Deshler High School. Mary M. Jackson, wife of Edmund C. Winston, was a granddaughter of James Jackson of the Forks of Cypress near Florence. Robert Burns Lindsay, Alabama's only foreign-born governor from Scotland, was the father of Maud Lindsay, an esteemed teacher, writer, poet, and storyteller. Capt. John Anthony Steele of early Sheffield was a lawyer, legislator, probate judge, and Confederate soldier.