Welsh families began settling here in 1845, purchasing land from the federal government for $1.25 per acre and establishing farms, building homes, and forming a tight knit community. They wrote to relatives in Wales, "The Yankees call us the English Settlement." By the 1860s, the settlement included 70 families with Welsh surnames, and it continued to grow so that by 1873 Welsh land owners had acquired 8,680 acres in Albany and surrounding townships. Area families built the non-denominational Allen Creek Union Church on this site in 1886 and also donated land for this cemetery. Following Welsh tradition, a small lane ran through the cemetery and was called the "Devil's Highway," which brought fear to generations of local children.