Tennessee native Abraham Roberts married Cynthia Jeffrey in Alabama in 1828, and ten years later they arrived in Seguin, Texas, with their family. In 1840, Roberts bought land on Tinney's Creek in what was then Gonzales County, and he joined other residents in petitioning the Texas Legislature to create a new county, formed in 1847 as Caldwell County. That same year, the Roberts family made the first burial on their property when their granddaughter Martha Ellison died while visiting, and the family and local residents soon began using the site as a community burial ground. Conflicting stories surround the origin of the cemetery's name and which family gave the land, but a 1921 deed cited acreage conveyed earlier to a cemetery association. In 1938, the community officially adopted the name Jeffrey Cemetery and elected officers to a board of trustees. An association still maintains the site and continues traditional homecomings for families and friends of those buried there, and among its several hundred graves are veterans dating to the U.S. Mexican War as well as generations of area residents.