Tobey Cemetery began with the burial of Mary J. Tobey in 1872 and overlooks a stretch of the Lampasas River valley named for Nathaniel Wheeler Tobey. A blacksmith from Connecticut, Tobey settled on several hundred acres here about 1870 and built a two-story rock house nearby in 1875. Nathaniel Tobey, his wife Winnie (Dennis), and Mary J. Tobey are the only Tobeys buried here. About 1875 William H. Reavis and his wife Harritt (Ellis) Reavis purchased land along the Lampasas River east of the site, and they and a large number of their descendants are buried here. In 1895 John Priest, Sr., and Mary (Castleberry) Priest purchased a significant portion of the Tobeys' original estate, including the cemetery, and they and many of their descendants are also buried here. Successive generations of the Reavis and Priest families have owned land in this area of Tobey Valley, and the cemetery contains the burials of many pioneer families and their descendants who lived in Tobey Valley, including the Bell, Williams, Shed, Castleberry, and Black families.