Georgia native the Reverend Henry Fullingim, his wife Martha, and their 17 children came to northeast Texas in 1849, and Henry Fullingim served the area as a circuit-riding Methodist minister. Their son Archibald and their son-in-law John Hale came to Wise County in 1853 and were among the area's first settlers, and Hale became the first Wise County sheriff in 1856. The cemetery was named for John T. and Sarah Waggoner, on whose land it was established. Martha Fullingim's burial in 1868 was the first recorded there, and the Waggoners deeded the property to Wise County in 1885.