James W. Dougherty and his wife Isabella brought their family to Texas from Kentucky in the late 1840s and, joining the colony of Charles Fenton Mercer, settled in this area. In 1851 they bought 640 acres here, where Dougherty was a farmer and a tanner. In 1877 their son Robert N. Dougherty donated one acre at this site for public use as a community burial ground. Two additional tracts of land, deeded to the cemetery association in 1935 and 1964, were acquired from A.V. and Della Terry.