This land was originally part of the land grant claim of Capt. Joseph Burleson, a veteran of the War of 1812 and the Creek War under Andrew Jackson. By 1820, the Forks of the Buttahatcha Primitive Baptist Church was founded on the ridge northwest of this site, and Burleson encouraged his relatives and fellow soldier families to settle here. He built the old Burleson Trace to connect the Cheatham Road from near Old Houston, through Larissa, now Lynn, to Natural Bridge and then to this place. In 1832 Burleson went to Walnut Creek in Bastrop County, Texas, and took part in Texas independence; his nephew Edward Burleson was a general in the Texas Army and vice president of the Texas Republic. The first burials here were members of the Forks church. By 1850, Green Haley had relocated to a home just south of the entry road and established the Christian Church called Whitehouse Church of Christ nearby. The current Whitehouse church was built in 1916, and around that time the remaining members of the Forks church chose to merge with the Whitehouse church. Today this site remains a center for many families, and several veterans of the Civil War are buried here, including a surprising number of Union soldiers.