In 1850 John R. and Mary W. Burke sold for one dollar to the local Methodist Episcopal Church, South, a tract of land at this site for a church building and cemetery. The oldest known grave here is that of Burke (d.1855), a Roman Catholic who founded Burkeville. In that era, circuit riders served the congregation, which included both black and white worshipers. A simple frame church with bell tower and steeple erected here doubled as a schoolhouse in the 1870s and served all faiths as a funeral chapel. The structure was removed from this site in 1948.