This cemetery serves the Buena Vista community, which organized in 1848. Joseph Penn Burns, a native of South Carolina, donated land for the burial ground. The earliest marked grave dates to 1851, though it is believed there is at least one earlier burial, that of Burns' wife, Mary Elizabeth (Richards) (d. 1843). Several prominent businessmen from the settlement's early years are also interred here, as are veterans from conflicts dating to the War of 1812. The Buena Vista Cemetery Association Perpetual Care Fund formed in 1986 to maintain the burial ground. Though the town declined in the 1880s when a nearby rail line established Timpson, the cemetery remains a landmark of the Buena Vista community. Historic Texas Cemetery – 2006