Mathew Butler was the first known burial in the cemetery, buried in 1835. His grave was present when Brown Searl bought the land in 1836 from John Hall. The Searl family, preceded to use the area around Mathew's grave as the family's burial ground. In 1861 two acres of land, which included the Searl burial ground, was sold by Brown Searl for $1 to be used as a cemetery. The trustees orignally named it, Union Burial Ground, but the commonly used name is how people refered to the cemetery. This cemetery was one of the first cemeteries in the area. Later adjoining land was purchased to build the Methodist Episcopal Church known as Ridge Chapel about 1876, which later became a Congregational Church and then in the 1960's a community center. The entrance to the cemetery and the church building may be seen in the photograph. The Searl's Ridge school was built east of the cemetery (to left of cemetery entrance) in 1860 with a final closing date of 1947. The school building currently stands in a farmer's field (2009).

The tombstone of Abraham Misbach was returned to the cemetery in September of 2007 by descendants of his father after it had been removed in the mid 1960's by another family member. The tombstone was acquired by the family after they were notified by the Genealogical Resource Institute in Salt Lake City that the tombstone was put up for sale on an internet auction site in December of 2006.