The Village Burial Ground (Parish Cemetery) is significant for its associations with settlement at the mill village of Unionville, later the town center of Ashland, and was Ashland's principal burial ground until the dedication in 1870 of Wildwood Cemetery. Unionville was part of Hopkinton until its incorporation in 1846 as part of the new town of Ashland. This ground occupies land originally acquired in 1835 to build a Congregational church. The Union Evangelical Society dedicated its church, now known as the Federated Church, 118 Main Street, on January 21, 1836.

The earliest burial here (Nathan Clark in 1828) not only predates the church, but suggests the burial ground existed first as a private ground. The town of Hopkinton eventually acquired the burial ground and reportedly increased its size to two acres; deed research is needed to determine why the current lot encompasses only 1½ acres. Ownership was transferred to the town of Ashland on May 6, 1850.

In October 1852, William E. Ellis drafted a plot plan of the burial ground, which is displayed at the Ashland Historical Society. The plan shows about 137 numbered lots, with about twenty unnumbered lots along the rear wall of the church. Since some gravestones at Wildwood Cemetery predate its dedication in 1870, it appears those stones were removed from the Village Burial Ground and reinstalled at Wildwood. The Ashland Historical Society has inscriptions of the stones in this ground, taken in 1893 and filed by name.

The Cemetery is located behind the Federated Church of Ashland. The cemetery sits on 1.5 acres. According to the Historic Society the earliest death date is 1828, the latest by 1870.

The Massachusetts Historical Commission refers to this cemetery in MACRIS as ASL.803.

It is historically known as the Village Burial Ground and more commonly the Parish Cemetery.