The old cemetery sits on a quiet, little used, road in East Whiteland Township Malvern, Pennsylvania. Across the road is the former site of the first Amish meetinghouse in America. The Amish community was located on, and north of, the present Lincoln Highway (U.S. Route 30), largely between the towns of Exton and Malvern. The settlement is referred to in Mennonite literature as the "Chester Valley," 'Great Valley," "Whiteland," or "Malvern" community or congregation.

Amish tradition has it that this community was established by Moritz Zug (or Zook) who, with his brothers John and Christian and their families, and perhaps a few other Amish people, moved to Chester County in the early 1770s. They came from the earlier "Northkill" Amish congregation in Berks County which had been disrupted by a series of Indian raids during the French and Indian War.

It is thought the Amish community established a cemetery here at this location around 1789, the date of the earliest extant stone. On June 5, 1811, Jacob Zook, on behalf of the Trustees of the Great Valley Ominist Society ("Ominist" being an early alternative spelling of Amish), rented a 52-perch lot of land for a period of 999 years for the purposes of maintaining a meetinghouse and German School. Their deed seems to indicate that the meetinghouse was not built until after 1811, and then it was built for use as both a meetinghouse and a school. This school appears to have been a joint venture between the Amish and the German Baptist Societies and was thus known as the "Union" or "Great Valley Union Seminary." The meetinghouse was patterned after early Quaker meetinghouses, three of which were in the area. Plainness prevailed. The structure was of stone, prevalent in the area. The floors were bare, and benches were used as seats.

The Amish continued to meet at this meetinghouse until 1827, when Jacob Zook was given permission by the Pennsylvanian Legislature to dispose of the lot of land with the buildings thereon erected; the Great Valley Ominist Society had become nearly extinct as the result of the deaths of its older members, and geographical removal of those remaining Amish to other regions such as Mifflin County. Some who stayed through out-marriage and acceptance of a non-Amish religion and way of life remained in the valley. The lot was sold in early 1827 to John Malin and consisted of a "good stone house and stable."

Malin sold the lot on May 26, 1827, to the Trustees of the Valley Creek School for the purpose of maintaining the Valley Creek School in the old meetinghouse. In addition to a school, it was used as a community meeting place. Here, in 1833, following several years of steady preaching by Simeon Siegfried, the East Whiteland Baptist Church was officially established. Two years later, 1835, it moved to Willistown Township and changed its name to the Willistown Baptist Church; today it is the Malvern Baptist Church.

The cemetery is referred to in 19th-century sources as the "Union Grave Yard," or "Union Hall" indicating that it was later used by families of non-Amish affiliation, Accordingly there are burials of individuals with such non-Amish and non-German names as Davis, Hall, Harley, Meconkey, and Ruth.

Today, the cemetery is owned by an adjacent neighborhood association.