According to local legend, Ebenezer Zane paused on the hill and declared the area he saw the "land of promise" for which he had been looking.

The cemetery became popular in the Victorian era for its views, as well as the preferred place of interment for a number of prominent citizens of Wheeling and surrounding Ohio County.

The prime hilltop Section A contains obelisks commemorating Alfred Caldwell (1817–1868), Edward M. Norton, William P. Wilson, and the Luke family.

The cemetery also contains the graves of Congressman Thomas O. Edwards (1810–1876), Joseph Thoburn (1825–1864) and Daniel E. Frost (1819–1864), prominent in the West Virginia statehood movement and who died fighting for the Union in the American Civil War.

Other historic burials include Dr. Simon Hullihen (1810–1857), perhaps the first oralmaxilliary surgeon in the U.S., and Dr. Eliza Hughes (West Virginia's first female doctor and the sister of Confederate sympathizer and Ohio County's Virginia Civil War state delegate Dr. Alfred Hughes).

The Jewish cemetery was established beginning in 1849, following the unexpected death of itinerant rabbi Mayer Mannheim, and being on a steep slope, had persistent issues which required retaining wall construction; its first plots were laid in 1865 and burials continued well into the 20th century.