It was established in 1713 by Palatine German refugees from the Rhineland-Palatinate who were transported from England in 1710 and settled on the site of the present city of Newburgh.

The cemetery is within a section of the city known as the Glebe, a 500-acre (2 km2) grant made by Queen Anne to provide for a schoolmaster and clergyman for these German families.

It was built in 1853, possibly by Alexander Jackson Davis, whose most notable work in Newburgh, the Dutch Reformed Church, stands a few blocks away.

[4] An interesting memorial marker here is the one for Archibald Wiseman and two of his young children by his wife, Susan Clyde, located at gravesite 1-140.

It consists of five members, three of them serving ex officio: the city's mayor, the local superintendent of schools and the pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church.