Settlement in the Woodlawn area began as early as 1754 when the road between the Dartmouth ferry and the community of Lawrencetown was under construction.

Some of the first settlers were United Empire Loyalists who moved to Nova Scotia after the American Revolution.

The area initially got its name from the Woodlawn Cemetery, established by Ebenezer Allen in the late 1700s for local residents.

After an exhaustive search of the surrounding woods, they were found dead several days later and were subsequently interred in the cemetery.

[1] Until the 1950s, Woodlawn had mainly been a rural farming community before the general subdivision boom of the late 1940s and 1950s reshaped the areas surrounding Dartmouth.