Land was subsequently purchased by the church, a board of trustees was elected on November 4, 1850, and the burial ground was incorporated by an act of the Pennsylvania State Senate in 1851.

[9] The cemetery became more widely known nationwide just over fifteen years later when James Buchanan, the fifteenth president of the United States was buried here on June 4, 1868,[10] following his death three days earlier at Wheatland, his Lancaster County home, from respiratory failure.

The paths of Woodward Cemetery were lined with ladies and children from noon till the sound of the funeral trumpets were heard descending the slop of the Marietta turnpike....

When the large procession arrived, to the thud of muffled drums and the long plaintive peal of the trumpets, those persons who constituted the advance body—firemen, beneficial associations, etc., formed in line on either side of the turnpike while the Masons, lawyers and the numerous carriages and strange guests filed through them.

It was a scene of solemn and yet imposing interest, the music stirring the foliage and silencing the birds among the trees, sounded strong, soft, dirge-like by turns; and to its heavy pulses the feet of the people fell, until at last the hearse moving among them all brought the President of the United States to his last palace, where he shall be laid away to the fame to which the sober memory and verdict of men will consign him."