The Sandel and Powell families moved to this area from Mississippi in the 1850s, helping establish a community church and school in this vicinity. The Rev. Peter W. Sandel (1806-1866) arrived and bought property in October 1851. Twice married, he lived here with his second wife, Louisa J. (Winborn), and children from both marriages. Oliver Powell (1815-1892) also bought land here. He arrived with his wife, Caroline (Quinn), and their children. The agricultural settlement in this area, on the south bank of East Sandy Creek, became known as the East Sandy Community.
Both families were Methodists, and they soon established a local congregation. They held services in a small building that also served as a schoolhouse for area children. The building stood approximately 150 feet north of this site, adjoining the East Sandy Cemetery. The first marked grave there dates to 1861 and denotes the burial of twin daughters of A.A. Moore. According to oral history conducted with John Oliver Vick (1869-1959), earlier, unmarked graves are possibly those of members of the Dunn family.
In the 1880s, a Baptist congregation began sharing the building for services. In 1903, Lavinia A. Abercrombie and Sallie E. Gibbs sold 10 acres of land, including the burial ground, as well as the church and school site, to J. Rodney Powell, Noah R. Powell and Peter T. Sandel, trustees of the East Sandy Community. The school continued until around 1913, when it merged with Moore's Grove School.
The East Sandy Cemetery is a reminder of what was once the settlement's center. Residents of the rural East Sandy community, although dispersed, remain bound together by common history.
(2005)