This community cemetery has served the people of rural Brown County for more than a century. James Jackson Martin (1847-1898) and Daniel Hulse (1822-1880) each donated land for the cemetery after settling in this area prior to 1878. Later donations by A.A. Martin and F.B. Smiley enlarged the cemetery.
The first person buried here was Mrs. M.C. Cain, who died in April 1878. Four months later James William Martin, two-year-old son of J.J. Martin, died and was interred here on land donated by his father.
A combination school and church building was built on the west side of the cemetery in the 1870s, and later was replaced by another structure on the east side of the property. Both the Fairview Baptist Church and the Methodist church met here.
Among the more than five hundred graves in the Fairview Cemetery are those of many area pioneers. Also interred here are veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
In 1978, one hundred years after the first burial, a cemetery association was organized to maintain the historic graveyard. The Fairview Cemetery stands as a reminder of the area's early heritage. (1991)