Archaeological evidence implies that this area was used as a burial ground before 1617 when the first church was built on this site. If the man buried in the "Knight's Tomb" just inside the church was Governor George Yeardley, then regular burials commenced here by 1627. After the 1750s there were fewer burials here since the church was abandoned then. All totaled, there were probably several hundred burials in the original graveyard. Only about 30 of these were in the church under the floor.

Since there is little natural stone in tidewater Virginia, tombstones were rare in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Almost all had to be imported, usually from England. Many of the people buried here after the 1680s were wealthy and their families could have afforded tombstones. Nineteenth-century reports indicate that many did and the graveyard contained many tombstones. Sadly most of these have been lost, stolen or destroyed by the ravages of time.