Fair View Cemetery was established in Indian territory in 1847 by John D. Lee, superintendent of Mormon Brigham Young's farming operation known as Summer Quarters. Summer Quarters was located 13 miles north of Winter Quarters (Florence, Nebraska)in what would become Washington County, Nebraska Territory seven years later. Its location today would be near Hiway 75 between Ft. Calhoun and Blair, Nebraska on a stretch of land between Moore's Creek and Mill Creek near the site of the historic community of DeSoto, Nebraska. Nothing is left of that town today and the Ft. Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant exists in that location.

An epidemic of cholera struck the camp in mid-summer and according to Lee's journal, 18 persons died and are buried there. He reported that burials were made in the prairie on a "high eminence" about a half-mile south of the settlement. Lee named the spot Fair View. Depressions were plain as late as the 1870s but are not apparent now.

"In the early 1980s, after a great deal of research, E.G. Connely succeeded in locating this tiny cemetery, and described it's location: "It was located on an unwooded point of the high bluff above Summer Quarters, giving a splendid view of the whole valley for many miles. It was approachable by wagons from only one point in the Summer Quarters area, the slope ascending from the site of the Summer Quarters buildings. It was the most beautiful site that could have been selected. There are now no surface indications of the graves, but Mr. Hineline, visited the site with me. He and his father, a pioneer of 1855, knew the graves to be those of white persons because of their regular arrangement in two rows, but assumed they were soldiers from old Fort Atkinson, never having heard of Mormon occupation. There were no markers when Mr. Hineline first saw the graves (about 1870) but the two rows of depressions were plainly visible then. Their location is definitely known, but no surface indications now remain." ~~Life and Times of William Young-Tennessee Frontiersman, Utah Pioneer by Gary Dean Young, ggg-grandson.

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was used in 2011 by the Historical Pioneer Research Group, Inc. from Salt Lake City, UT in cooperation with the Pioneer Research Library at Historic Winter Quarters, Florence, NE in an attempt to located the burial location.

The names of the deceased have been compiled from journal entries of John D. Lee and journals of other Mormon pioneers who were part of his Summer Quarters family.