The Robison family were recipients of a patent of land from the proprietors of Pennsylvania for a tract of land in West Nantmeal township in 1749. On their large tract, on the corner of two roads, a small burial ground was established for the use of neighbors in the vicinity (the Robisons' own family burial ground being located nearby).

In 1789, the Robison family sold the tract containing the burial ground. In 1809, Ephraim and Sara Allen purchased the parcel and built a one-room schoolhouse on the burial ground site to educate their children. The school, called Allen's School, was opened to any children in the area who wanted an education. A burial ground and school arrangement was not altogether unusual, many burial grounds in rural areas at the time being located at public places, and the burial ground was indeed used for interments after the school was established.

A one-acre parcel containing the school and burial ground was spun off in 1831, and the school was used until the West Nantmeal Township school directors erected a new school further south down the road (which now serves as the West Nantmeal Township municipal building.

In 1907, Dr. John Piersol McCaskey, the mayor of the City of Lancaster, took an interest in the burial ground — his great-great-great-great grandfather, John Piersol, having been buried there in 1777. He had C. Allen James, then the owner of the farm on which the burial ground was located, and George Grier, the sexton at the nearby Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, take up and reinter the bodies of his relatives at Saint John's Episcopal Church in Compass. McCaskey's family lot being full, the bones were placed in the lot occupied by two ladies named Jones whose graves were unmarked, and the Piersol tombstones were set up at the head of the graves.

Later, Dr. McCaskey had the last remaining marked burial at the school, that of James R. Phillips, removed also to Compass to a spot near the northeast corner of that cemetery.

A number of unmarked or plainly marked burials were thought to remain at Allen's Schoolhouse, and landowner C. Allen James kept the place in good shape and did not permit his farmers to plow over the ground. However, the land was later sold and housing now occupies the site.