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Mount Holly is quite significant in the history of the state and the city of Little Rock. While it is not the first public burial ground in the city, it was established less than seven years after Arkansas became a state. In 1839 the town council began to realize the need for a larger, more adequate cemetery. Land was donated and the first lots were sold at a public sale in May of 1843 for five dollars each.
By the beginning of the 20th century the older portions of the cemetery were beginning to display evidence of neglect and deterioration. In 1915 the Mount Holly Cemetery Association was formed and an ordinance was adopted that formally recognized the cooperative effort between this private civic association and the city. This organization has maintained and improved the historic cemetery from that date to the present.
Mount Holly Cemetery has been called the "Westminster Abbey of Arkansas". Buried there are 10 former Arkansas Governors, 6 United States Senators, 14 Arkansas Supreme Court Justices, 21 Mayors of the city of Little Rock, and 4 Confederate Generals.
Private citizens who contributed to the state's history are also buried there. Some of them include: William E. Woodruff, founder of the Arkansas Gazette; David O. Dodd, boy martyr of the Confederacy, executed as a spy at age 17; Sanford Faulkner, who originated the "Arkansas Traveler"; Cephas Washburn, missionary to the Indians, who preached the first sermon in Little Rock; and John Gould Fletcher, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
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