With the discovery of gold in 1852 and the increase of population in the immediate vicinity of Yackandandah, a town cemetery would have soon been essential.

A wander around the Yackandandah Cemetery evokes memories of a bygone era of hardship and gold mining. The first burial recorded was of 14 month old Ellen Anderson on 7 September 1859. The oldest remaining headstone belongs to James Stewart, a miner, buried 30 March 1860, aged 28.

There is a Chinese Section with 26 known burials between 1860 and 1903, again a reminder of the thousands of Chinese miners that lived and worked on the gold diggings.