After sending deceased loved ones to Mission or New Westminster for burial for many years, the first settlers established a cemetery in the 1870's. Two of the earliest settlers, Mr. Nelson and Mr. Howison, who had land adjoining each other, both donated a ¼ acre of land for burial purposes.

Interments were not recorded until 1897, but even before that time the half-acre burial ground was becoming crowded, and each of the original land donors sold another ½ acre to the municipality. As the local population increased, so did the size of the cemetery, and many of the early prominent residents are interred there.

After the First World War, a cenotaph in the shape of a Celtic cross was erected in front of the graveyard, exactly on the border between Haney and Hammond, whose Women's Institutes had purchased the memorial to commemorate the men who did not return from Europe. The cenotaph has subsequently been moved and rededicated to include the local victims of the Second World War and the Korean War.

Looking at the Maple Ridge Cemetery, different groups are represented and were interred in separate sections of the burial ground - children, families, and ethnic and religious groups. Most of these distinctions have ceased, but the cemetery remains a reminder of the past.