William Quincy Elliott, born in Wayne County, Indiana, February 19, 1837, was educated in the Friends Monthly Meeting School at West Grove, Indiana. When twenty years of age, he married a daughter of the wealthiest farmer in the Indiana community. As a very successful 36 year-old farmer, Elliott came to Kansas in the fall of 1873. He filed a homestead claim on eighty acres of land, southeast of present day Sterling. In March 1874, Elliott came to the village of Peace, (name later changed to Sterling), and took up residence until July 1, 1875. For family burials and that of members of the Friends Monthly Meeting, Elliott, a Quaker, set aside some of his ground. This area is now within the older part of the cemetery. North of this specific section (Friends Cemetery), other individuals who died in the village of Peace were buried. Elliotts interest in a cemetery seems to have sprung from the death in Peace of his two-year-old son, Charles Sumner Elliott. The Friends Cemetery and the area beyond were personally established by W.Q.Elliott and known as the Cottonwood Park Cemetery.
These cemetery grounds were not platted. People were buried wherever families thought it a good place. Sometimes the place was under a tree, sometimes removed from the road, sometimes by the road, sometimes near a grave of a friend, sometimes where a landmark would easily lead to the location of the grave. The earliest marked graves are 1855 for a Samuel Connery and an 1856 one for an E. P. McFarland. Although these are not designated as reburials, we do know that the first actual settlers, who came to this county, came in 1870 and were ranchers. It was not until 1871-1872 that actual settlements were made. A colony, mostly people from Ohio, settled on Cow Creek in 1871. In the spring of 1872 a colony was settled at Peace. The railroad was surveyed through the county in the fall of 1871 and the track was laid in July 1872. In 1877 a petition signed by nearly every citizen of Sterling requested the Mayor and Council to provide a cemetery. The matter was referred to a committee consisting of Stanton, Page and Ricksecker. Ricksecker, two years earlier in 1875, had buried two children in an area bounding the Friends Cemetery and had personal interest in the development of a community cemetery. How the matter proceeded is not clear; however, the Cottonwood Park Cemetery was platted with lots, a potters field, drives, walkways, trees, and gates and was registered with the County on the 24th day of October 1877. The sale and deed to William Quincy Elliott were recorded on the 27th day of November 1877.