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On 14 February 1851, the City of Wheeling purchased from Daniel Steenrod, a parcel containing about twenty one acres for the sum of eight thousand two hundred and sixty dollars. This purchase established the new city burying ground. Graves from the existing cemeteries were relocated to the new cemetery.
Once known simply as the City Cemetery, and later Peninsular Cemetery, the Peninsula Cemetery as it is now called, has seen many changes. Removals from the Hempfield Cemetery were placed in the southwest corner of the cemetery located off Rock Point Road in the Manchester area of the Wheeling and many of the old tombstones from Hempfield are there.
In 1964 the I-70 Interstate Road/Tunnel Project cut through the Peninsula Cemetery and over 2500 bodies were exhumed and re-interred to several area cemeteries. Most of the graves were "unknown" as the section that was referred to as the "paupers section" had no records and many were buried there. This section was near the City Pest House off Rock Point Road. It was built to house smallpox patients. The Pest House was torn down in 1933.
Some years ago a sign was erected calling this now cut-off section of Peninsula Cemetery the Manchester Cemetery and has caused a lot of confusion over the years. There was indeed a cemetery in the Manchester area but it was called the Old Catholic Cemetery, and its location was down the hill from Peninsula Cemetery.