Washington Chapel (Evangelical United Brethren, now United Methodist) was erected in 1865 of local lumber as part of a circuit of rural churches established in the late 1850s. Hiram Shaffer gave this land. Eventually the meetinghouse came to be called by the name of township. The chapel burned in 1868, but was replaced the same year by the building still standing.

The cemetery was originally part of the Young family farm; a Young daughter was said to be the first burial there in 1863. Five or more Union veterans of the Civil War are buried there, as well as one Confederate soldier. The cemetery was kept by a Washington Chapel Cemetery Association of Women of Washington Township (formed in 1902) and is now preserved by Washington Township.