Nowlin Family / Nowlin Cemetery

In 1834 John (1790-1869) and Melinda Nowlin (1802-1873) moved with their five children from New York to the Michigan Territory. On April 28, 1835, John bought eighty acres of land along the Ecorse River from the United States government. The family built a farmstead near here. They were one of the first Euro-American families to settle in this area. In 1876 John’s son William (1821-1889) published The Bark Covered House, Or Back in the Woods Again. A memoir of his family’s experience, the book was a “description of real pioneer life in the Wilderness of Michigan.” Nowlin Cemetery This cemetery was created around 1853 by the Nowlin family, which owned this land and lived on a nearby farm. The first person buried here was James A. Nowlin, the ten-year-old son of William and Adelia Nowlin. Other nineteenth-century people interred here include members of the Thompson, Penny, Bolle and Griffin families. In 1950 Dearborn Township took ownership of the cemetery at the Nowlin family’s request. The City of Dearborn Heights became the owner after its 1963 incorporation.