Burns Township
Shiawassee County, Michigan

The village of Burns was located in the northwest corner of the township in section 6 at what is now known as Knaggs Bridge.

The township is believed to be named for the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, and was officially recognized on March 11, 1836. An early settler was Dyer Rathburn in 1835.

Francis Prevost founded Byron in 1836, The first township meeting was held in his home. Elected officers were Ezra D. Barnes, Thomas P. Green, Amos Foster, Peter Kanouse, Rufus C. Rathburn, Francis J. Prevost, Robert Crawford, John Burgess, Wallace Goodin and Almonzo Woods.

Byron was founded in 1824 by Judge Samuel W. Dexter. Major Francis J. Provost became the first postmaster here on Aug. 12, 1837. Followed by Holden White in 1842. The village was incorporated in 1873, with Charles H. Lemmon as President. Byron was a station on the Ann Arbor Railroad. The Post Office is still open with a zip code of 48418 and the population was 573 in 1990.

Several places in Byron have been placed on the State Register of Historical Places, including the cemetery. There are over twenty-seven hundred graves and approximately six hundred are dated before 1900.

Salt River, now a ghost town, was located in Burns Twp. in 1864.

In 1850, the land occupied by the Indian Reservation was opened for settlement. The Union Plains cemetery was established and remains here today.