Early settlers to Huron Township came from eastern states including Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, with immigration peaking in the 1830s as government land sales drew families such as William Sr. and Elizabeth Rumsey Nowland from Seneca County, New York, about 1832 to a farm east of the Huron River. Their son Moses R. Nowland, born 15 February 1828 and arriving at age four as the twelfth or thirteenth child of William Sr. and Elizabeth, became a lawyer and rose to prominence in local and state politics, serving as Huron Township Treasurer, Clerk, and Supervisor, becoming the settlement's first Postmaster, and representing Wayne County as a Michigan State Legislator during the 1865-1866 season. The first interment in Nowland Cemetery took place in 1848, and the cemetery became the final resting place of the Nowland family and other Huron Township pioneers, including Elizabeth R. Nowland, William H. Case, Alfonzo Nowland, Elmer Nowland, Eliza Q. Nowland, William Nowland, William Sr. Nowland, Almon Nowland, Louisa H. Nowland, Moses R. Nowland, and Maud Nowlan; Louisa Harris Nowland, the first wife of Moses, died 19 January 1896, Moses R. Nowland died 25 September 1905, and both were buried there with family.