In 1898, Ellen May Tower, an army nurse from Byron, died of typhoid fever in a hospital tent after only ten weeks abroad. Her remains arrived in Detroit, and her funeral took place in Byron two days later. The Owosso Evening Argus hailed the event as the first military funeral in Michigan for a woman.

Byron Cemetery originated with the 1837 interment of Theodore H. Provost, the son of one of Byron’s founders. According to local historians, Chippewa lived on this site until it became a cemetery.