Atlas Twp.- Jeremiah York was born in Saratoga County, NY in 1794 enlisted with Captain Justus P. Spencer’s Company of the New York militia, engaged in battles of the War of 1812. Pension records indicate that in 1814 York was with a division of Colonel Steven’s Regiment of the New York Infantry, when the British burned and destroyed the City of Buffalo, NY.
York, along with 14 other pioneers including Manley Sweers who first settled on 80 acres near the Kearsley Creek are buried in a remote southwestern section of the township on the now abandoned Sweers Farm. The graves are still there today.
For his service to his country, York received a pension of $8 a month until 1871, at the age of 76.
In 1815 he married Rhoda Sweers and the New York residents moved to the township in 1870, settling on Kipp’s Road across from Rhoda’s brothers? farms on land originally purchased from the government by Stephen York, who apparently never lived on it. Jeremiah and Rhoda passed away within two weeks of each other, she dying first on Oct. 23, 1876 and he on Nov. 5, 1876.
Shelly Garon a Sterling Heights resident and the great-great-great-great grand daughter of Manley Sweers says she started investigating the family history about two years ago when an Flint area relative suggested she visit the old cemetery.
‘Not all the graves are marked,? said Garon. ‘But from what remains on the site between 1864 until 1894 an estimated 16 graves were established’the next generation are in another cemetery.?
‘Vermont natives Manley and Daniel Sweers arrived in the township about 1837, settled on property just east of M-15 near the Kearsley Creek and built a small cabin where they farmed and raised big families. That was more than a century ago’not much else remains except for the family cemetery.?
Over the past century the Sweer’s property has been parceled and sold several times yet the small cemetery remains. According to reports from the Flint Genealogical Society the recorded the inscriptions the last burial on the grounds was about 1897.