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Early Families

Up in the Byron cemetery lies a man who led an interesting life. William Harrison Young, known as “Billy”, was born September 24, 1859. His father died in the famed Libby Prison in the Civil War and his mother than placed him in the soldiers’ orphanage. His mother remarried to a Charles Betterly in Berwick, PA and the Betterly’s came to Michigan, Billy with them. He was an outdoorsman, working in the lumber camps and hunting for game to supply the camps with food. He went to Alaska in the Goldrush of 1898 to seek his fortune. “Klondike Kate” ran a roadhouse up there and he worked for her, supplying the roadhouse with wild game. He never got rich but he stayed in Alaska for 18 years. Billy died January 31, 1950. Ray Love from Antrim Township knew Billy as he is part of the Betterly clan and has a book about him.