The first years were trying ones to the people in the "Atherton settlement." The removal from New York to Michigan and the purchase of their lands had inmost instances exhausted their means. For a year or two many of them worked for the Atherton brothers, Captain Curtis and Pliny A. Skinner. But soon their resources were gone. Poor crops reduced all to a common poverty. Destitution and privation existed upon all sides. Women, nurtured amid comforts and luxuries of their eastern homes, wept and prayed alternately as their vision took in the dense forests stretching beyond the few acres of stumpy land which had been cleared about their rude cabins. But the band of common suffering only the more firmly kit the ties of friendship and neighborly affection and urged on the strong arms and undaunted hearts that were to wring from the frowning wilderness a competence.

The consolations of religion naturally formed a bulwark of strength among these pioneers. A religious society was early formed. A majority in the "Atherton settlement" were, or became soon after their arrival, members of the Baptist and congregational societies. Shubael Atherton was a deacon of the Baptist church. His brother, Adonijah, was a deacon of the Congregational church. The first religious meeting in the township was held in Shubael Atherton's house some time during the summer of 1836. The following winter a revival took place. Meetings were held in the school house. Baptists, Congregationalists and Methodists joined in the service and, as a result, every man, woman, and child of the thirty families except one family, was converted and baptized.

The first school house was built in the "Atherton settlement" in the summer of 1836. The first teacher was Betsey Atherton, daughter of Adonijah. From 1836 to 1856 the schools and school reports are so interwoven with those of flint township that separate school data for Burton is practically impossible to obtain.