William Nowlin

William Nowlin was an American writer remembered for The Bark Covered House; or, Back in the Woods Again, first published in Detroit in 1876. Library of Congress and University of Michigan records identify him as William Nowlin (1821–1884) and describe the book as a first-person account centered on his family's move from Putnam County, New York, to Dearborn, Michigan, in 1834.

The book was written as a tribute to his parents and as a record of pioneer life. It follows the family's journey by canal boat and steamship, then their hard work building a home, clearing land, making roads, farming, hunting, and living with the constant pressures of weather, illness, insects, animals, and isolation. What makes the memoir memorable is its close attention to ordinary details, which gives readers a strong sense of everyday life on the early Michigan frontier.

Nowlin also reflected on broader changes around him, including relations with Native Americans, the movement of fugitives and free Black people across the Canadian border, and the arrival of railroads and markets that reshaped the region. His writing is valued today not just as autobiography, but as a richly detailed snapshot of frontier Michigan.