Welcome to Holland, Michigan!

Holland

Located in Ottawa County

Southwestern Michigan

World Famous Tulip Festival Every May

Local History

It is a September day in 1846. The place is a Rotterdam wharf, where the sailing brig "Southerner" is making ready for its Atlantic Voyage, destination New York. In its cramped steerage quarters, sixty men, women, and children will tediously endure the forty-seven days of passage.

Of this number, seven are of the Van Raalte family, --Albertus Christiaan, the father; Christine, his wife; and their five children, the youngest a babe of six months. Now 35 years of age, Albertus has been in the ministry for ten years and has undergone all manner of humiliation and persecution through his defiance of the religious restrictions imposed by the State church. It was this religious oppression, coupled with the economic depression of the Netherlands at that time, which persuaded this group of Hollanders and others to follow, to leave their homeland for America, where religious freedom and the opportunity for a better life could be theirs.

The "Southerner" docked in New York City on November 18, 1846 and Van Raalte and his group continued the journey west to Detroit where Dr. Van Raalte left his flock to survey the area and determine the best location for his Dutch Kolonie. Of all the sites that he studied, the one that was made to order for his colonizing plans was at the mouth of the Black River where it flowed into Black Lake which, in turn, led to Lake Michigan. As soon as Van Raalte had satisfied himself that he had found the most desirable location for his colony, he lost no time in leading his group to the spot. They reached their destination on February 9, 1847.

The new residents of the area were not alone from the beginning. Isaac Fairbanks was the government agent for the Pottawatomie Indians in the area and the Hollanders slept in the Fairbanks cabin while the first cabins were being built. The only other white resident in the locality was Rev. George N. Smith, missionary to the Indians and the hospitality of his cabin was extended to the Hollanders for the cooking and serving of the meals.

Only two weeks after the first cabins were constructed, another wave of newly arrived Hollanders descended upon the Van Raalte Kolonie and by August, 1847 there were as many as seven or eight hundred persons inhabiting the settlement. This overwhelming influx of Hollanders was a mighty testimony to the great respect in which Van Raalte was held by his countrymen.

Holland's first summer, that of 1847, was one of great despair. The hundreds of Dutch immigrants had expected to find their promised land, but what they found was an undrained swamp and insect-infested forest. The log sheds were unable to hold all the people; the food was poor and scanty; the entire outlook was dismal. To make matters worse, smallpox was brought in by the new immigrants and the whole community became one wretched sick bed, so severe that there were not enough able men to make coffins for the dying. The complaint was everywhere, "Why were we brought here to die?" and the man who had to minister unto and comfort these people was Van Raalte. Each morning he doled out quinine, rhubarb, calomel, or blue pills and made the rounds wherever suffering and death prevailed. He stood up under it with magnificent fortitude, but it was almost more than he could take.

Finally the sick were restored to health. The fall was a beautiful one and the winter was so extraordinarily mild that "everyone could build and perform outdoor labors." There was, indeed, much building to be done. Most importantly, there was a church to be built as well as an orphanage to care for the many children who were left parentless by the heavy mortality of the summer. Characteristic of these family-loving Hollanders, the orphanage was to be completed first. However, by the time it was completed there were no homeless children left. One by one they had been taken into the homes of the settlers and the orphanage was put to use as the Kolonie's first school, and later became Holland's first printing office.

Holland's first wedding occurred on July 25th, 1847, when Lambert Floris and Jantjen Meijerink were joined in marriage. This was a sign that the Kolonie had taken root and that new generations from within its own ranks would build upon the ideas and beliefs of the founders.

Holland's first store was one of the projects deemed imperative by "Volksvergadering", the community's governing body. All of the people chipped in to the extent of their meager wealth and formed a cooperative corporation to supply the Kolonie with provisions. The "Volksvergadering" also coordinated the community purchase of the "A.E. Knickerbocker", a hundred-ton sailing vessel to be used for bringing supplies and commodities to the settlement. The shack for the community store was built on the edge of the Black River, since all supplies had to come in by boat. By 1852, seven years after Van Raalte's arrival, a visitor was able to report that Holland had seven stores, two hotels, a bakery, a tanner's, a tailor's, and a jeweler's shop, besides various machine, wagon, and blacksmith shops.

The lives of the colony vessel and the community store were short-lived due to lack of funds and the harbor facilities. There was no navigable channel between Lake Michigan and Black Lake, so ship cargoes had to be unloaded on the beach and then carried to the flatboat used on the inland lake and the river. Both enterprises yielded to private enterprise, but it did show the determination of the Holland settlers to make a success of their colonizing venture.

The settlers of Holland knew that if Lake Michigan was to serve them in their growth and development, it had to be made accessible by an adequate channel. After trying in vain to receive government aid in building the channel, the determined Hollanders took up pick and shovel and went about digging their own channel. It was a most difficult task to do by hand, yet they kept at it until they had their navigable waterway. The River Avenue bridge was built similarly by the hand labor of all of the men in the settlement.

These two projects, amongst many of the Kolonie's early undertakings, point to the rugged determination and undaunted vision of Holland's founders. Holland's first industry was probably a sawmill, built on Black River at Groningen. Another venture to be expected of the Dutch settlers was a windmill, located near the spot now known as Windmill Park. This mill was not a success, although it must have been an imposing sight described as having "a tower eighty feet high with nine pairs of stairs leading to the balcony, from which one could see Lake Michigan. The wings had a sweep of one hundred feet."

In the original planning of Holland, a fish market was placed at the foot of what was long known as Fish Street, now Columbia Ave. Likewise, a general market square was provided for as a community trading and marketing center on Market Street, now Central Ave. In 1876, the hundredth anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence, this market square was dedicated as Centennial Park, and Holland's first landscape gardener was employed to lay it out. The planting of trees and shrubs was made a community enterprise with each family's memorial tree or shrub identified by an inscribed metal token.

The need for learning English was immediately recognized by the Dutch founders of 1847 and in that year the first school was set up. By 1856, the church set up its own private school as a result of the community's apathy toward the public school, where more than two hundred children were taught by two teachers. The church was also asked to establish an Academy for higher learning. In 1855, the Rev. John Van Vleck came from the East to become the principal finding neither building nor equipment. Money was raised by Mr. Van Raalte and the brick building, still known as Van Vleck Hall, was built. The next building was known as the gymnasium. When it was publicly dedicated in July, 1862, it signaled the official beginning of Hope College.

By 1871, twenty-four years after the first long cabin had arisen out of the wilderness, Holland had much to show for its determination to get ahead. It had been incorporated as a city, Isaac Cappon became the first mayor under the new charter, and two railroads extended their rails to Holland, indicating that here was a stable city with a growing future. Then in October of 1871, a wind-fed fire struck the city. Embers from the brush fires on the Southwest outskirts blew into the city and soon, all of Holland seemed to be ablaze. With all of their hard-earned possessions destroyed, Holland was literally bankrupt and its people were reeling from the toughest blow of all.

But not even this calamity could diminish the hopes of the stout-hearted city. The twenty-fifth anniversary plans went ahead even more vigorously than before.

A special thank you to the Holland Convention and Visitor's Bureau for the historical information provided.

Tulip Festival Every May

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Local History