Borculo, Michigan

Part IV of Borculo’s Early Threshermen: The Nienhuis Dairy Farm in Borculo by Robert Essenburg

1/6/2023

The Nienhuis dairy farm in Borculo had its beginning when Alvin and Henrietta Nienhuis purchased a 107-acre farm at 9347 Tyler Street in 1951.

The Andy Nienhuis family dairy farm today. The present house and barn were built around the year 1915.

For many years this property had been known as the Raterink farm. The history of this farm began when Berend Raterink, an immigrant, came from the small town of Esche in the county of Bentheim, Germany. He arrived with his family in 1881. In 1885 he purchased 107 acres of swampland in Blendon Township and received the deed to the property. This was 6 years before the Blendon and Olive drain was dug in 1891. His first task was to clear the trees and brush from the land, dig ditches, and then build a house and barn.

The Raterink farm. Picture courtesy of Gary Raterink, great-grandson of Berend Raterink.

Back in 1876, there were only 8 families living in the Borculo area. The rest of the surrounding area was a vast unoccupied, poorly drained swamp – land that very few settlers would want to purchase. In 1891 the Blendon and Olive drain was dug north of Borculo along 96th Avenue, to connect with the Pigeon River which would drain much of the area into Pigeon Lake and then into Lake Michigan. After this drain was completed, the land became available for farming.

Pictured here is a plat map of Olive and Blendon townships in 1876, outlining the Raterink and Nienhuis farm.

Besides farming, draft horses were also raised on the Raterink farm, which were sold to meet the needs of the era of the horse, from 1850 to 1950. By 1915 the number of draft horses in America had peaked at 26 million, and horses could be found everywhere in small towns, big cities, and rural farms. Together with new farm machinery, horses led the expansion of farming by pulling farm implements, as well as transporting goods and people.
Berend Raterink had raised horses in his native Germany before he arrived in America. He soon discovered there was a great demand for horses at this time. He soon purchased a couple of stallions and a number of mares and began raising draft horses and buggy horses on his farm. His son John later joined him in this business. In 1897 John purchased the farm from his father and operated a very successful farming operation with his family.

Bert Raterink, John Raterink’s son, holding a fine-looking 2,000-pound draft horse raised on his father’s/grandfather’s farm. (Picture courtesy of Gary Raterink, Bert’s son).

Alvin Nienhuis started out farming in 1951, as did all of his neighbors, on a small scale compared to the size of farms today. He had a herd of 12 milk cows and 107 acres of land. The milk was brought to a creamery in 10-gallon steel milk cans. His first tractor was a 2-plow Minneapolis Moline Model R farm tractor.

This is a stock picture of a restored Minneapolis Moline Model R tractor with its prairie gold paint and red wheels. Many area farmers bought this model of tractor from the Bussis Brothers Implement Company in Borculo.

Alvin’s son Steve Nienhuis on the antique Minneapolis Moline Model Z farm tractor, whose previous owner had purchased it new from the Bussis Implement Company in 1949. This is a 2-3 plow tractor with 26 drawbar horsepower. It is now 73 years old.

The Nienhuis’ later had a 63-horse-power Allis Chalmers D17, which replaced the former Minneapolis Moline Model R and Model Z.

Alvin’s grandson Andy’s 235-horsepower tractor used on the farm today. It is quite a bit larger than his grandfather’s 23-drawbar horsepower Minneapolis Moline tractor used 70 years ago!

Alvin cut his grain with a grain binder and threshed it with a small threshing machine. In 1966 he purchased a small grain combine to replace the threshing machine.
The corn was cut with a corn binder and then run into a silo filler, which chopped it and blew it up into the 12x35 foot silo. The hay was baled with a small square hay baler.
In 1965, the 80-acre Boetsma farm next door to the original farm was purchased. Alvin added more cows and larger tractors and bigger farm machinery in order to feed the added cows.
Alvin added 30 more milking stalls to the main barn, and a bulk milk cooler to hold the additional milk. He also built a bunker silo to hold all of the additional silage needed to feed the cows. When he retired in 1984 and sold the farm to Steve and Mary Nienhuis, the herd had increased from 12 cows to 66 cows. In 1989 Steve and Mary built the present day double 9 milking parlor with a larger bulk tank.
Steve continued to expand the herd to over 200 cows by building more barns to house the cows and he also rented more land to grow crops to feed them. Changes were taking place in the raising of farm crops and harvesting them. The moldboard plow was replaced by the chisel plow. The square hay balers were replaced with larger round balers. Milk production per cow also increased dramatically from early days of farming, from 30 pounds of milk per cow to 90 pounds.
In 2009 Steve and Mary sold the dairy farm to Andy and Michele Nienhuis. Many changes have taken place from when they purchased the farm to the present. Some of the changes had to do with technology and the use of the computer in keeping records of the cattle herd, as well as larger and more sophisticated farm machinery.
Last fall I was able to take a tour of the Andy and Michele Nienhuis farm, and to watch the corn harvest in person. Below are some pictures and more information about the processes and machinery used in modern farming.

Pictured above is the original barn, silo and the present milking parlor, with Steve’s 1949 Minneapolis Moline Model Z tractor.

This is another view of the original barn, silo, and present milking parlor.

Pictured are Steve Nienhuis, myself, and my brother Cliff Essenburg, ready for a tour of the corn harvest in October 2022. Our friend, Kendall Thompson, took the pictures on the tour. We are standing in front of a Claas Jaguar forage harvester.

One of the more amazing farm machines is the development of the forage harvester. Looking back to a time of 150 years ago when corn was cut with a primitive hand-sickle, and then to see corn chopped with the latest forage harvester is amazing to me. From the days of the one-row chopper to watching a 12-row rotary is even more amazing.

The Claas harvester with its rotary head, is ready to chop corn in a nearby field. This harvester is made by a world leader of farm machinery located in Germany. It is owned by Andy’s brother Jon of Rocket Harvesting, located in West Olive. In the background are the barns used to keep the cows in open housing.

Moving through a field of corn, taking 12 rows at a time, non-stop trucks and wagons are ready to pull up when the truck filled with silage moves on.

Here we could see how the rotary head does not have to follow the rows of corn, but can cut corn in all directions, like a giant lawn mower.

When the truck is full, it heads to the bunker silo at the barnyard to be unloaded.

The silage is unloaded in a pile with a live bottom unloader.

Then the chopped corn is pushed into a huge pile with a 375 horsepower 8-wheel tractor which also packs it down at the same time.

With the two huge tractors working together, it looks like the beginning of a huge landfill!

Three days later, I went back to the farm and found the bunker silo was filled and sealed and covered with heavy plastic, weighted down with recycled truck tires. Under the plastic cover is 250 acres of chopped corn which will feed 275 cows for the coming year.

Cows were eating silage in the cattle barn. Notice each cow has a numbered tag, which identifies it so that all of its information can be tracked by computer.

These future cows are beginning as young calves. By tracking each calf, the amount of food each one will receive is calculated according to the information on their tag.

Conclusion to Parts I – IV
Farming methods in Borculo have changed dramatically since Jacobus Klanderman arrived as the area’s first farmer in 1868. Harvesting crops have gone from the scythe and the sickle to high-powered farm equipment like the forage harvester and the combine. Some of us have witnessed the change from horses to the use of the farm tractor today.
The early steam traction engines of Henry Wesseldyk and Albert Bosch were replaced by the high-powered gasoline and diesel tractors of today. Dairy farming has gone from milking cows by hand to the milking machine and the milking parlor. The 10-gallon milk can was replaced by the bulk milk tank.
The small family farm as it was known has disappeared, but it is remembered by pictures and stories that give us a glimpse of what farming life was like.

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Part III of Borculo’s Early Threshermen: Farming on the Klanderman Homestead in Borculo, 1868-2022 by Robert Essenburg

11/4/2022

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Before continuing after Part II with the development of new farm implements and modern machinery on the dairy farm, this is a story about the changes in farming at one particular farm in Borculo, which is the farm where I grew up. For the past 154 years only two families have owned what is known as the Klanderman homestead, which is a Michigan historical site located in Ottawa County at 6091 96th Avenue in Borculo.

These two families are the Klandermans and the Essenburgs. Three generations of Klandermans owned and operated the farm for the first 69 years. In 1937 they sold the farm to Martin Essenburg, whose family has owned the farm for the last 85 years.
Many changes have taken place in farming during the last 154 years! The farming methods were very primitive in the beginning when the Klanderman family began farming in 1868. Over the years the farming methods have changed dramatically as farming became more mechanized and the farms became larger, so that the family farm as we have known it in the past has disappeared. To describe the changes over the years, I decided to first describe some of the changes that happened during the Klanderman era and then some of the changes that happened after the Essenburgs purchased the farm in 1937.

The Klanderman years 1868-1937
The Jacobus Klanderman family arrived in the Borculo area in 1868. They had just immigrated from a small city in the Netherlands called Borculo, which was already 500 years old when the Klandermans left. It had many nice brick homes and even some brick streets. This was quite a contrast with the tree-covered wilderness they found when they first arrived in Borculo, Michigan! There were no permanent homes in the area; in fact, there was an encampment of American Indians living just east of the present Borculo cemetery, living on the hill in wigwams. These Indians were the Klandermans’ first neighbors.
The first roads were just muddy trails through low, poorly drained land. When my father quit farming in 1960, the land that was poorly drained bordering Bingham Street was left idle so that today this part of the farm has reverted back to the wooded natural state as it was when Jacobus Klanderman purchased it in 1868.

Just driving along Bingham Street on the south side of the farm today gives a person a chance to see the challenge it was to clear off the wooded areas of the farm with only an axe, a saw, and a yoke of oxen.
Jacobus Klanderman‘s first task when he arrived from the Netherlands was to buy some land and build a log cabin for his family to live in. He soon bought 40 acres of land located ½ mile south of Borculo at 6091 96th Avenue and established his farm there. This 40-acre parcel lay on the south slope of the Borculo hill, so the north fields were 20 feet higher than the land bordering Bingham Street to the south.

This is a section of an 1876 plat map of Blendon and Olive Townships, showing the 40-acre Klanderman parcel in the center

After Jacobus Klanderman purchased the land, his next task was to clear the land which was covered with large trees and heavy underbrush. He then built a large log cabin to house his family of five. He also built a barn. When he built his barn, he first selected some tall slender white pine trees and cut them down, then squared them up into beams for his new barn using a broad axe. This barn was used to house his livestock which included a few dairy cows and also his oxen that he had purchased to help clear the land. (See my previous story here for more about the Klanderman – Essenburg barn: https://borculo.weebly.com/blog/childhood-memories-of-the-old-klanderman-essenburg-barn-by-robert-Essenburg)
Oxen were the poor man’s horse and there were still many oxen used on farms during this period of time. The oxen were as strong as horses and were used to transport good logs that were cut on the farm and taken to a sawmill to be sawed into lumber or sold.

The barn was used for storing hay and straw and it also was a place to keep the livestock. The Klanderman barn included a grainery to store the threshed oats and wheat, as well as a tool shed to store the early farm implements. As a boy I was always intrigued by some of the primitive farm tools that were still hanging on the tool shed walls. Some of these tools had been invented and used thousands of years ago. There was the scythe and the sickle used to cut hay or cornstalks, the grain cradle used to cut grain, and the flail used to thresh the grain by beating the grain stalks.
The grain cradle was an improvement over the regular scythe because in one sweeping motion the cradle allowed the operator to cut and catch the grain, depositing the grain on the ground with all of the heads of the grain facing the same direction. It could then be tied into bundles.

In this picture, a Milwaukee farmer is holding a grain cradle, with his grain binder behind him.

The first crop to be planted on the farm was corn. There were still tree stumps in the field. You could not use a moldboard plow yet because of the stumps. Some farmers used a wooden spike tooth drag to till the soil between the stumps, pulled by the oxen. The corn was later harvested by hand with a hand sickle.
The wheat and oats were sown by hand also between tree stumps. The wheat and oats were cut when it was ripe with a grain cradle scythe and then tied into bundles and set in shocks to dry. After the bundles were dry, they were brought into the barn’s grainery to be threshed. The farmer used a stick or flail to separate the wheat kernels from the stems.
The hay was cut by hand using a scythe, and later raked into small piles to dry. When it was dry, the hay was pitched onto a high wooden wagon and stored in a mow in the barn.
At first the Klandermans kept one cow for the family’s milk supply but soon they added a few more. The cream from the excess milk was churned into butter and sold to the local grocer. Some farmers owned a hand cranked mechanical cream separator and a barrel churn to do this, as shown in the pictures below.

Around the turn of the century commercial creameries were established to make butter from the farmers’ milk more efficiently. In 1899 the farmers in Borculo decided to organize a cooperative creamery to process all the area farmers’ milk. This building was located just north of Borculo on property located where Weavers Feed and Lumber were later located.

A butter maker was in charge of managing this operation. Farmers brought their milk to the creamery in 10-gallon steel cans weighing 15 pounds. The 10 gallons of milk weighed 85 pounds. Each can had a number painted on the can to identity the can at the creamery.
Some farmers needed someone to bring the cans of milk to the creamery. This is when the milk hauling business began. The first milk haulers used a wagon pulled by a team of horses. A wagon would normally carry 20 cans of milk. The milk haulers would pick up each day except on Sunday (see an earlier story here about milk hauling in Borcul0: https://borculo.weebly.com/blog/milk-hauling-in-borculo-michigan-by-bob-essenburg)
Many early farmers only kept about 5 cows which would produce 2 milk cans each day. Later by 1950 the average farmer’s herd was producing about 4 cans of milk from a herd of 10 cows. In about the year 1915 the milk was hauled by a milk truck. Later the milk trucks had an insulated body to keep the milk cool. In 1948 farmers started using bulk tanks and in 1950 the average cow produced about 30 pounds of milk per day. Today it has increased to about 90 pounds.
After the first difficult years the Klandermans began to prosper. They eventually bought a team of horses and more modern farm equipment like a sickle bar mowing machine and a grain binder. They enlarged the barn and later built a new Veneklassen brick home in 1891. The brick on the home was carefully laid by a skilled brick mason using a fancy style called patterned brick. They shared in the prosperity during the roaring 20’s, but later also suffered the hardships of the great depression.

Since Jacobus Klanderman was the first settler in the community, he also became a leader in the community, helping other families who arrived after him. He was known as the founder of Borculo. The new settlers responded to his helpfulness by giving the area the unofficial name of Klanderstat, which means Klandertown. This name of the town continued until it got a U.S. Post office on March 29, 1882. The post office was named the Borculo Post Office after the hometown of the Klandermans in the Netherlands. This post office closed in 1913.
The area did not have a local church to attend when the first settlers arrived. Many folks would walk with their families to Zeeland to attend worship services there. When the weather was bad or the roads too muddy, they at first worshipped at the Klanderman home. When the new Borculo Public school was built in 1876, some families also worshiped there. On July 5, 1883, a church was organized in the community. It took the name of the Holland Christian Reformed Church of Borculo.
In 1937 James Klanderman, the third generation to farm the old homestead, retired, and having no children to pass on the farm, he sold it to Martin Essenburg.

The Essenburg Years 1937 - 2022
On November 29, 1937 my parents, Martin and Delia Essenburg, purchased the 40-acre Klanderman homestead from James Klanderman, a third generation member of the Klanderman family. James and his wife Tillie had no children, so they put the farm up for sale when they reached retirement age.
The purchase price was $3,500 which included the land, the livestock, and the farm machinery. The land was valued at $2,500 and the livestock and machinery at $1,000.
When my father, mother, and myself (I was born in 1936) moved to the farm on November 29, 1937, we did not have to travel across the ocean to get there. Our move was from my grandfather’s farm ½ mile away on VanBuren Street. When my father arrived on the farm, he did not have to first clear the land or build a house or barn. On the day he arrived he could walk to the barn and milk the 5 cows that were already there. He could do his daily chores which included feeding the cattle and chickens and gathering the eggs.
The farm did not have electricity hooked up to the buildings yet and so one of my fathers’ first task was to get an electrician to wire the house in 1938. We did not get an electric pump yet, so we pumped our water for both the house and barn for a few more years. I still remember pumping water for the horses when I was 5 years old.
Our farm machinery was old horse-drawn equipment that had seen better days. The three most important tools were the plow, the grain binder and the sickle bar mowing machine and they were valued at $20, $20, and $15 respectively. The total value of all of the machinery was $140.
Farming with horse-drawn equipment was a slow process and took a lot of time to get things done. A team of horses could usually only plow 2 ½ acres a day. In 1946 we purchased 50 more acres of land located ½ mile south of our farm on 96th Avenue and Van Buren Street. The price of land was really cheap at this time and my dad only paid $750 for the fifty acres, or $15/acre.
After purchasing additional land, my father expanded his faming operation. He built a new chicken coop in order to lodge 500 hens. He also built a new silo and a milkhouse with a cooler for Grade A milk. We expanded the herd of milk cows to 10. We replaced all the horse-drawn equipment and the horses. In a few years’ time, we purchased two tractors, a new manure spreader, and a loader. Then a new mowing machine and a side rake, a new disc and grain drill, a corn planter, a hay baler, and a small threshing machine.

This picture was taken before the barn came down in 2001.

After a number of years, my father found out that an 80-acre farm was just not large enough to make a living on anymore. He sold the cows and chickens first and got a full-time job at the Ottawa County Road Commission. He still raised corn and wheat for a few more years, and then quit farming altogether and rented out his 40-acre Klanderman homestead.
After my father retired from active farming and rented out his land, we noticed many changes in the technology used in raising corn. In 1960, my father rented his land to the Nienhuis Dairy farm, located north of Borculo on Tyler Street. This is one of the few family farms still operating in the Borculo area. They remained in business by expanding their acreage and using larger and more modern machinery, and by enlarging their dairy herd. We especially noticed the corn harvesting equipment go from one row at a time to 6 or even 12 rows at a time. Pictured below is some of the farm equipment used to harvest corn in 2022.

Looking to the West on the Essenburg farm from 96th Avenue at the field of standing corn. During the Klanderman era, this field would only produce about 20 bushels of corn per acre. With the improvements in todays technology, it will probably produce 200 bushels per acre this year.

Looking eastward across 96th Avenue at the cemetery. In the center of this picture you would find the tombstone of Jacobus Klanderman, born in 1815 Borculo, the Netherlands; died 1905 as founder of the town of Borculo, Michigan. It is written in Dutch.

This is the combine owned by Morren Bros. Agri Service of Holland, harvesting the corn for Andy Nienhuis, beginning along 96th Avenue

The six-row combine unloading the shelled corn into grain wagons, which will be taken to the Nienhuis farm on Tyler Street.

More about the Nienhuis Dairy Farm and these changes will be coming in Part IV of Borculo’s Early Thresherman.

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Borculo’s Early Threshermen Part II by Robert Essenburg

10/7/2022

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The agricultural revolution that took place at the turn of the century produced many new farm implements. This era became known as the beginning of the mechanizing of agriculture. Farmers could now produce more with fewer man-hours of manual labor.
It began with the invention of the self-propelled steam-engine tractor. It was later replaced by the gasoline-operated farm tractor. There were also many newly invented implements to be used on the farm with both horses and tractors. Some of these new farm implements were used in the harvesting of farm crops.

This is the Port Huron steam engine and threshing rig of Henry Wessedyk in 1939.

For the grain farmers, first came the invention of the reaper, followed by the grain binder, the threshing machine and finally the grain combines. For the corn farmers it was the invention of the corn binder and the corn husker shredder, then the silo filler, the corn picker, and the forage harvesters. For the hay farmers it was the sickle bar mowing machine, the dump rake, the side delivery rake and the hay loader, and then the pickup baler for producing square and round bales.
Henry Wesseldyk had become the first thresherman in Borculo with his purchase of a Port Huron steam engine and a threshing machine. The Port Huron steam engine was huge for its day. It weighed 17,000 pounds and had 65 horsepower on the belt and 19 horsepower on the drawbar. It had to be constantly fueled with wood or coal while it was operating. It could burn up to a ton of coal a day and also used 2,500 gallons of water to create the steam.
Henry Wesseldyk also used the steam engine to operate a portable sawmill on his farm. Farmers would often bring logs to his farm to be sawed into lumber.

This picture shows the Albert Bosch sawmill, with the people gathered to work and also to watch the workers, dated 1920. The picture later appeared on the cover of the CRC Banner on September 24, 1976. The men in the background are left to right: John TenBroeke, Gerrit TenBroeke, Henry Wesseldijk, Joe Wesseldijk, Albert Bosch, Ben Groenhof. The boy in the front is Henry Geurink. The women left to right are: Minnie (Wesseldijk) Bosch, Cecilia Bos, Catherine Bos, Alena Bosch, Ruth Bos, Louise Gahan, Catherine Bosch, Dorothy Geurink.

This picture is very similar to the one above but shows the pile of lumber that was cut from the logs brought into the sawmill that day in 1920. I recently received this picture from a Ruth Lemmen, a grand-daughter of Albert Bosch.

Henry Wesseldyk and Albert Bosch did other custom work for their neighbors with some of their special mechanical farm machinery. They purchased a large stationary hay or straw baler.

This is the old stationary baler that Albert Bosch took from farm to farm to bale up the straw-stacks after threshing. It has wood wheels, which dated back to the 1890 ear. The straw was pitched by hand into a large hopper where it was pressed and cut into slices, forming square bales.

Hay Baling
Farmers always used loose straw to bed their dairy cows. It was important for them to get a years’ supply of dry straw in their barns. Many barns were too small for this, so they would compress and bale their straw stack before storing it in their barn. Baling up straw was a big business after the threshing season was over. Albert Bosch was often seen speeding from farm to farm with his 1920 Titan, pulling his antique wooden-wheeled straw baler at the top speed of 3 miles per hour.
The cost of baling was by the ton. Each bale was weighed to determine the baling cost, which was $36 per ton. A chart was used to record the weight of each bale.
They also did custom work in the winter months using a mechanical cornhusker shredder. In the winter months they also did customer work with their buzz saw to cut firewood for the residents who burned wood in their homes for heat.

This is a page from the Albert Bosch record book in 1953 showing the number of bales, their weight, and the total bill based on $36 per ton.

Corn Husking
The corn husker shredding machine was much smaller than the threshing machine. It had a blower for blowing the shredded cornstalks out of the machine, and had a small elevator that brought the husked ears of corn into a wagon. It had a flat platform where the bundles of corn stalks were laid. The operator would then feed the stalks into the machine.

This is a large field of shocked corn ready to be husked by a corn husker shredder.

A page from Albert Bosch’s record book in 1939 showing the names of farmers who had their corn husked and also the number of hours at $2.50 an hour.

There were 28 farmers in the Borculo area who hired Albert Bosch for their corn husking:

Sawing Firewood
Below is picture of Henry Wesseldyk and Albert Bosch cutting wood with their buzz saw. The logs were laid on a table which could be pushed ahead and into the saw blade to cut the wood into smaller pieces. The log would then be moved over for the next cut.

Here is a page from the record book showing the Borculo people who had firewood cut in 1930, and the number of hours and the total at $1.50 an hour. Even the Borculo CRC had wood cut in 1930 by Albert Bosch.

These are the 20 customers who had the wood cut 1928-1945.

Albert Bosch passed away on November 15, 1969. An auction sale was held in the spring of 1970 on March 2. I was able to attend this auction with a friend, and a lot of memories went through my mind that day as I saw all of his old farm machinery being sold.

I finally bid on an old farm buggy that was owned and used before the automobile. I won the last bid and still have this buggy stored in my basement, 50 years later.

This is the farm buggy I purchased at the auction. It had been used to go to town to get a few bags of feed and probably groceries or supplies.

In 1920 Henry Wessendyk and Albert Bosch had purchased a new smaller two-plow tractor. It was a 1920 International Harvester Titan Model 10-20. It used kerosene for fuel and they used it for baling and for the corn husker. It had 10 horsepower on the drawbar and 20 horsepower on the belt.

This International 10-20 tractor was 50 years old at the time of the auction. It was purchased by Tom Rozema who restored it and used to bring it to the Riverbend Steam and Gas Show. He later sold it to another collector and it still runs today, 100 years old.

The continued mechanization of farm machinery led to a greatly reduced need for the number of farmers to produce farm crops and food for America’s food supply. In 1930 there were at least 120 family farms in the Borculo area. Most farms at this time consisted of about 80 acres. In each section or square mile there were around 8 family farms complete with their farm buildings. By 1950 the one-hundred-year era of the horse had come to an end. So did the era of family farms as we knew it from the past.
By 1960 the large threshing crews had all disbanded and were replaced by the grain combine to take over the harvesting of grain.

Herm and Dale Bussis combining wheat west of Hudsonville alongside M-21

The agricultural revolution kept moving on, with the building of larger farm tractors with more horsepower each decade. Farm tractors with 30 horsepower were gradually increased to be over 300 horsepower. They can pull and power farm implements that could cover a 30-40 foot-wide width, compared to the 6-foot cuts in the past.

Mowing hay in my backyard with my 1953 Farmall Super A, with my grandson Joel Harkema. The mower is cutting a 6-foot swath. The one-plow tractor like this Farmall was often the tractor of choice in the replacement of a team of horses.

The same changes that were taking place with harvesting crops were also taking place on the dairy farms. Stay tuned for Part III, about more changes in farm implements and modern machinery on the dairy farm.

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Borculo’s Early Threshermen Part I by Robert Essenburg

9/6/2022

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After the lumbering era ended in Borculo around 1880, two large drain ditches were dug to Lake Michigan to drain the surrounding watershed. Soon the land that had the valuable lumber cut off was sold to farmers.
Many of these farmers wanted to grow grain on their farms because it could be a very profitable crop. In fact, farmers sold their wheat for $1 a bushel in 1918. Using the consumer price index, this would be $18 a bushel in today’s money.
However, raising wheat required a grain binder and also someone to come and thresh the bundles of grain with a threshing machine.

Pictured is a postcard showing an Amish farmer cutting grain.

These are shocks of wheat after they were cut with a grain binder, waiting to be threshed

At this time a threshing machine would have to travel a long distance from a neighboring village to thresh in Borculo. The first farmer in Borculo to own and operate a threshing machine was Henry Wesseldyk.

This picture was taken in 1937, of Henry Wesseldyk’s Port Huron steam engine and the water wagon that supplied water for the engine. Notice the chains that were used to steer the front wheels of the tractor.

Henry purchased his farm in 1897, located just north of Weaver’s Feed, and later purchased a large self-propelled Port Huron steam engine and a large size threshing machine to thresh in his Borculo neighborhood.

The Henry Wesseldyk farm.

Pictured is Henry Weaver’s feedmill located in the former rebuilt Borculo Creamery, with the Albert Bosch farmhouse in the background, 1945.

Henry Wesseldyk had gotten the skills and experience as a young man to operate steam engines while working at the Moeke Sawmill. This sawmill was located just south of Borculo on the present site of the Crestview Golf Club. The sawmill was powered by a large stationary steam engine, which required a skilled sawmill worker to keep the engine running by constantly providing the fuel, like wood or also coal, and lot of water to provide the steam.
In the 1880’s and 1890’s Geert Moeke purchased some specialized farm machinery like a straw baler, to do custom work for some of his neighbors. Henry Wesseldyk got some of his experience operating this farm equipment while working at the sawmill and later he also purchased a stationary straw baler, a corn husker, a portable sawmill to cut logs into boards, and buzz rig to cut firewood. More about this specialized farm machinery will be coming at a later date in Part II of this story.

Threshing Grain
It took a large group of farmers working together to keep a large threshing machine operating at full capacity. The farmers would exchange help as the threshing rig moved from farm to farm. Threshing became a community event each summer as farmers worked together for weeks, threshing grain together.

This is a stock photo of a Port Huron steam traction engine and a threshing machine similar to the one owned by Henry Wesseldyk.

The threshing rig of Albert Bosch, who is standing in front of his steam engine.

There were 2 types of threshing in the early days. One was to thresh from the stacks of grain that had been earlier brought from the field to the farmyard. There were usually 8 loads to stack.

Building a stack of wheat bundles in the barnyard to be threshed later on by the thresher crew.

The other type of threshing was known as threshing off the field. Here the grain bundles were brought directly from the field on the day of threshing.

Loading bundles of wheat on the Martin Essenburg farm. On the wagon left to right are Milton and Arnold Essenburg, George Kuipers. On the ground are John Kuipers and Glen Essenburg.

Threshing directly from the field took an additional 5 farmers with a wagon to bring in the grain. The reason farmers stacked the grain was to get the shocks off the field before they would damage the new clover hay crop if they stayed on the field to long.
When more threshing machines became available the grain was taken off the field earlier in the season and farmers discontinued stacking their grain.

Threshing at the Borculo Farms
Henry Wesseldyk would usually thresh for around 50 area farmers each year. The threshing operator always had an assistant who traveled with the threshing rig from farm to farm, helping to set up and operate the machine. Henry Wesseldyk’s assistant was his son-in-law Albert Bosch, who later took over the business when Henry retired.
All threshing machines were equipped with a counter which kept track of the number of bushels of grain that were threshed on each farm.
When my father started farming, he kept a detailed account book. The following page shows the results of Henry Wesseldyk threshing on his farm in the year 1938.

A granddaughter of Albert Bosch, Bonnie DeWitt Blauwkamp, recently shared 3 farm record books with me. They recorded the many names of neighbors who benefited from the Wesseldyk and Bosch special farm machinery.
The first book is the threshing record book, and it lists the 50 farmers they threshed for in 1930. The record book also lists the date they threshed as well as the number of bushels threshed and the cost per bushel.

A page from the threshing book.

This is a list of the farmers from the record book, July 17 – August 18, 1930:

Below is a plot map from 1930. The farms shaded in green are the farms where Henry Wesseldyk threshed.

Albert Bosch took over the threshing operation in 1940 from his father-in-law and soon replaced the steam engine with a huge green Huber gasoline powered tractor.
He then carried a 50-gallon drum of gasoline from farm to farm in his 1929 Model A pickup. Tony Luurtsema was his assistant for many years.
In 1940 Albert Bosch’s brother Jacob Bosch also decided to buy a large threshing machine, along with a large tractor, to get into the threshing business. He lived about a mile east of Borculo on his farm there and his son John Raymond was his assistant for many years.
There seemed to be plenty of work available and both brothers continued servicing the Borculo community until the large threshing crews disbanded in the early 1950’s and combines took over the harvesting of grain.
Besides being the threshermen in Borculo, Henry Wesseldyk and Albert Bosch also did other custom work for their neighbors with some of their specialized farm machinery. This will be continued in Part II

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John Schamper: Memories and Mysteries by Janice (VandenBosch) Fischer

4/11/2022

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John Schamper 1959

John Schamper 2014

The Borculo Public School class of 1959 held a somewhat unique position in modern history. Most of the members of this class were born at the very end of World War II (1945 or 1946) and therefore qualify as the first group of Baby Boomers to complete this K - 8 school. Along the way, we lost a few students and gained a few more later, but those fourteen who attended for the majority of years, share some great memories and experiences.

1959 - Top row: Larry Redder, Art de Roo, Randy Overweg, John Scamper, Allen Petroelje, Mr Plasman Middle Row: Bob Barton, Ron Vanderkooi, Phyllis Geurink, Kathy Wierenga, Barb Zuverink, Rick Koop, Ray Steigenga Front Row: Karen Redder, Jan VandenBosch, Rosemary Overweg, Ruth Ten Brooke, Pat Corwin

That’s why, when I heard of fellow student John Schamper’s death in Paris, France, I was saddened but intrigued. How did John come to live in France? What education and job did he have that took him there? Along the way to the answers, I found a context that shed some light on the life he led as well as on that of the other members of our class.

Our class years led from 1950 - 1959, and our little rural Dutch immigrant village of Borculo, with its one faithful Christian Reformed church, two grocery stores, lots of small farms, a gas station and car repair shop, a restaurant, a barbershop, and a lumber company, would have looked very progressive to the generations of settlers who had come before. Still, at that point, we lived on the edge of poverty in a post depression, post war, rural America. We learned the value of a dollar and that hard work would be rewarded. We trusted the adults around us to care for and protect us. We lived in a seemingly safe cocoon, unaware of the Cold War currents swirling around us.

Every day, we entered the three room school building that had already stood there for over 80 years. We climbed the rounded out stairs that had been shaped by the hundreds of students who had come before us. We smelled the oiled wood floors and checked the chalked notes on the tall blackboard wall. We put our coats and bags in our cubbies at the back of the classroom and went to our seats. It was a world of order and responsibility. School started with prayer, Bible reading and songs. Then classes began in a rotating order so that all subjects would be covered. Since each room had 2-3 classes in it, the teacher taught one grade at a time and give the others seat work to do. If you completed your work, you could read a book, draw or listen to the other class. In that way, we were often learning the curriculum of the next year or semester. It wasn’t until 6th grade that we learned History, Geography, and Civics, but we always had Bible classes and penmanship! Interestingly, our report cards stated the school goals for success right up front, but said nothing about the grade average necessary for passing into the next grade. Perhaps that is why many of us were apprehensive at the end of the year, about whether we had been promoted or not.

Obviously, in this busy classroom, chatting and noise could not be tolerated and often resulted in missed recesses of which we had three.
This was the greatest punishment of all, for no one wanted to miss recess! There were games to play like “Red Rover, Red Rover” and “Capture the Flag”. The boys played softball and soccer and our teacher, Mrs. Taylor often played with them. Because some of them (including John) wore heavy farm boots, she had black and blue marks all over her legs from missed kicks. The girls, meanwhile, liked constructing huts along the back fence by hollowing out the wild shrubs and bushes that grew there. There was also playground equipment which would be banned in present playgrounds. There was a merry-go-round that was an accident waiting to happen. It was scary to ride but we did it anyway for the thrill. And then there was the Giant Stride, perhaps better named the Giant Strike! Here a center pole had five chains coming down from the top to handles we held on to as we ran around the circle and flew thorough the air. One person could encircle all of us so that as we ran, he would quickly be lifted high in the air nearly to the height of the trees! Thankfully, no one ever let go, as far as I know.

One of those recesses was at noon when lunch was served in the basement cafeteria. In 1946 Pres.Truman signed into law the National School Lunch Act. Its goal was to improve student diets and to prop up food prices by absorbing farm surpluses. For our many poor farm families, this was a godsend. Many of us remember those meals, but especially the peanut butter sandwiches! The two faithful lunch ladies, Mrs. Koop and Mrs. De Groot, took a pound of real butter and melted it into a tin of peanut butter, and then slathered it onto slices of soft bread! Delicious! Since the meals were created from food surplus commodities, they were sometimes unappealing but always free or nearly free. Some students still find it impossible to eat egg salad sandwiches or spaghetti whose sauce seemed to be watered down catsup! An occasional Friday treat was a paper cup full of grapefruit or orange juice.

Our curriculum was state based and whereas math and English were pretty static, history was changing all the time. Our textbooks were old, but the world was new. The Cold War had begun after the war’s end: McCarthyism, rumors of Russian spy invasions, Anti-Communist propaganda, the Cuban Revolution, Krushchev’s threats, nuclear weapons and subs - all of this was going on while most of us were oblivious to it. When we had basement air raid drills, they seemed meaningless. We saw Polio as a greater threat as we nibbled our sugar cubes laced with vaccine. We read our Weekly Reader which let in a bit of world news and the National Geographic that filled our tiny library, but meanwhile, at John’s house, the family was studying government, politics, and world events. His mom and dad had very little, but they respected education so much that they filled their house with books and debated topics of significance. And John loved it. He was quiet and shy, but very intelligent, and he had an insatiable curiosity about the world outside of ours. He couldn't wait to get out there. As the only Democratic family within miles, the Schampers sometimes debated their neighbors on issues, but always won - except when Ike Eisenhower beat Adlai Stevenson!

Mr. Plasman

Later, for the precious few, television became a news source, but most of us were more interested in The Micky Mouse Club, Space Rangers, The Lone Ranger and Mr. Wizard. We had no phones or computers, but we were busy. Many of us were members of the school 4-H Clubs The guys made wood working projects led by Mr. Plasman, the upper grades teacher and principal. The girls made sewing projects taught by moms from the community. All of us had to show our projects at the county fair for judging. Every week we also had to memorize our church catechism lessons on which we were tested. Many of us had chores to do, but after that we were free to ride bikes, play sports, and explore. Some of us got to know the Mexican migrants who picked seasonal vegetables and fruits. Despite the language barrier, they happily taught us to make tortillas and tacos. They opened our eyes to a different kind of poverty.

By the time we graduated in 1959, Sputnik had been launched and the formation of the Viet
Cong had begun. Our class was divided when some went to Zeeland Public High School and others went to Holland Christian High School. After graduating from ZHS, John wanted to join the Air Force, but he was rejected because of problems with his feet (he walked on his toes). His excellent record at Zeeland HS won him a scholarship to Michigan State where he earned a degree in Agriculture and Economics. From there he went to to the University of Wisconsin where he earned a doctorate in U.S Government. At that point he was recruited by the Department of Agriculture to go to third world countries to assist them in improving their agricultural processes and their banking systems. He worked in many countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. While he was in the Congo for a conference, he met his future wife Paule, a French diplomat working for NATO providing food and relief to refugees. They had much in common. After their marriage, they lived in Paris as a home base while he traveled. Later, they had a son who is now a college professor. During this time, John became fluent in French, which served him well in the next stage of his work.

John retired early from his diplomatic work but then accepted several private contract jobs which took him to many political hotspots including Iraq and Ukraine. He was always secretive about his work, but this fit his quiet nature perfectly.
It was in Paris early this year that he was overtaken by two severe illnesses and passed away quickly. He had led an exceptional life, but it was born of his humble past, his strong ambition and the influence of so many good people. The Borculo School and its teachers, the church and its pastors, concerned parents and even the veterans who had seen the world as it really was, all knew that a momentum had to be created to propel students to move ahead and create a better world.

This same influence benefited all the members of this class. We now include two pastors, a business owner, skilled workers, a Special Education Aide, a nurse, a school administrator, a PhD. professor and textbook writer, a prison manager(now sadly deceased) an English teacher and, of course, lots of mothers and fathers who know the power of teaching and mentorship.
When we graduated, classmate Bob Barton wrote a class prophesy for us. He missed the mark on most of us (sorry, Bob), but he was right in his final words; “ Even if our prophecy does not come completely true, we feel confident that every one of the members of our class will become honest, hard-working citizens and will truly make their parents proud of them.”
This was certainly true of John.
Rest in Peace, dear friend.

2014 Class Reunion Front Row: Phyllis Geurink Vruggink, Karen Redder Ouwenga, Rosemary Overweg Robbins, Ray Steigenga Back Row: Larry Redder, Rick Koop, John Schamper, Allen Petroelje, Art DeRoo, Ron VanderKooi

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Agriculture Class: Raising Ducks and Racing Cars By Robert Essenburg

3/5/2022

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When I was growing up as a boy in Borculo, there were very few farmers who raised ducks. I was fascinated by the large flock of amusing, white Peking ducks that were being raised by our next-door neighbor, Nick Zylstra. Each year, he raised hundreds of ducks on his farm that was just south of our farm on Bingham Street and 96th Avenue. Our neighbor had a very large pond located just east of his barn, and his ducks could usually be found swimming in this pond.

In the winter months the pond would be frozen, and the neighbor kids would often go ice skating or play hockey there. The ducks would sometimes also be there sitting close together so a portion of the pond would melt from the heat from their bodies, and they could still swim in a small area. We had to be careful not to skate near the ducks.

When I started high school as a freshman in 1950, we were offered a new subject to choose from. It was a subject that had been taught years ago but had since been discontinued. The new subject was a general course in agriculture, which also included farm shop.

Zeeland High School, 1950.

This new course was being taught by a recent graduate from Michigan State University named Ben Hilbrands. He was a single young man when he began teaching at Zeeland High School. Soon one of his favorite sayings was “that’s a nice-looking chick”. It was not too long before he met a young lady and married her.

For a number of years, the hatchery business had been growing in the Zeeland area. The annual Zeeland Chick and Egg Show was one of the biggest for the poultry industry in the United States. At the end of World War II, the city of Zeeland had 21 hatcheries with an additional 20 hatcheries in the surrounding areas. The incubator capacity was over 3 million, with 11 million chicks hatched annually, about one-half of all the baby chicks sold in Michigan.

One of the 41 hatcheries in the Zeeland area was located in Borculo, across the road from the Borculo Christian Reformed Church. The Reliable Poultry Farm was started by Paul DeGroot, and later operated by Peter Walters (see previous story “Paul DeGroot and the Hatchery Business”).

In 1930, the sports teams of Zeeland High School took their name from the industry that helped build the town. They were called the Zeeland Chix, and the high school paper was called the “Peeper”.
When we started our new agriculture course at Zeeland High School in 1950, farming as we had known it in the past was rapidly undergoing change. Farms were getting larger and yields from crops were beginning to be much larger. Dairy and poultry production were also increasing. On our farm we had just sold our team of horses and replaced them with a tractor. The century of the horse had ended and now a farmer used tractors and other more modern farm machinery.
The century of the family farm was disappearing.

This is a stock photo of the new 1950 Allis Chalmers C. tractor that replaced our team of horses on our farm. The new tractor cost $1,325 and we kept it on our farm for the next 50 years.

These are 3 of my grandchildren driving the same tractor 50 years later.

In 2007 we sold this tractor to someone living in Rudyard, MI, in Michigan's upper peninsula. This picture shows the tractor after it was restored, being shown in a local 4th of July parade.

Our agriculture class was designed to teach us how to adjust to the changes taking place in farming. In fact, the year 1953 was when our neighborhood threshing crew threshed together for the very last time. Something seemed to be lost in our neighborhood after this. My father then bought a small threshing machine to thresh our own grain.

Here is my brother Arnold pitching bundles of wheat into our small threshing machine by himself, instead of what used to be a crew of 20.

Taking the agriculture class allowed us to join the local chapter of the FFA (Future Farmers of America). Our class took a number of field trips to successful local farms and even to Michigan State University to observe the agricultural research being done there.
Mr. Hilbrands encouraged us to choose a special project related to agriculture, to be completed each summer on our farms. I decided to raise a flock of 75 ducks. We had a pond on our farm that we called the “water hole”, located in a cow pasture just south of our house. Our cows would drink water there and also wade in it during some of the hot summer days.

The “water hole”

The next spring, I went to one of the Zeeland chick hatcheries that also sold day old, fuzzy ducklings, and purchased 75 of them.

I converted an old rabbit hutch into a place to raise the ducks and hung a heat lamp over the coop to keep them warm for the first weeks. Later they were allowed to be kept in a fenced area next to the coop. I would feed them each day with a wet mash, using some of my father’s chicken feed and mixing it with water. As soon as they were able, they were allowed to leave the pen and freely roam the barnyard. They could be called range-raised ducks.

This is my brother Rich playing with the friendly ducks.

The ducks usually moved around the yard in groups. It was not long before they discovered the pond, and each day they would leave the yard and march single file to spend the day swimming. Each evening they would return to their pen. My mother was always fascinated by this daily parade.

My mother’s picture of the daily duck parade, which also captured her shadow

My younger siblings and also some of the neighborhood kids liked to watch the ducks swimming in the pond.

In the winter months the pond would freeze over, and we could go ice skating on it.

Here are my brothers Rich, Don, Jerry, and Arnold holding Cliff.

In the fall, I sold my 75 ducks to a local poultry buyer, netting a very good profit. I also did this same project the next year as well.

The agriculture class also included Farm Shop. Here, we learned how to use an arc welder and other tools related to the repair of farm machinery. At age 14, I was especially fascinated with the arc welder. It soon gave me some ideas of what I could do if I owned one.

In 1949, my father had retired his 1929 Model A Ford after 20 years of service. It sat parked in our backyard with a couple of tires and a battery missing. In the summer of 1951, the Berlin Raceway opened, and soon a number of my friends from Borculo were watching the races on Saturday nights, on the ⅜ mile dirt track.

Some of the modified race cars were old Model A Fords like ours.

At this time, we could buy small arc welders from an ad in Popular Mechanics magazine that could be used on the standard 110-volt electricity that we had on the farm.

With one of these welders, I would be able to cut the top off from the old Model A and convert it into a racecar to drive around our 40-acre farm. I knew my father would never approve of this idea so I told him we could make a pickup out of the old car. He somewhat approved of that, so I took my profits from raising ducks and bought a welder for $39.95, as well as a battery and a couple of used tires. After putting some gas in the tank - low and behold - it started up. The muffler had a large hole in it, so it was very noisy.

After cutting off the top of the car I built a small platform, so it looked like a farm pickup. But the only loads we ever carried in it were my siblings.
Our Borculo racetrack was a trail that ran behind our farm buildings between our fields. I only drove the car when my father was not home.

Here I am driving my younger siblings Jerry, Don, Joyce, and Rich.

Thanks to my agriculture class (my duck project to raise money and farm shop to learn welding) we had a lot of fun racing around the farm with that old Model A Ford. We also continued visiting the Berlin Raceway on Saturday nights to watch the races on the dirt track.

Berlin Raceway track in the 1950’s

With the changes in farming, most of my fellow agriculture class students eventually found jobs in other areas of employment besides farming when we graduated from high school. But some of the lessons we learned in that class helped us in our careers later on in life.

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Beekeeping in Borculo by Robert Essenburg

2/8/2022

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I don’t think my father ever really wanted to be a beekeeper. The five hives of honeybees located in the backyard of our home just happened to be included in the total price of the 40-acre farm when my father purchased the farm for $3,500 in 1937. The price included the land, the buildings, the farm implements, and the livestock. When my parents moved to the farm on March 1, the beehives were safely covered with snow.

This picture is similar to what the 5 beehives looked like in our backyard.

A general farmer at this time always had to learn new skills as things were always changing during the agricultural revolution taking place on most farms in America. But I’m sure my father wasn’t too excited about learning the necessary skills to become a successful beekeeper.
The farmer and former owner of our new farm, James Klanderman, offered to teach my father how to care for the bees in the Spring, once the snow melted. Mr. Klanderman said that compared with other creatures on the farm, bees did not require a lot of daily work, like feeding or mucking out stalls. But he did say that bees were wild, and this meant that they were sometimes a challenge to work with. He added that you had to work with them and cooperate with them, and not try to domesticate or dominate them. This was one concept that my father never seemed to grasp, and he got stung often.
When Mr. Klanderman came back to the farm in the Spring, he provided two essential things to care for bees – the smoker, and the head veil for protection from bee stings.

Pictured are the actual veil and smoker used by my father in 1937. My brother Richard recently found them in a pile of junk in the old chicken coop. As you can see, the billows are broken after all these years.

The smoker consisted of a round metal canister that would hold dry fuel, like pine needles or the dried fruit of a sumac bush. When a fire was started, it would slowly burn this material, producing lots of smoke.

My father used sumac berries as fuel in our smoker (pictures from Wikipedia).

The smoker was constructed with a set of billows, so when the billows were hand-pumped, they would blow air into the canister. This would force the smoke out of the canister and over the hive, to cover the bees.

Pictured is a vintage antique smoker complete with bellows (picture from Ebay).

Because of the dense smoke, the bees would think the hive was on fire and they would begin gorging themselves on honey in anticipation of flying away. This would cause them to experience a food coma, making them lethargic and harmless, so the beekeeper could lift the honey out of the hive, without getting stung by angry bees.
Another thing Mr. Klanderman warned my father about was the danger of swarming. This often happened when the hive was getting crowded and the queen and a large number of the hive would leave the hive and look for a new home. The bees would swarm around the queen temporarily on a nearby branch of a tree.

Picture from rootsimple.com

The cluster of bees would then send out scouts to look for a permanent location to live. When this happened, the beekeeper would have to act quickly to try to keep the swarm, sometimes cutting off the branch of the tree and laying it near a vacant hive.
My brother Milt and I were often warned not to play in the area of the beehives. One day we decided to check on a beehive to see what was going on inside. I lifted up the cover and we were immediately attacked by angry bees. I started running but my two-year-old brother didn’t move fast enough. By the time he got back to the house he had been stung 30 times! My mother called the doctor for advice, and as it turned out he was fine.
My father sold some honey to the neighbors for a few years, and we had some for our own family’s use. But he never enjoyed working with the bees. One day, not too many years after my father started keeping bees, someone asked him if he ever thought about selling his hives, and he eventually did sell them. It was the end of his beekeeping business in Borculo.

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Borculo: a Surviving Sawmill Town from Michigan’s Lumbering Era by Robert Essenburg

7/20/2021

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Although Borculo was not one of the first sawmill towns in West Michigan, it became one of the last ones to survive. It still thrives today, even after the timber was harvested from its land years ago.
After the Indian treaties of 1821 and 1836 were signed, land speculators from New England arrived in Michigan to buy up land and the valuable timber growing on it.
One of the first land speculators and lumber cruisers to purchase timber land in West Michigan was John Ball, who moved to Grand Rapids from the state of New York in 1836 (see story of John Ball
https://borculo.weebly.com/blog/john-ball-and-borculo-by-bob-essenburg)

Soon after timber land was purchased for logging, sawmills began to spring up all over Michigan. Many of the early sawmills were powered by water from rivers and streams.
One of the first sawmill towns was called Jenisonville located in Georgetown Township. The first settlers to arrive there in 1835 were the Jenison family who purchased a tract of 1,600 acres of timber-covered land. They used waterpower from the nearby creek flowing into the Grand River to operate their first sawmill.
At this time the Eastern White Pine was the most desired tree for its lumber. The largest stands of white pine in West Michigan were located west of Jenison in the sandy soils of Blendon Township, growing westward all the way to the town of Borculo. Some of these white pine logs were floated on rafts down the Grand River to be sawed into lumber in Grand Haven. From there the lumber was shipped to large cities located on the Great Lakes.
But other white pines were sawed into lumber at sawmills located nearer the Grand River in Blendon Township. At one time the Blendon Lumber Company owned one half of all the land in Blendon Township.
This map of 1864 shows the railroad (outlined in red) going from Blendon Township to the Grand River. It also shows the “Dutch Road” (in blue) going from Grand Rapids to Holland in 1847.
(see also https://borculo.weebly.com/blog/borculo-the-last-of-the-colony-towns-of-ottawa-county-by-robert-essenburg)

The Blendon Lumber Company did not harvest their white pines immediately after John Ball started to purchase the land in 1836. The seven-mile distance from the river of this tract of pines was not yet profitable because of this distance. It was not until 20 years later in 1856 that they came up with a plan to build a logging railroad from the site of the white pines to a large sawmill located on the banks of the Grand River called Blendon Landing.

Photo courtesy of Michigan History Magazine. Railroad logging trains could be used to carry logs from the woods to a sawmill located a great distance away.

They brought in a full-size steam locomotive to haul the logs from the woods to the sawmill. They built their own railroad tracks using mostly wood with a ⅝ inch thick by 2 and ½ inch wide steel strap to form the rails for the wheels of the locomotive to ride on.
Some early settlers found some good timber on the farms they purchased. Transporting them from their farm to a sawmill was always a challenge. They often used oxen or horses to drag or skid the logs over the ground. When the ground was frozen this worked quite well. When the ground was muddy and soft the logs would dig into the soil.
In 1875 a wagon maker came up with an invention that solved this problem. Silas Overpack from Manistee, Michigan invented the “Big Wheel”. The two wheels of this wagon were like regular wooden wagon wheels except they were ten feet in height! Logs could be attached under the axle and lifted up so they would not drag on the ground. He later sold thousands of these Big Wheels to the lumber industry in the United States.

A Big Wheel with its 10-foot-high wheels (picture courtesy of Michigan History Magazine)

(Picture courtesy of Michigan History Magazine) Often these old photographs tell us a story that words cannot accomplish.

It looks like the Hughes Sawmill was using Big Wheels in their sawmill located in Hudsonville in 1885.

This is the B&T Hughes Sawmill on 40th Avenue just north of VanBuren in 1885.

Borculo did not officially become a sawmill town until Geert Moeke arrived in Borculo in 1881 and established a large sawmill just south of Borculo where the Crestview Golf Course is now located. His sawmill was powered by a large steam engine.

At this time there was still an abundance of standing timber located around the Borculo area. Geert Moeke purchased many farms for their timber and brought the logs to his mill to be sawed into lumber. He later sold these farms to early settlers in Borculo after he had harvested the timber.

My grandfather Roelof Essenburg got a job working at the Moeke sawmill in 1885 at the age of 18. He boarded at the large Moeke house with other single men for the next five years. He was a teamster who brought in logs from area farms to be cut into lumber. At one time the Moeke sawmill was Borculo’s largest employer. Around the year 1900 much of the timber in the area had been harvested.

The Moeke home in 1889 with the attached bunkhouse on the back for lumberjacks to board there.

In 1905, the Moeke sawmill closed and in 1905 the Moeke families and some of their employees moved up to Kalkaska, Michigan to set up a sawmill operation there.

From left to right: Henry Wesseldyk, Albert Moeke, William Weenum, William Smith, Nick Beyer, and John Moeke on the roof. My grandfather’s brother John Essenburg also moved to Kalkaska with his wife and 8 children and was a partner in this mill operation for one year.

After one year of operation in Kalkaska, the Moeke families left Kalkaska to come back and set up a sawmill in Zeeland. It was located along a railroad siding (off the main line) and now logs could be brought into the sawmill by rail. The Moeke sawmill bought a larger planer to produce finished lumber. They continued this very successful business for the next 50 years.

After the Moeke sawmill closed in Borculo there were a number of small sawmill operations that continued cutting trees into logs. The Henry Wesseldyk, Albert Bosch sawmill was one of these. They used a huge steam engine tractor to run their sawmill. They also used the steam engine to power their threshing machine during the threshing season.

This is the threshing rig of Albert Bosch, who is standing in front of his steam engine on his farm north of Borculo. Albert Bosch was a son-in-law of Henry Wesseldyk.

This is Albert Bosch's sawmill rig. The men in the background are left to right: John TenBroeke, Gerrit TenBroeke, Henry Wesseldyk, Joe Wesseldyk, Albert Bosch, Ben Groenhof. The boy in the front is Henry Geurink. The women left to right are: Minnie (Wesseldyk) Bosch, Cecilia Bos, Catherine Bos, Alena Bosch, Ruth Bos, Louise Gahan, Catherine Bosch, Dorothy Geurink.

When the lumbering era came to an end the lumbered over land was sold to settlers for farming. This ushered in the farming era. One big problem with using timbered land for farming was the large stumps that were left in the ground. Some farmers planted crops around them.

Others wanted them pulled out. One invention at this time was called the Stump Puller. My maternal grandfather Martin Elzinga had lots of pine stumps on the farm he bought on Tyler Street in 1890. For him planting crops around pine stumps would never do. His neighbor owned a stump puller so they spent his first winter pulling out all the stumps.

Photo courtesy of Michigan Historical Collection. A home-made stump puller.

The stump puller consisted of three large beams formed into a tripod. With a series of pulleys and ropes the stump could be lifted out of the ground by a pair of oxen or a team of horses. The roots of some stumps were so dense that they were used to fence in cattle in a pasture.

Pictured here is a large commercial stump pulling machine made in 1890. Many improvements had been made from the first hand-made stump pullers. This huge stump was lifted out of the ground by 4 oxen.

Once the stumps and brush were cleared out and the land drained most of the land now was used for farming.
For the next 60 years, Borculo became an agricultural community. Soon Borculo had a harness shop, a black smith shop, a creamery cooperative, a feed mill, a lumber company, a grocery store, a chick hatchery, an implement dealer, a garage, and a gas station. They also added the village school, church, and cemetery. This was the second or farming era in Borculo.
The 1950s ushered in another change - the end of the family farm as we knew it. Soon technology and agribusiness began to take over farming. Fewer people were needed to produce our food. Borculo was changing from a farming community to a bedroom community. People were driving to neighboring towns and cities to work but would return in the evening to sleep. Some of the farmland was converted into housing developments for the people living in this third era. For many years now, people have been living in this third era where the village of Borculo is thriving and is a great place to live.

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Early Settlers in the Borculo Area from 1868-1900 by Robert Essenburg

3/29/2021

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In 1868 the Borculo area was still a vast undrained swampland that was unsuitable for farming. There were about 20 sections of vacant land in Blendon and Olive townships that no one had yet purchased. At this time there were no drains dug and there were few roads. Much of the land was still owned by the lumberman John Ball, who had cut down most of the valuable white pines and other timber (see 12/20/14 blog).

The first settler was Jacobus Klanderman, who arrived in 1868. There were also three families who settled just west of the Borculo village on Port Sheldon Street. The first was the Gerrit Van Heuvelen family who rented a farm 1.5 miles west of Borculo in 1867. In 1868 this farm was purchased by the Berend Kuyers family. In 1868 Jan Jacobsen purchased a farm located one mile west of Borculo at Port Sheldon and 104th Avenue. The Van Heuvelen and Jacobsen wives were Essenburg sisters and aunts of my grandfather Roelof Essenburg.

These first settlers to arrive in Borculo chose to settle on land located in the area of the Borculo Hill. This area was on a 20-foot rise above the surrounding swamp land. In 1869, five more families, including the Lokers, Lindershots, and TenBroeks came and settled on the hill. Some of the early settlers built log cabins for their first house and lived there a number of years before building a frame house. Most of these early settlers used oxen for farming, logging, and transportation.

Plat map from 1876 showing the farms only in areas with high enough elevation.

In the late 1800’s, two large drains were dug to drain the swamp. One of the drains was called the Blendon and Olive Drain and ran north of Borculo to the Pigeon River and into Lake Michigan. The other drain was called the Bosch-Hulst Drain and ran in a southwest direction into the Macatawa River and then into Lake Michigan at Holland. After these two drains were dug, settlers began buying the swampland for farming.

Plat map of 1897, 21 years after the first plat map, showing the names of the many early Dutch settlers who were able to purchase a farm after the drains were in place.

By the year 1900, most of the 20 sections of formerly vacant swampland in both Blendon and Olive townships were divided into over 200 new farms. In the Borculo area, many of these new farmers were originally from the Netherlands and so were used to farming wetland. Many of the farms had large stumps left in the ground. The farmers had to use a stump puller to lift them out of the ground. Some of the farms also had some good timber left on them which they sold to local sawmills.

Borculo Church and School

The Borculo CRC was organized in 1883. This was 15 years after the first settlers arrived in Borculo in 1868. Some of the early settlers would walk 5 miles on Sunday to worship in Zeeland churches. Because the road to Zeeland crossed a wet swampy area, traveling to Zeeland each week was difficult.

Some of the early settlers would gather on Sundays at the home of Jacobus Klanderman. Later, another group gathered in the Borculo School, which was built in 1876. The two groups then merged to form the Holland Christian Reformed Church of Borculo. Nearly every early settler joined this church when it was organized in 1883.

It even included 16 families who came from the Bentheim Province of Germany (just across the border from the Netherlands). This group had been members of the German Reformed Church, and although they spoke the German language, they soon switched to the Dutch language as used at the Borculo CRC. Borculo thus had a small German population with names like Brunnink, Meppelink, Morsink, Raterink, Zuverink, Vollink, Wiegmink, Balder, Bussis, Geerts, Klinge, Kemme, Gruppen, Gebben, and Sal.

Initially a small church building was built on the southwest corner of the Borculo intersection where Koops was later located. Five years later the building was much too small to hold all of the new settlers arriving in Borculo. A new
church was then built on the northeast corner, and it was built to hold 500 people. This church burned down in 1927 during the morning worship service (see 1/26/2020 blog).

Many of the early settlers had large families with 8-10 children. In later years, many of these children started to marry one another. As there were hardly any autos at this time, the young people were limited in how far they could travel by horse and buggy to find a mate, so many married within the local, close-knit community. Soon nearly every family became relatives of each other through marriage.

One of the largest family groups in the Borculo area was the Blauwkamp family. They descended from two brothers who were early settlers, Berend and Albert. They both had large families as did some of their children who married within the Borculo community.

The large Essenburg family started when two single brothers moved to Borculo in the 1880s to work in the Moeke sawmill. Later, they married girls from Borculo and started families. Roelof had eight children and Gerrit had eleven children. Over half of these children married someone from the Borculo area.

The next largest family group was the Bosch family with this family marrying into the early settlers group. The Ben DeRoo family also became a large family group with their ten children. Some of their children also had large families who married partners from the Borculo community.

Similar to children who lived in Amish communities, Borculo children grew up with many close relatives in the local church and school. When the Borculo school opened in 1876 they built a schoolhouse on the property ½ mile east of the Borculo intersection. It was 20 feet x 26 feet and cost $250. In 1889 a 20x20 addition was added.

In 1908 a new three-room school was built on the same site. A ninth grade was added in 1934 and tenth grade in 1935, and students would then transfer to Zeeland High School for their eleventh and twelfth grades. The building was used until 1968 when the Borculo school merged with Zeeland schools.

Borculo School in 1889.

My grandfather had 39 of his 47 grandchildren attend the Borculo District #5 School. Thirty-one were my first cousins.

The Ben DeRoo family had 40 grandchildren attend the Borculo School over the years. The Albert DeRoo family were also first cousins to all the 31 Essenburg cousins. And they were first cousins of their 34 DeRoo family cousins. So over the years, they had 65 first cousins attending the Borculo School!

I was surprised at the age gap between my oldest and youngest cousins, with the oldest born in 1911 and the youngest in 1953. The first graduated in 1925 and the last in 1967.

Schoolhouse built in 1908

Following are the names of early settlers in the Borculo area (1868-1900). They were looking for available farmland, as other areas were already crowded. The list was completed from old plat maps, land deeds, and church records.

Following is a table showing many of the marriages between the early settlers, as well as their descendants. It is a partial list.

The Borculo CRC membership directory of 1954 shows many interesting statistics related to the family memberships at this time. There were still listed in the directory 48 family names that went back to the original settlers. Total membership was 738, and of these, 434 retained the old family names, while another 129 people were related to original group, leaving only 125 members not related to the original settlers.

Another interesting statistic is the relationship of the students of the community who went to the Borculo School and their membership at Borculo CRC. When I graduated in 1950 from the 3-room Borculo school, it had 90 students. During the 9 years I attended, there were only 2 students who were not members of the Borculo CRC. In the next 5 graduating classes, from 1951 to 1955, all of the graduates attended Borculo CRC.

Plat map of 1955, showing the names of many families still living in the area 58 years after the plat map shown earlier.

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Herb Schout's Autobiography

12/7/2020

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Introduction
Herbert Schout was born to Johannes and Jessie (Steigenga) Schout 11/22/1920 and died 5/5/2005 and is buried in the Borculo Cemetery. The Johannes Schout family lived at 6556 96th Ave, in Borculo, MI.

An 1897 Plat Map of the Borculo area west of 96th Ave. showing the farm of Hubrecht Schout and later Johannes Schout.

A 1928 picture of Herb on the right and sisters Ella and Harriet to his right. In the background is the farm of Gradus and Sarah Geurink.

This is a reunion of the Hubrecht Schout family taken around 1955. Herbert Schout is on the far right with his daughter Jane on his shoulders. The man in the middle with the white hat is Herb's dad Johannes with wife Jessie on his right.

Herb's 10th grade graduation picture class of 1936. Herb is on the far right.

Herb is with his nephews Harvard and Don VandenBosch around 1943

This is the Model T Ford which Herb talks about in his autobiography with one of his sisters in the foreground.

Herb (Uncle Herb to me) attended Borculo Public School through the 10th grade and then finished high school at Zeeland High School.
In 1936, he wrote an autobiography which was probably a school assignment and which appears below. Herb and another Borculo boy, Gord Geurink, went on to start the Hudsonville Body Shop which was passed on to his son John, and is now called Auto Body Experts with locations in Hudsonville, Holland, Zeeland, and Wayland.

Herb was named after his grandfather, Hubrecht, who earlier farmed the land owned by Herb's dad, Johannes. Hubrecht helped build the Borculo Public School and was the Board chairman for over 30 years.

My Ancestors by Herbert Schout

(Everything in brackets was added by Herb's nephew, Don VandenBosch)

My father's father (Hubrecht) was of Dutch descent but was born in America. He was born near the place where I now live (Borculo, MI). When his family came to this place they decided to settle there and cleared the land to begin farming. As more people began to settle in the neighborhood, he took the trades of carpenter and butcher as sidelines.

As a carpenter he helped build the first school in the district and was a member in the school board for many years

My father's mother (Hattie Wonnink) was also of Dutch descent and was born in the Netherlands, but later came to America.

My mother's parents (Jacob and Aukje Steigenga) were both born in the Netherlands but in Friesian territory. They came to this country as a married couple with two or three children. They settled in Zeeland and my grandfather worked at the brickyard. They later moved to some land almost one mile north and one and one half miles east of Borculo. There they brought up a family of nine children and cleared some land, secured some cattle, and started farming.

They were required to get their supplies from Zeeland with oxen. The price of farm products at that time was very cheap while supplies were often expensive.

As a child my mother was required to help her brothers and sisters herd cattle and hogs in a woods some miles from home.

One day she was sitting along side the path that led through the woods when one of their long horned oxen came along and upon seeing her merely hoisted her on its horns and tossed her aside without injury. Later in life she met my father with the results of a love affair that ended in marriage.

My Early Childhood
On November 22, 1920 either fortune or misfortune passed over the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Johannes Schout and forgot me there. Maybe the weight was too much for him, but I tipped the scale nearly to nine pounds. This state of normality didn't last long. I grew tired of milk at least my stomach did and I rebelled with it to the distress of my mother. At 4 months of age I amounted to seven and one half pounds of grief.

I was then taken to a clinic in Grand Rapids as there didn't happen to be any clinics nearer to home. Here I received a ration that changed the tide toward recovery. The tide was slow in returning for it wasn't until I had reached the age of 18 months that I was again a normal child. I didn't get a tooth until the age of 12 months and I started stepping at the age of 14 months.

All seems to have gone well for a year and 4 months when I laid hands on the chicken pox and sometime later the measles. As if this wasn't enough, I started whooping it up with the whooping cough.

In the midst of these hardships I still managed to get in a few words two of which were “wallow” for yellow and “guck” for duck.

I finally reached the age of education and one chapter of my life, that of early childhood, had passed.

A Bloody Experience
One day way back in the early 1920's my sister and I had contrived to amuse ourselves by playing with a bicycle chain. We would take turns at trying to swing the chain around our head and after it had gathered enough momentum we would loose our hold and let her fly. While one was throwing the others would sit in a cart some distance off to see if the hurler could succeed in throwing the chain farther than before.
It was my turn to be spectator so I took a seat on the cart to watch the results. Results were not long in coming, for when my sister got her wind up and released the chain, it came speeding my way. My head turned out to be its hurdle over which it wouldn't jump and therefore neatly wound around my head and ended with a thud that caused a hole in my upper story.
With a yell from me, salty rivers started weathering their courses down my cheeks and a bloody current down the side of my head. I was taken into the house where bandages soon stopped the bleeding and once more experience had lent a hand in teaching me.

Lost
Some eight to ten years ago our family was to have an outing and was to visit the Lakewood Farm, which was sometimes called Getz Farm.

We started on our excursion in the afternoon taking our lunch with us. We arrived there without mishap and proceeded to see the animals.

We passed through different portions of the farm and with the crowd slowly worked our way around, seeing the animals as we went. In the interesting scenes I had taken hold of a man's coat which I thought to be my dad's.

We arrived at the lion's cage and as a checkup on my bearings I looked up at the man whose coat I was holding and to my fear and amazement found that he whom I thought to be my father was a total stranger.

Panic and fear gripped me and one look at the lion in that mood was enough to fill my cup of distress. With a yell, small rivers began to course down my cheeks. This naturally drew attention and I blurted out my troubles. I was asked if I knew where our car was, and to my relief I happened to remember.

In the meantime my parents had begun to search the premises and were told that a small boy had been lost and had gone to the car. This started them to the car where I was found to their and my own relief.

School Days

When my fifth birthday rolled around I was sent to school accompanied by my two older sisters. My school career started and except for this year of 1936-1937 all took place in the Borculo Public School. I started school with Gilbert Schout in what was called beginners.

Our first teacher was very strict. We had to obey the rules or take a few slaps across the hands with a ruler or otherwise stand in a corner on tip toes keeping your nose in a little ring drawn on the blackboard. This teacher taught us one year. We then received another teacher who taught in that school until I had passed the second grade. I was then transferred to another room for there were three rooms in the school at that time. Each of these rooms had three grades.

I made each grade year by year without failing. When I had passed the eighth grade I thought I had reached the end of my education, but then ninth grade was placed in the school and I attended it. The following year the tenth grade was added. When this was added the high school grades were given a separate room and teacher.

With the completion of the tenth grade I received a diploma signifying that I had completed 10 grades of schooling.

In these ten grades I had seven teachers, not counting substitutes.

When we had substitutes we had great sport and the majority of pupils did very little studying.

This brings to close an uneventful school life up to the present time.

In one room of the Borculo School there were three grades, sixth, seventh, and eighth. This room had a long recitation bench at its front with the teacher's desk facing this. On an afternoon when the seventh grade was holding the teacher's attention with recitations, and I was in the sixth grade and therefore didn't have to recite, a schoolmate in the eighth grade and I started a conversation. I started off and on this method of wireless telegraphy he replied by placing his fingers in his ears and answering , “What?” I naturally wasn't to be outdone by this feat and therefore followed suit with a little more volume and right then and there real competition started.

Having closed our ears with our fingers we did not realize the amount of sound we were creating, but it must have been loud for we were soon interrupted by “Alright, Mr. What, you may stay after school.” Competition ended with a hush and we both went out of business for who can surpass the voice of an an angry teacher.

Hobbies

Hobbies, as most of us know, are the things we do as favorite pastimes.
My favorite hobbies are reading, teasing my sister, roaming in the woods, and playing a horn.
Reading as a hobby started when I was in the fourth grade. We had a small library in the school and from this the teacher read some books. These stories were interesting and aroused my curiosity to find out what other books and authors had to tell us about. In this way I have come to read most of Curwood's and Zane Grey's books besides which I have read many others.
You can usually identify an interesting book by its appearance for if it is interesting it will usually show wear.

I like to roam through the woods to see the wildlife they contain, but the forests around here are not many and wildlife is not abundant.

Teasing as a hobby is not such a useful pastime, although it gives you a fair indication of the patience of many people.

A poorly developed hobby of mine is music for it was but last year that I got possession an instrument and took a few lessons and I hope that develop it farther some day.

Playing checkers is another hobby of mine in which I indulge whenever I get a chance, but for the most part in the winter time. There is only one trouble with this hobby and that is finding opponents. None of our family, other than myself, indulge in checkers because they don't like the game very well enough to get practice. When they are beaten they detest the game still more and if you let them have the game the fun is taken out of it. Therefore I usually go to some of the public places of this village to play where they have a checker board. These places are the store and the oil station.

This is a useful hobby because it trains your mind to plan to figure out what the result of an action might be. It also teaches patience when you have to wait a long time for your opponent to move, but long periods in between moves makes the game somewhat monotonous.

My first driving lesson

My first driving lesson took place about four years ago.
We lived about one eighth of a mile from our barns and had taken the car to do noon chores and I was to drive back home. We had planned to move the house closer to the barn and with this purpose in mind we had secured a huge pile of sand that was to be graded about the house. This pile of sand lay between two driveways, one of which I was to use.

I placed myself behind the steering wheel and started the car. My father had taken a seat next to me and was ready for what might be coming.
The car was a model T and could take it as most of them can.
I started from the barn and made a beeline for the sand pile. When about halfway to the top I managed to turn the wheel and down we went for a tree that happened to be in our path. With a thumping heart I applied the brakes and my passenger turned the key but not before the car and tree had connected. Naturally with these three factors, the brakes, turning of the key, and the tree, we made a speedy stop.
We got out to survey the situation and found the fender tightly pressed for room between the tree and the fender. We pushed the car back a couple of feet. My father then took hold of the fender and bracing his knee against the wheel gave a quick jerk. Once more the car was fit for use and we went home but the car wasn't under my guardianship.

Future Ambitions

The future is a vague object that cannot be made definite until it arrives and so also are my ambitions. Ambitions are not always realized and the ambitions that I have in mind I don't expect to have realized either. These ambitions come from three sources, they are mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or medical work. These all require a great deal of preparation and are often intricate but interesting careers. Mechanical engineering includes many different types of machines. It is a useful career because the factories of today are all run by machinery. It is also promising for many of the new factories are installing machinery.

A medical career also has a future for in this age of speed there are many accidents that require the care of a doctor, but what the future has in store for me I do not know and will have to wait and see what's what when my high school education is completed.

Sister Harriet is in the wagon, but Johannes' barn and windmill in the background.

This too is Johannes' barn with Ella and Harriet in front. The barn was removed and there is now a driveway where the barn was.

A Google picture of Schout's house and the driveway on the right which passes through where the barn wa.

1954 Christmas dinner at Schout's dining room. Left to Right: Pam Gebben (little girl), Harriet Gebben, Harvard VandenBosch, Herb Schout , George VandenBosch, Johannes Schout. Notice the old phone on the wall.