THE KEY - A newspaper published by the 8th grade students of Borculo Public School in 19472/13/2017 Editor-in-chief.....................Alice Zuverink Literary Editor......................Norman Slagh News Editor...........................Sherwin Terpstra Art Editor...............................Willard Nyenbrink Business Editor......................Arthur Kraai Circulation Editor..................Herschel Weaver Humor Editor.........................John Harsevoort Henry Walters Sponsor...................................Mr. G. Plasman Editorials We, the pupils of the 8th grade of the Borculo Public School feel that we should publish this paper. We are doing this for the purpose of having the news of our school in the homes. Those who have contributed stories for this paper have done this for the purpose of improving their Grammar and Penmanship. We are hoping the parents will cooperate in buying our paper. With this fund we would like to make a contribution or memorial to the school when we graduate next May. The 8th Graders In this newspaper are articles by Harvard VandenBosch, Gayle Bussis, Karen Schamper, Harriet Bussis, Herschel Weaver, Alma De Roo, Howard Goodyke, Donna Klynstra, Vivian Petroelje, Clifford Huyser, Alma Vander Slacht, Henry Vanden Heuvel, John Petroelje, Willard Nyenbrink, Doris Petroelje, Sherwin Terpstra, Jonathon Blauwkamp, Gayle Huyser, and Glenda Lamer, but what I want to share here are the news stories from the Primary Room, Room 2, and Room 3. Primary Room Our Kindergarten this year was again a large one. It consists of Beverly Bos, Gerald De Roo, Marcia De Roo, Robert De Wys, Gerald Lee Essenburg, Jerry Lee De Vries, Thomas Koop, Bernard Jay Luurtsema, Kenneth Machiela, Gary Lee Raterink, Gary Schamper, Larry Nienhuis, Gladys Ann Ten Broeke, and Dale Ver Beek. Since our room is so crowded, we are letting them go home at noon. This, too, comes as a suggestion from our school commissioner, who believes that 5 year olds should attend school only half days. Our room has been rather fortunate in having few pupils absent because of sickness. Of course, many have had to stay at home on account of the snow and stormy weather. Our room was enrolled 100% in the Junior Red Cross. We gave $2.86 for this cause. We also did our share for Infantile Paralysis. David and Rachel Blauwkamp had their tonsils removed during Christmas vacation. Roger Wayne Steigenga also had his adenoids and tonsils removed about a week later. Bernard Luurtsma had the Chicken-pox, but no else seemed to have been exposed, so we had no epidemic at school. Our cook, Mrs. De Groot, was rather unfortunate in spraining her ankle during Christmas vacation. All the school children remembered her with a basket of fruit. While she was unable to come, Mrs. Vonk was here to take her place. We have purchased some new library books. The children have been quite interested in reading them. Many of the boys and girls have had birthdays during the school year. We had "treats" from Arnold Essenburg, Gerald Koop, William De Wys, David Blauwkamp, Harvey Dale Meppelink, Dale Slagh, Roger Wayne Steigenga, Mary Ann Vanden Heuvel, Gladys Ann Ten Broeke, Dale Ver Beek, and Glenn Essenburg. A few weeks ago the Bussis Implement Co. had a Progress Caravan to show some of their new equipment, and also suggestions how to change houses and barns to make them more modern. We took a walk over there in the morning. Some were interested in a milking machine, while others looked at refrigerators and cupboards. We received a new cupboard. It is so useful for our textbooks, but also for our new library books. This enables children to read books they have read in the beginning of the school year, as well as reading easy and simple library books. Room 2 We are going to Chicago on April 11, 1947. Twelve children from our room are going. Mrs. Gerald Plasman is going too. We will go at 7:00 A.M.. We will go to Soldier's Field and to the Field Museum and to Shedd's Aquarium. The cost is $4.40. If your son or daughter is going send a lunch along, They will get one meal. We will be back in Holland at 10:kkk00 P.M. Jerry Mc Safety accompanied by Sgt. Ferneldus of the Detroit Police Safety Dept. will entertain and instruct school children here March 28, at 10:00 A.M. in the school. We are starting to play soft ball again. It is a lot of fun to play again. In the beginning of the year Vivian Petroelje had an operation. She was out of school for two weeks. While she was in the hospital her room bought her a basket of fruit. In February we had a snow storm and we were out of school for three days. Those three days we could play in the snow. In December we had our pictures taken in school. It took about two months before we got out pictures. Our room sold Christmas seals. If we sold 100, 50, or 25 we could get a comb, a tooth brush, a ruler, a pencil or a notebook. Our room sold about 1,890 seals. For the room we got two light weight bats. The day befor Christmas we had our Christmas program. Then we had vacation until the day after New Year's Day. The fifth grade has been making Easter lilies for their art work. The fourth grade made daffodils and the third grade made bluebirds. Jonathon Blauwkamp Alfred Bosch Room 3 News I'm sure you have all herd or read about the Red Cross Fund. People are going around to your homes collecting for the Red Cross. Our room packed four Red Cross boxes for children in far away lands who do not have as many good things as we do. There were all kinds of nice things in them and many useful things. We had a man at our school last week talking about safety. His name was Sgt. Ferneltus. He is a member of the Detroit Police force. He was accompanied by Jerry Mc Safety. There is also a train ride coming this month. Many of the children are going. There are many of the parents going along. There are fifty of our school going. We're going to see three places; the Field's Museum, Soldier's Field, and Shedd's Aquarium. Many children are playing ball as the sun starts to shine. They are getting ready early so they can win all the games they play. There have been a lot of children absent the last few weeks because of the flu. We are having one new dictionary. This is a large unabridged dictionary. The new maps which we got recently are very nice. The old ones were all worn out. We could hardly find places on them. They are a great help to us in Geography and many other studies. We have received several new library books. They are very interesting to read in our spare tim Gayle Huyser THIS SCHOOL NEWSPAPER WRITTEN IN 1947 WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR YOU TO SEE WHEN YOU ATTEND THE ALL SCHOOL REUNION ON APRIL 29, 2017 FROM 10 AM TO 1 PM AT THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE. In 1847, Rev. Albertus C. Van Raalte arrived in the Holland area from the Netherlands to establish a Dutch Christian colony in Western Michigan. There were also other groups in the Netherlands of like-minded immigrants led by other ministers that also came that same year a started to settle in the surrounding areas. The unique thing about the immigration was that these people came in groups. In some instances a whole church group led by its minister boarded a ship and relocated in America in Western Michigan. When these people arrived here they held their first worship service in a clearing in the woods as they had no church building. Soon after Van Raalte arrived in the area, he began purchasing tracts of land to accommodate the large number of immigrants coming from the Netherlands who were willing to join him in America. In the first years here, he purchased 12,000 acres of land in Ottawa and Allegan Counties surrounding the village of Holland, which would be the center of his new colony. Many tracts of land were still available from the U.S government at $1.25/acre. He also bought delinquent tax certificates and land warrants for much less than this per acre. He also purchased a few tracts of land from John Ball, a land dealer from Grand Rapids. John Ball had arrived there in 1836 and later owned 18,000 acres of timberland in Blendon Township that he purchased for the Blendon Lumber Company. The most prized parcel of land that Van Raalte purchased that first year was a 261 acre tract located at the entrance of Black Lake into Lake Michigan. It was owned by a wealthy New England land speculator and Van Raalte had to pay $3.54/acre for it at $100 down and 6 years on the balance. Seeing that many of the immigrants were poor and did not have funds to purchase land. Rev. Van Raalte would sell his land to them at $10 down and 7% interest on the balance. In his lifetime in Western Michigan, he purchased over 20,000 acres of land. Much of this land was developed into lots in the city of Holland and surrounding Black Lake. With all his land holdings, he was one of the richest men in Michigan when he died in 1876. In spite of some criticism for his dual role in the colony and being the spiritual leader as minister and also as businessman and land dealer, he was highly esteemed for his leadership in developing the colony into a thriving city. He was also highly respected for his role in helping poor immigrants to own and establish productive farms of their own in the area. As the number of immigrants increased, the most fertile land was settled first. Soon the colony expanded into small villages surrounding the Holland area. The village names and the years that a church was established are as follows: Zeeland 1847, Holland 1847, Vriesland 1847, Drenthe 1847, Overisel 1847, Graafschap 1847, North Holland 1852, Noordeloos 1856, Niekerk 1866, Zutphen 1880, Harderwyk 1882, and Borculo 1883. Some of the farmland near these villages was marginal and not yet desirable for raising crops. This included the poorly drained swampland the surrounded Borculo. This was on of the last areas developed for farming in Ottawa County. An 1876 Ottawa County Plat Map of Olive Township shows a large tract of land that Van Raalte had purchased earlier but was still unclaimed 30 years later in the Borculo area. It was not until some years later that 2 drains were dug to drain the area: the Blendon and Olive Drain went north of Borculo and then west to connect with the Pigeon River was dug in 1891. The Bosch-Hulst Drain went south of Borculo and then west until it connected with the Macatawa River and Lake Michigan was dug in 1906. My grandfather, Roelof Essenburg, purchased the first 40 acres of his farm on 300 Van Buren Street in 1889. This was part of one of the Van Raalte tracts of land located south of Borculo. Even though the land was now drained, it still was not very productive at this time. The soil was quite acid and needed lime. Commercial fertilizer was still not used; only farm manure was used at this time. The 1894 Michigan Agricultural Census, which every farmer was required to complete, shows my grandfather's results for that year (ADD REPORT) with corn producing 15 bushels/acre, oats yielding 8 bushels/acre, and winter wheat yielding about 10 bushels/acre. The farm was not producing an abundant harvest yet. He later purchased an additional 100 acres adjoining his original 40 acres. In later years with commercial fertilizer, improved seeds, more modern farm machines, and lots of help from his family, he built the farm into a large production farm. But later, the Great Depression took its toll on the value of his farm. When my grandfather died in 1937, his farm sold for the same price he had purchased it 48 years earlier in 1889. One question that often comes up is how did these immigrants, including my grandfather, get here from the Netherlands? The only way to cross the ocean at that time was by ship. Early on in the colony, passengers were brought over in boats powered by sail and the wind. When the winds were not that favorable, it sometimes took over 40 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean. By 1870, steamships were transporting the passengers across in 15 days which was a great improvement. There were 3 types of accommodations on a passenger ship. There were the first and second class cabins and the steerage area. Ship owners could make a lot of money by crowding passengers into this area at prices that were reduced from first class tickets. What passengers did not know was that often living conditions down there were terrible. Often ships that could accommodate 100 passengers in cabins would have 5 times that amount or 500 people below deck. The area was often poorly ventilated. Passengers would build large bunks to sleep on or many would often sleep on the floor. There were toilet rooms with no privacy. Often buckets were used as toilets which were emptied overboard. Water was scarce and food of poor quality. Immigrants who were used to high standards of cleanliness were packed in with others who smelled like their wells must have run dry long before they boarded the ship. And then there was the problem of getting seasick About all the people could do was eat, sleep and talk about better days ahead. For some, it was a blessing to travel in groups of family, friends, and neighbors on this journey. How glad they were when they arrived in New York harbor. After being checked out for health reasons at Castle Gardens or Ellis Island, they continued on their journey to their destinations, often to Western Michigan. The route they took from New York to West Michigan was often called "the immigrant route". This route used water as the principal means of transportation. From New Your, they took a river boat to Albany where they would take a canal boat on the Erie Canal for 363 miles to Buffalo, often pulled along the canal by horses. After arriving in Buffalo, they would again board a large ship on Lake Erie to Detroit, Michigan. From Detroit, they took the ship north on Lake Huron to the Straits of Mackinaw where they entered Lake Michigan. They traveled south until they arrived on the west side of Michigan at Grand Haven. There was no road through the wilderness to Holland so immigrants would take a river boat on the Grand River to Grandville and then go overland for the final stretch of the journey by way of the Dutch Road which took them west to the colony of Zeeland or Holland. A description of the route along with a time frame is given in a summary of the Rev. Peter Moerdyki's life: In 1849 the family emigrated to Michigan. Leaving their old home June 22, they sailed from Hellevoetsluis July 8, on the ship Leila, of Baltimore, with a large company of Hollanders, under the Rev. H.G. Klyn as leader. It was thirty-eight days before they landed in New York, having had the usual experience of storm and calm. After a trip up the Hudson, they boarded a canal boat, which brought them to Buffalo in nine days. A steamer then took them around the Lakes and ascending the Grand River to Grandville where they enjoyed the luxury of an ox-cart and a corduroy road to Zeeland, where they were to settle. The entire journey consumed more than two months, being completed Sept. 4. I became interested in the history of this Dutch Road when I purchased a farm in 1965 at 4400 Port Sheldon Street northwest of Hudsonville. The owner of this farm told me that the Dutch Road went across the farm as the route from Holland to Grand Rapids as early as 1847. He stated that parts of the old road bed were still visible in some of the wooded areas that had never been cleared. When I walked on this old trail, I often wondered: "Who ere these people who traveled this route in the early days?" After researching its history, I wrote an article about it that was published in the August 10, 1976 issue of the Grand Valley Shoppers Guide. The Dutch Road followed the high land on the north side of an ancient river valley extending from Zeeland to Jenison. The flat rich bottom land called muck was formed by an ancient river (#5) which once flowed through the area but then later changed its course. This land, often covered by water and brush, was at first considered worthless. Around 1870, Dutch farmers started clearing off the brush and began digging some drains through the area. The organic soils were great for growing vegetables like onions and celery. Soon the muck land became some of the most valuable land in Ottawa County and Hudsonville became known as the Celery City. The road from Holland to Grand Rapids was 29 miles. A halfway house was located at Berry Street and 48th Avenue for those travelers who could not make the trip in one day. At a later date in 1870, the railroad and the present road M-121 were build on the south side of the muck lands from Grand Rapids to Holland. Later the Ford Freeway was built. Now you can make this trip in 30 minutes instead of 2 days!
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