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.
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).
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.
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.