Many settlers just used oxen and later horses to pull these logs out of the woods to the location of the homestead. Many farmers owned a good stand of timber that could be sawn into timber. The problem was that there was no sawmill nearby and the roads were usually to muddy to transport the logs to a sawmill in a nearby town.
Some of the settlers had to purchase finished lumber from Zeeland to construct wood buildings. They also purchased the brick used for chimneys and foundations. No one had the money to build an all brick home at this time.
In the year 1881 things began to change. In that year Geert Moeke and his wife Sena 'Meppelink' Moeke arrived in Borculo having immigrated from the County of Bentheim in Germany. Some folks from this County had already begun immigrate to America in 1847 founding towns in Allegan County Michigan called Graafschap and Bentheim. Many of these people could speak both German and Dutch. They belonged to the German Reformed Church.
Geert Moeke purchased a 40 acre farm in Borculo located south of Port Sheldon Street extending westward from 96th Avenue to 100th Ave. This property would later become part of the Crestview Golf Course.
Moeke saw the need and also the potential for a sawmill in Borculo and started planning to build one on his farm. The mill would be powered by a large steam engine to operate the large saw and other equipment. It also needed a tall smoke stack rising far above the building so sparks from the boiler would not ignite the nearby sawdust.
Moeke hired a number of single men to work at the mill. They needed housing to live year around so he built a large addition to his home which was known as the boarding house.
The year 1883 was an important one in the life of the Borculo Christian Reformed Church. It was the year the congregation officially organized as a Christian Reformed Church with a membership of fifteen families. After meeting in homes and the local school house for a number of years, the Church was planning to build a new church building. With the Moeke sawmill now in operation, Geert Moeke soon joined the church group and became involved in planning and erecting the first church building. First he offered to donate a quarter of an acre of his farm located on the southwest corner of the Borculo intersection on Port Sheldon Street and 96th Ave. He then suggested that members of the church could donate their labor and also logs from their farms and he would saw them into lumber for this new church at no cost. The first church building was completed in 1885 where Koop's store later stood. It served the needs of the congregation at this site until it became too small for the growing community.
A large church barn was also built to house all the horses that were used to transport them to church. The church barn was used for worship when the church burned down to the ground in 1927.
This was my father's account of the fire as he was first aware of the fire. It was a very windy Sunday morning on April 10, 1927. The wooden shingles on the roof caught fire from the sparks coming out of the chimney. As he was sitting in the back of church with a number of other young men, someone came in the back door of the church yelling the roof was on fire. A number of people in the back immediately go up and started milling around. The minister preaching the sermon thought the young men sitting in the back were creating the disturbance. He stopped preaching and admonished these people to sit down and be quiet. Soon he was informed to dismiss the congregation from the building. See the rest of the story on the Borculo Church fire on this website by Gerrit Bos.
Getting back to the sawmill story. The large Moeke Sawmill operation required a steady source of logs. He would purchase standing timber from area farmers. He also purchased many farms in the area for the timber growing on them. He would harvest all the good logs and then resell the farm to settlers looking for farm land.
He would sometimes sell a timbered over farm to German immigrants who came from the same area that he and his wife had immigrated from in Germany.
Soon Borculo had a small German population with names like Aalderink, Brunnink, Meppelink, Morsink, Raterink, Zuverink, Vollink, Wiegmink, Balder, Bussis, Geerts, Klinge, Kemme, Gruppen, Gebben, and Sal. Most of these German families became members of the Holland Christian Reformed Church of Borculo as it was known in its early days.
In 1905, with most of the larger tracts of timber now cut down, the Moeke sawmill was closed in Borculo. In 1905 Geert Moeke also sold the grocery store he had erected and operated on the former church site to Henry Koop. He sold his farm where the mill was locate to Derk Overweg. This happened to be his wife's sister and her husband. Soon after the large wing that housed the mill workers was also torn down.
The Moekes moved to Kalkaska, Michigan, where they started up a sawmill. They also took up some of the workers at the Borculo sawmill with them. They are pictured left to righ: Henry Wesseldyk, Albert Moeke, William Weenum, William Smith, Nick Beyer, and John Moeke on the roof of the shanty. John Essenburg, my grandfather's brother, also went up there for a year with his wife and 8 children and stayed one year as a partner in this mill operation.
Soon all the remaining timber was cut and Borculo was no longer a sawmill town.
(Credit for some of the pictures goes to Sharon and Burt Moeke of Mancelona, Michigan. Burt is a grandson of Geert Moeke.)