Gerrit also built a store building where both Indians and white folks could purchase their basic staple items like flour, sugar, salt, coffee, tea, beans, rice, and other food commodities. These items came in barrels, large bags, and boxes. He would purchase these items in Zeeland which was five miles South of Borculo. He needed a wagon which was pulled by a yoke of oxen. A barrel of flour weighed 196 pounds. A barrel of salt weighed 280 pounds. The road to Zeeland was a poorly drained, swampy corduroy road.
At this point I must digress a bit and mention how important oxen were in the early days of Borculo and surrounding settlements. The ox was the poor man's horse. The price of a horse was still beyond the reach of the common people. Also, the ox was actually better adapted to the early road conditions than a team of horses. With a simple ox yoke as equipment, he was like a small locomotive pulling awagon through the muddy swamp or pulling a huge log out of the dense woods.
The disadvantage of oxen was that they walked slowly. They traveled at a rate of two miles per hour or even slower when pulling a heavy load. A horse would move about twice as fast with a gait up to four miles per hour. The horses required a complicated harness in order to pull heavy loads, and the harness was rather costly.
Delbert Hoffman purchased this ox yoke from my uncle Gerrit R. Essenburg who had it hanging in his barn for many years. This ox yoke had been used at the Moeke sawmill in Borculo. Gerrit's father, Ralph Essenburg, who also was my grandfather, worked at the Moeke Sawmill in the 1880's. The sawmill had a bunk house on the property where some of the single men workers lived. My grandfather lived there for 5 years until he got married in 1889 and bought a farm one mile south of Borculo.
Returning to the Klanderman story, Gerrit continued his grocery business for seven years. On July 3, 1876 he died of pneumonia after being chilled in a rainstorm while coming home from Zeeland with his wagon and oxen. He left a wife and four children, and was only 37 years old. He was one of the first people buried in the Borculo Cemetery. He was the grandfather of Gerrit Bos and Gerrit Meppelink who also grew up in Borculo and raised families there.
In later years Klanderman's store was replaced by Moeke's store (on the Southwest corner of Borculo corners) which was purchased by Henry Koop in 1905. It was also replaced by Riemsma's Store on the Northeast corner which was purchased by Simon and Louis Vollink in 1919.
/s/ Bob Essenburg.