Reason for Emigration:

The conditions in the Netherlands, which finally led to the emigration of Hollanders to America in the 1840's, can be classified as religious, political, and emotional.  A few leaders of the movement against the State Church formed an association and decided to hold religious meetings in spite of the King’s orders.  The government also held an exclusive control over education.   About this time the great failure in the potato crop occurred, which caused poverty and starvation especially among the middle class of people.  The government also imposed high taxes and had adopted several parts of the Penal Code of Napoleon which specifically forbid the meetings of certain numbers of people for religious worship unless under the State Church.  Some of this association was Van Raalte, Vander Meulen, Schoolmate and Van de Luster.

The Holland Colony:

8th Street (the Main Street) of Holland MI.

In September of 1846, a group of 53, including women and children, under the leadership of Rev. A.C. Van Raalte, set sail for America.  They arrived in America around the first of November and were welcomed by Rev. DeWitt, Mr. Forrester and many others anxious to do what they could for those arriving from Holland.  From New York they continued onto Albany where they met Rev. Wychkoff.  Later he was very helpful in establishing the Church in the Holland colony as part of the General Synod.

Although the lake at Detroit was already frozen, the journey was not held up because of impending cold weather.  Most of the men found work in St. Clair shipyards, but Van Raalte and a few others, including Mr. Grotenhuis set out for Kalamazoo. 

"Capon House" Home of Holland's first Mayor.

Here he met Judge Kellogg, who took him by dog sled to Allegan where they met Rev. George N. Smith, missionary to the Ottawa Indiana, and Isaac Fairbanks, a government agent sent to look over the territory around Black Lake.  When Van Raalte decided that this was the place he was looking for, he knelt in the snow and thanked God for leading him there and asked for guidance in the future.  Van Raalte and the seven men and one woman (Mrs. Grotenhuis) who accompanied him to Allegan lived together in huts built on the present site of Holland.  They arrived there the 9th day of February in 1847.  Religious services were immediately held in keeping with the reason they had come to America.

By March of the same year, the rest of the original group came from Detroit.   Living near the Hollanders were about 300 Indians under Chief Waukazoo. The first Church was started in the fall of 1847; in the meantime, services were held out of doors or in one of the sheds or the lean-to near Van Raalte’s cabin.  In 1856, the White Pillar Church, which now stands on 96th Street, was built.