In the very emphatic manifestations of sympathy from the people of Western Michigan toward the Boers of South Africa the warm pulse beats have been felt by native Americans, by Irish, Poles, Hollanders, and all other nationalities. Without regard to race prides positions or lines of creed the sympathies have been shown for who are making such a gallant struggle. With the Holland-Americans, however, this feeling has been something note than sympathy. Aside from being bound by blood ties, of tongue and race they have been stirred by tales of sufferings which were almost exact repetitions’ of their own early experiences in this country.

"The Boers of the Transvaal are like the old Pilgrim Fathers of this country," said a Dutch preacher in a sermon recently. "They fled from religious and personal persecutions at home to found a home of their own where they could worship at their own pure shrine in their own way. Unlike the Pilgrims they were not allowed to rest in peace, but were driven on by greed of gold from place to place until they have at last turned at bay," This clergyman might have carried his comparison still further down in history to the time fifty-three years ago when the first of the Holland emigrants left their native land and headed for this country, established the colonies of Zeeland and Holland in Ottawa county and laid the foundations for the happy and thriving Dutch settlements now found scattered throughout Western Michigan. If ever a people were sustained by an unfaltering trust, and guided by an unwavering faith, it was this little band of Dutch emigrants, And if ever a hand of pioneers suffered, they did.

Among the most prominent of all the local workers in the Boer cause and one who has been most conspicuously successful in his undertakings, is the venerable John Steketee, official representative of the Netherlands in this state, who has been honored with the degree of knighthood for valiant and faithful services performed in behalf of his country-men. Taking hold of the relief work at the outbreak of the war, he has handled every cent of over $7,000 which has been raised, and nothing has given him greater pleasure than the forwarding of this money for the aid of the needy ones of his countrymen in the Transvaal. John Steketee was a member of that little band of sturdy emigrants which blazed the way for the present Dutch civilization in Ottawa and Kent counties. And the greater portion of all this money which has been subscribed and passed through his hands, came from the people of those settlements where so much suffering was experienced fifty years ago.

"Just fifty-three years ago next Monday three shiploads of us sailed from Holland for America, " he said this week in conversation with Montagu White. "My father’s family was the very first to sleep on the site of the present village of Zeeland, and I was one of the first of the Dutch settlers to locate in Grand Rapids. I’ am very sure that I was the first of the Hollanders to be married by a Yankee justice of the peace." And the descriptions he gave of some of the early experiences are especially interesting just at this time.

There are now hundreds of thousands of Hollanders in the United States. The New York World at the beginning of the present Boer troubles stated that there were not to exceed 75,000 of them, in the whole United States, but official statistics can be shown to prove that there are more than twice that number in Michigan alone. In addition to these there are almost as many more in Iowa, large colonies in Wisconsin and Illinois, and others are scattered all over the country. It is impossible to obtain the actual number of them in Michigan because they have intermarried with other nationalities and have been into the general population. But Michigan leads all the states in their members, and they all came from the Netherlands because of the conditions which drove away the little band of pioneers of which John Steketee was a member.

In the early days of the nineteenth century, when the Netherlands were under the control of France, Napoleon issued an edict that not more than nineteen persons should assemble at any one time for religious worship in any of the provinces constituting the Netherlands. Forty years later, when the country was no longer under the control of France, King William II was the head of the national church of Holland, and he interpreted the edict to apply only to the meetings of the Dutch Reformed church, made up of dissenters of the established church. The enforcement of the edict caused many persecutions, and hundreds of old Hollanders were arrested, dragged into court and fined. The secedes from the established church were growing in numbers all the time and the discontent became very pronounced.

Just at this time Rev. Thomas DeWitt was sent from this country to Holland by the general synod of the Reformed church of America to present to the oppressed people the advantages offered by the new country. He did not have to talk long before he had them interested, and within a few weeks two men were commissioned to come over here for investigation. They came as far as Buffalo and their report sent back was so voluminous that history says the postage upon it cost eleven guilders. At any rate it was sufliently weighty to attract profound attention, and on September 11, 1816, the American vessel Southerner sailed out of Rotterdam with the first body of Holland emigrants for Western America.

Their journey across the Atlantic lasted forty-seven days, and they went by boat direct to Detroit, where a stop was made while Dr. Van Raalte and other leaders decided upon future movements. Dr. Van Raalte was a clergyman whose name will always be revered by Hollanders became of his great heartedness and his noble and self-sacrificing work for the almost helpless people under his charge. He crossed the state by wagon to Allegan and in company with Judge Kellogg set out for the head of Black Lake, where the city of Holland now stands.

It was in February, 1847, in the dead of winter, when Dr. Van Raalte and his pioneers trekked across Michigan and into their new country. They were in a sorry plight and destined to be in a much worse one before their condition bettered. They were not woodsmen nor frontiersmen, and knew positively nothing of the work of clearing up a new country. Many of them could not put the helve into the ax, while not one man of them all knew how to chop down a tree. When they started to cut down an oak they would chip all around this base until it fell of its own weight, but without any direction from them as to where it should fall.

Judge Kellogg saw the difficulties and sent in a number of American woodsmen to show them how to not only cut the trees but to build log houses. The emigrants had been staying in a little Indian church for a few days, but with the assistance of the Americans they soon had two long log houses erected, and sent back to Allegan where they had temporarily left their women and children. It was in those two log huts that the first children were born, the first marriages and the first deaths occurred. The first child born was in the family of Jan Laarman and the second in the family of Jan Schaap. Both were baptized in the open air in front of the hut by Dr. Van Raalte. The first death was that of Mrs. Notting. The first marriage was that of Lambert Floris and Jantjen Meydrink.

Other migrants came and within a few weeks after the Van Raalte party was located came the party headed by John Steketee, father of the present consul. This expedition consisted of three vessels, which left Rotterdam on April 16, 1847, arriving in New York in the following June. This was a well organized party, each ship having its clergyman and doctor, and each head of a family provided with a properly sealed certificate as to his moral character.

"I was just 11 years old when we arrived," said John Steketee to the Press, "but I remember that and subsequent events very distinctly. We came by way of Albany and Buffalo to Detroit, arriving there on the Fourth July. The troops were parading in honor of the day, and I remembered how frightened we all were at the appearance of the soldiers. Father called some of the older ones aside and advised that we move out of there immediately, as there seemed to be some sort of a war on. But when we learned that the people were only celebrating the anniversary of their Independence Day we were glad.

"We had come from Buffalo by a propeller steamer and we were in peril all the time because of the danger from fire. They kept some of us boys continually on the upper deck pouring water around the smokestack to keep the woodwork from catching fire. On the next trip after ours this steamer did catch fire and burned to the water’s edge. We did not attempt to cross the state, but came around by water from Detroit to Mackinaw and down Lake Michigan, going first to Chicago. Our contact was for the steamer to carry us back to our destination on this side of the lake, near where the other party had located, but they refused to carry us and we had to hire a lumber vessel, which landed us at the point where the channel now runs from Black Lake into the big lake at Ottawa Beach and Macatawa perk. It is a little singular that many of us now have our summer cottages within sight of that very spot where we landed over fifty years ago, and that most of us, in spite of the adversities of those days are now prosperous enough to enjoy our declining years in summer homes.

"We remained but a short on the lake shore, just long enough to secure lumber from Saugatuck. With this we made great rafts and carried our party and belongings up Black Lake to the site of Holland city, where the Van Raalte party had been established but a few weeks. We were received with much enthusiasm, but wasted no time in frivolity. Ours was a stern mission and we resolved to push on at once. My father and us boys, together with other men of the party, went on to the site of the present village of Zeeland, and here, with the assistance of the Indians, we managed to get up our cabin. We sent back for the women, and our family was the first of them all to sleep where the hustling little town of Zeeland now is.

"Then commenced a season of the most trying experience," continued Mr. Steketee. "For two years we were left there to starve for there was little else than starvation for us. Few of us had any money, and what little there was gladly shared with the rest. There was no such thing as selfishness known among those people. But it was necessary to send from twenty to forty miles for provisions and carry them in upon the track, for we had no horses and no roads. And we not only had no way of getting money, but we could not get provisions from the soil. Arriving in the middle of the summer, we were too late to get a crop that year, and by the time we could make a clearing it was to late to plant for the next year. We did manage to get in a little corn, but it was poor and did not amount to much.

"The succeeding year was as terrible as any pioneer or any immigrants in the world ever experienced, and the Boers themselves could have had no more trying times. Here we were in a strange land, without food or money. It was a malarias climate, with unwholesome food, untrained marshes and insufficient shelter. Sickness came and death followed. I don’t know how we ever survived it, but I do know that if it hadn’t been for our pastors we would never have staid there. If they had deserted us we would have disbanded and scattered. But they staid by us nobly, rendering all assistance possible and when the next spring came and health returned we were able to take up our work with a spirit of earnestness and thanksgiving.

"As our people had not yet been naturalized we had no privileges at elections, and could neither vote nor hold office. We engaged Charles Hurd, now of this city, to lay out the roads in the colony and I helped him a little.

"In place of any official assemblies we used to hold a sort of town meeting, called the volks-vergardering, where all matters of public interest were discussed. I remember that James Walker, a young and good looking Yankee, was appointed our postmaster. He came into the settlement with all his belongings tied up in a handkerchief, but we had to have an American for postmaster, and liking his looks, settled upon him. He grew in favor and in time became quite prosperous.

"The people at Holland had been having the same trying experience. Sickness came, and even smallpox appeared to add to their troubles. A number of them invested their money together to start a colony store, but it was unsatisfactory, and they lost all they put into it. Others bought a colony steamer, but this was no better success. Many died during that first winter and when spring came it was found necessary to build a home to care for many orphans who were left. In the latter part of 1818 the city of Holland was platted and from that time on things grew and prospered.

"I left Zeeland and came to Grand Rapids in 1850. I was forced to it by necessity. My father gathered up his large family and came here, taking employment as a common laborer in order to keep us from starving. Grand Rapids was getting a nice start then, and we were soon at work and prospering. On Dec. 12, 1852, I was married to Cathartina VanderBoegh. I was 19 years old and she was 18. She had followed us from Holland a year after we left. We were married in Grand Rapids township by Henry Tobdas, a justice of peace of Cascade, and we were certainly the first Hollanders in this country to be married by a Yankee justice. We had to have him or no one, because we had none of our own clergymen in Grand Rapids then.

"Those were great experience for us, and some which probably none of our young men of today will ever get a chance to enjoy. They were of incalculable benefit to us, too. They taught us not only to be industrious and frugal, but to know the full value of a dollar. I have lived in this city ever since, and while I have never had any great income I have managed to live within it, have enjoyed life, and have acquired considerable property. I think you will find that most of those early settlers have become well-to-do. I don’t know of any more prosperous section of the country than is to be found around Holland and Zeeland at the present day, and there is no place in the world where there are so many churches and schoolhouses as there. And you will remember, too, that it was Zeeland which carried off the banner at the recent state convention of the Christian Endeavourers‘.

"They are a wonderful people, and they might well be emulated by other nationalities. They have honesty bred in the bone and industry comes natural to them. Love of religion is inborn and they are pious to the highest degree. It was this great respect for religion that caused the electric railway people to have trouble with the Zeelanders. They were willing enough to have it go through their villages during the week, but they did not want Sunday desecrated. Neither have they looked with favor upon bicycles for the same reason.

"These people have all been prosperous because of their industry, and while they have been frugal they have not been stingy. They live well in their homes, each family has its top carriage, and they dress well. In their churches they are very liberal, and there is not so much money goes abroad for foreign missions from any other people as from them. And in this Boer collection they responded with great liberality.

" I don’t know how many Hollanders we have in Grand Rapids, but should estimate the number at about 30,000. There is not much immigration now, compared with the days along in the fifties, but there is still some. Any one must think that we have a few of our people here when they see our twenty-seven Reformed churches. We have Christian Reformed churches, too. They are secedes from the Dutch Reformed church, but the only difference is over the question of secret societies. They do not tolerate Masons, and Odd Fellows while we do. In all other respects we are practically one church."

Sir John Steketee is a fair type of the old time sturdy burgher. Trusted by his people he has been respected by others, and time and again he has been honored with public office. For eleven years, from 1878 to 1889 he was a supervisor for the First Ward, a strong Democratic ward. He was United States Internal revenue collector for four years under President Harrison and has been consul for the Netherlands since 1884.

It was while he was revenue collector that John Steketee showed one of the strong characierlatics of his race. He had been in office but a few months when one of the government inspectors appeared in the building to make an examination of the books. He was introduced to the new collector, who promptly showed him where the books were, and then turned to his own work. During the morning one of the other officials called Steketee aside.

"Going to take him out to dinner, ain’t you?" he suggested.

"What for?" answered Steketee, "doesn’t he get money enough from the government to buy his own dinner?"

"Oh yes, but it’s customary for us to take them out when they come and give them a good time. It never does us any hurt and don’t cost much."

"I don’t care what the custom has been," answered the old Holland-American, " but I am not wasting any of my money buying wine or cigars for government officers. If he is hungry he is welcome to the best I have in my house and so is any one else. But I would never buy him a cent’s worth of anything simply because he is a government officer. He can examine my books all he pleases and report anything he wants to the department so long as he reports the truth." The inspector entertained himself while here, not only then, but thenceforth, and Steketee always had a good report, too.

These burghers are largely related to one another. There is a great bond of sympathy between the old Hollanders living here and those in Muskegon and Ottawa counties. They have common ties of blood, friendship and creed, their customs are similar and their daily lives regulated very much along the same lines. They may have a little more activity and more amusement than did the immigrants of a half century ago, and they may be more advanced in education ways, but underneath all there is that same rugged honesty which characterized the pioneers of New England, the pathfinders on the shore of Black Lake, and the husbandmen of South Africa.