Holland City News, Thursday, May 25, 1933

Gerrit B. Doesburg, 90 years old, a veteran of the Civil War and sailor on the Great Lakes, passed away Tuesday at his home, 86 East Twentieth Street. The other brothers who went before were Otto J. and Jacob O. Doesburg, the former a printer and publisher, and the latter the owner of a drug store on East Eighth Street now conducted by his son, Harry. Otto J. was at one time publisher of the Holland City News. This was just fifty years ago.

Mr. Doesburg was born in the Netherlands in 1843, coming to this country in 1848 with his parents, who landed in New York when the army of General Winfield Scott was parading down Broadway. They followed the waterway to Holland. For a number of years the Doesburg boys and their father published the Ottawa County Register, but this project was discontinued when the youths joined the army. For forty years Mr. Doesburg sailed the Great Lakes following his service in the war, and was out in a small sailing vessel in the memorable storm that claimed the Alpena.

When the family emigrated from The Netherlands by water, they finally landed in Grand Haven. All the household goods were placed on a scow which was towed to Holland when the harbor was only rivulet and the outlet ran along the Ottawa Beach Hills beyond the north limits of the present oval. At that time there was still an Indian village at Waukazoo and a larger one on the lake bluff on what is now West Sixteenth Street, where the shoe company and the Heinz Company is now located.

He was an active member of the A. C. Van Raalte Post, G. A. R., of which there are only two surviving members today, Mr. John Douma and Mr. John Gunderman.

For many years Mr. Doesburg was employed at the Holland City News and De Gronwet,

and was considered the most accurate hand typesetter in Holland in his day.

Mr. Doesburg was a member of Company I, 25^th Michigan Infantry, and was in the South when General Lee surrendered to General Grant. He was in the regiments that paraded over Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, at the close of the war, considered the most important military spectacle of that day. This was shortly before the assassination of President Lincoln.

The funeral services were conducted this afternoon at 2 o ‘clock from the Dykstra Funeral Home, Rev. Wendell Davis, pastor of Grace Episcopal Church, officiating. Mr. Doesburg was buried with military honors, taps were sounded over his grave and Spanish-American war veterans acted as pallbearers.

He is survived by the widow and one daughter, Mrs. G. Michmerhuizen, and a nephew, Harry Doesburg; also five grandchildren.

(Gerrit Doesburg is buried in Pilgrim Home Cemetery)