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| Dutch immigrants began
to thickly settle Ottawa and Allegan Counties, and many began to discuss opening
up new settlements. There was mention of government land north of Big Rapids,
Michigan. In 1867 four men made the journey from Holland to Big Rapids and
Hershey. From Big Rapids they traveled on foot northeast on the Middle Branch
and Clam Rivers. They located the government land on the Clam River which
appeared to be very favorable. After two weeks, they returned, and on foot
traveled to Grand Haven. From Grand Haven they went by boat to Manistee and from
Manistee walked to the land office in Grand Traverse. Several men took up the
first homesteads in Missaukee County. They then traveled on foot from Grand
Traverse to Missaukee County 60 miles through thick forest, without any road to
follow. At that time there were no roads or railroads through this section of
the state. These families were Spitsbergen, Herweyer, Zager, Westerveldt and
Abbing. They transported their families and belongings by old wagons pulled by a
span of oxen. The wagons broke enroute and they camped along the road as they
traveled. The journey took 12 days. The Spitsbergens had $30 with which to buy
provisions in Big Rapids. They built a log shanty for each family on their
homestead and planted some potatoes and corn. Sundays they gathered to read and
sing. By 1874 a man named Perley put up the first sawmill in the county at
Falmouth. In 1875 the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad completed a line from
Grand Rapids to Hobart (near Cadillac). About this same time Wynand Modders and
his family, Dutch Friesan immigrants, moved north from Grand Rapids and started
the small village of Moddersville in Missaukee County. In the 1870's a large
number of lumbering jobs opening up in the lumber camps. Moddersville consisted
of the Wynand Modders homestead and a lumber camp owned by Maurice White, later
known as "Tom White's Mill". The first public building in Moddersville was a log school located on the SW corner of the Wynand Modders homestead, across the road from the Henry Spitsbergen homestead, and one half mile west of the Moddersville corners. The school was built in the summer of 1888 and was used as a combination church and school until the sawed lumber school was built on the Moddersville corners in 1903. In 1891 the log school served as the home church for the Dutch Reformed congregations of Vogel Center, Falmouth and Moddersville. The Christian Reformed Church had been organized in the Vogel Center and Prosper areas in the early 1870's and was much larger and better attended. Sunday collections ranged from 13 cents to 70 cents and the total collection for the year of 1894 was $30.60 illustrates the financial conditions of the early Dutch Reformed Church. The charter members of the first church were Mr. and Mrs. John Tibbe (my great-grandfather and his first wife Hattie), Mr. and Mrs. Geritt Tibbe, Mr. and Mrs. Hiram (Harm) Tibbe, Elke Talsma and Evert Vanderwal. Albert Tibbe, son of Ralph Tibbe, married Anna Modders in 1901. [Reference: From "The Story of Jan Hendrick Spitsbergen" - by Jack Van Den Eijkel |