Kooyer Farm

Kooyer History

To the best of our knowledge, Hendrik Jan Kooijers, Achterhoek seceder, Dutch immigrant, who arrived in New York on September 17, 1846, ultimately marrying Gerritje Damkot and settling in Holland, Michigan, died in 1852 at the age of 26 of causes unknown. His daughter, Gezina, was three-years-old, his son, Jon, only a few months.

The Kooijers lived across the road from the Hendrik Jan Esselinkpas farm, and tragedy struck the Esselinkpas household around the same time. Mrs. Esselinkpas

(Dirkje Westerlaken) died as a complication of childbirth. Gerritje attempted to nurse the newborn to health, but sadly, the infant did not long survive. On October 30, 1853, the widow Gerritje (Harriet) Damkot Kooijers and the widower Hendrik Jan Esselinkpas were married by the Rev. Albertus Van Raalte. Hendrik Jan, who later shortened Esselinkpas to just Pas, and Gerritje, went on to have at least four children together, remaining in the Holland area until their deaths in 1901 and 1900 respectively. They are buried in Holland, MI. Of note, Gerritje and Hendrik Jan Esselinkpas’ oldest daughter, Janna Geertruid, married another Hendrik Jan Kooyers who was the son of Hendrik Jan Kooijers’ older brother, Gerrit Willem, who had immigrated in 1849. Put another way, Janna Geertruid married a first cousin of her half-siblings.

Gezina and Jon, raised in the Esselinkpas home, kept the Kooijers name and the conservative seceder tradition. Eleven-year-old Gezina and eight-year-old Jon appear in the 1860 US Census, along with their younger half-siblings. After growing up, Gezina married Nies Nies and Jon married Jantje (Jane) Mulders. He also modified his name from Jon Kooijers to John Kooyers. His three oldest sons, Henry John born in 1874, Klaas Willem born in 1876, and Garrett born in 1878, would further modify their last name by dropping the final “s.” John and Jane, along with their three sons, appear in the 1880 census, living in Allegan County (Manlius Township), with John employed as a farmer.

Two years later, when William (born Klaas Willem after his maternal grandfather) was only six years old, the family moved to a farm near Reeman, Michigan. The farm was located one-quarter mile from a farm belonging to Jan Tanis. At the time the Kooyers moved, Jan Tanis’ daughter Katie was four-years-old.  William and Katie would have grown up together in the Reeman community.

Plat of Reeman area illustrating location of Kooyers and Tanis farms.

In 1899, John and Jane moved to Muskegon,

purchasing a home on Orchard Street from Mr. and Mrs. George Klooster for $1500.  Orchard Street is located in the Woods Addition, not far from the southeast corner of Muskegon Lake. County records show that John and Jane owned other property in the area, as well. The 1900 Census Record also lists John as a “dealer in meats” and his daughter, “Lara” (likely Sarah), employed as a spinner. Later on, John’s work apparently also included construction. John and Jane had a total of eleven children, ten surviving to adulthood.

Men of the Railroad (Henry, William and Garrett)

John and Jane’s three oldest sons were out of the house by the time of the 1900 census and all, at least for a time, became railroad

men. William worked as a fireman on the Pere Marquette. Henry and Garrett became steam locomotive engineers and followed the Soo Line west. According to census and draft card registration records, Henry lived at least the last decade of his life in Glenwood, MN, where there was a major junction on the Soo Line. Garrett lived further north, near Superior, WI, according to 1920 census records though some of his family ended up in Thief River Falls, MN, another Soo Line railroad junction. In later years, Uncle Garrett would be fondly remembered for his

annual trips to visit relatives, usually in a new Ford motorcar, through Wisconsin and on to Michigan, including a stop at the farm in Ellsworth. Henry and his wife, Mary Dunning, had no children. Garrett married Leatha Miller, from Canada, and their three children have descendants living across Minnesota

to this day. Henry died in a Minneapolis hospital from complications related to prostate cancer on June 22, 1930. Garrett eventually returned to Muskegon where he died at the Gleason Convalescent Home on June 29, 1954. Henry and his wife, Mary, along with Garrett and his wife, Leatha, are buried with John and Jane Kooyers in a family plot in the Oakwood Cemetery in Muskegon.

Man of Company E (Frederick)

Frederick M. Kooyers was born on September 29, 1894, while the family was living in Reeman. Fred moved to Muskegon with his family when he was five-years-old and completed eighth grade at Muskegon Public School. He was drafted into the army on June 19, 1918, trained as a machine gunner at Camp Custer near Battle Creek and served in Company E, 339th Infantry. By September 5, 1918, only two months

before the armistice was signed to end the war, Corporal Frederick Kooyers landed in Archangel, Russia and as part of the famous “Polar Bear Expedition” found himself, instead of fighting Germans, fighting mostly Bolsheviks in Russia’s civil war. The expedition was under British command, under-supplied, ravaged by Spanish Flu, and for both political and weather related reasons (the shipping channels remained closed due to ice until spring), the American soldiers weren’t extracted until June 2, 1919, nearly eight months after the war was officially over. A digital copy of Fred’s diary may be found at this link as part of the George Albers Papers at the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan. An interview with a Hope College oral history project can be found here.

After the war, Fred returned to Muskegon and married Blanche Marie Bouchard on October 11, 1919 at St. Jean Baptiste Church. He worked in the drycleaning business for 56 years. After Blanche died in 1975, he moved to the Michigan Veterans’ Facility in northeast Grand Rapids, where he resided until his death on August 13, 1982. He is buried with his wife in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Muskegon, about two miles from where his parents are buried.

Man of the Cloth (Jacob)

Jacob Kooyers, John and Jane’s tenth child, was born in August, 1896, while the family was living in the Fremont area. Only three-years-old when the family moved to Orchard Street, Jacob grew up in Muskegon, went to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, and then on to Westminster Seminary in Allentown, PA. In the early 1930s, Jacob, his wife, Alice Margaret Van Spronsen, and their children moved to Wisconsin where they pastored a series of Presbyterian churches over the next decade. They began in Athens and Goodrich and by 1936, had moved to the small town of Oxford, WI, just east of the Wisconsin Dells. In 1939, the family moved seventy miles to the northwest, where Jacob was responsible for two churches in Hixton and Sechlerville. In 1943, the family moved north to Superior, WI, where they would remain until after the war.

In December of 1936, Rev. Jacob Kooyers had taken a long train ride to Sunnyvale, CA, to officiate at the wedding of a sibling and came back favorably impressed with the milder climate. From that time forward, the possibility of some day moving to California was never far out of mind and after World War II, Jacob and Alice did just that, relocating their family to Mendocino, north of San Francisco. They eventually retired to San Jose where Jacob died in 1983, and Alice in 1987. They are both buried in a cemetery on the south side of San Jose. Their son, Orneal Kooyers, followed his father’s example of ministry and shares more about growing up at this link.

Man of Mystery (Benjamin)

Benjamin Kooyers was born November 1, 1889, in Reeman, MI. He was not quite 10 when the family moved to Muskegon. By the age of 17 he had left home for San

Francisco, never, according to legend, to be seen by his family again. The infamous 1906 earthquake occurred not long after Ben arrived in San Francisco and at least some family members presumed he had been killed in the disaster. In later years, a great-niece of Jane Kooyers contacted Benjamin’s sister, Minn, with some interesting information. An unfamiliar name, Ted Preble, had been discovered in a Mulder family bible and in investigating this name further, it was revealed that Ted Preble was none other than Benjamin Kooyers. Why Benjamin changed his name remains a mystery. Why he seems to have chosen to have had no further contact with his family is unknown. How his assumed name came to appear in a family bible is unclear. What records do show is that Ted Preble chose for himself a life on the high seas and multiple crew manifests on several ships coming into and out of New York and San Francisco harbors over a thirty year span, list a Ted Preble, born in Michigan in 1889. One crew manifest from the ship Munargo records Ted Preble’s next of kin as his mother living on Orchard Street in Muskegon.  A copy of his WWII draft registration lists his affiliation with the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union and employment as “2nd Steward.” Benjamin Kooyers, aka Ted Preble, died in San Francisco on August 31, 1972, and is buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in a section maintained by his union.

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Tanis History

To the best of our knowledge, the earliest Tanis on record was named Jan Tanis and he  was born in Essex England in 1503, six years before the birth of John Calvin. His son, Jacob Tanis, emigrated from England to the Netherlands in the mid-1500s, establishing roots in Ouddorp, Overflakkee. Jan Tanis’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson and namesake was Jan Maartensz Tanis. He was born on March 18, 1834 and when he was 15-years-old, he emigrated with his parents from the Netherlands to New Jersey, settling in Manchester Township in Passaic County. The 1850 census shows him working on the farm of Richard Van Houten. Jan Maartensz had four siblings. Two brothers, both named Cornelis, died prior to immigration. A  brother, Maarten, and sister Cornelia, grew to adulthood in New Jersey. Interestingly, they married siblings. On November 11, 1858, Jan Maartensz Tanis married Pieternella Breen, also a Dutch immigrant, in Passaic County, near what is now Paterson, NJ.

Ten years after immigration and one year after they were married, Jan Maartensz Tanis and wife, Pieternella (“Nella”), had their first of many sons, Jacob Jan, who died when he was only 8 months old. Their names appear on the 1860 Census in Passaic County, New Jersey. They named their next child, also a boy, Jacob Jan, as well. He was born in 1861 and a third child (son) was born the next year. They named him Cornelius Jan. Before the Civil War was over, the family moved from New Jersey to Drenthe, MI and then on to the Zeeland area. More sons and a couple of daughters, each named Ange (one living nine months and the other nineteen months) were born. Shortly before Kate (who was the fourteenth child) was born, the Tanis family moved up to Sheridan Township in Newaygo County. Two more sons, Nicholas and Lynnard, were born after Kate, and then Maggie came along. Maggie was the last child in the large family and became Kate’s only surviving sister. Consequently, the two of them became very close, with Maggie and her children making trips to the Farm to see Kate in later years. Of John and Nella’s 17 children, 12 survived to adulthood. Father John died in 1904, only two years after Kate married. Mother Pieternella died in 1917. They are buried in the Reeman Cemetery.

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William and Kate History

On November 27, 1902, Klaas Wiilem Kooyers (Americanized to William Kooyer) married Kate Tanis in Reeman, MI, at the home of her parents-- in the same house in which Kate had been born (of note, older brother Martin, had married only the month before). The Rev. J. R. Brink officiated. According to the marriage record, William’s brother, Garrett, and Kate’s sister, Maggie, were their official witnesses. Once married, William and Kate settled for a time in Muskegon. When their first child, Andrew, was only 10 months old, they purchased a home just down Orchard Street from William’s parents. The property deed on file at the Muskegon County Court House lists the sellers as John and Rena Vander Laan and the sale date as August 12, 1905. This was the period of time when William worked on the railroad.

Whether William Kooyer had always wanted to work the land, whether he heard the call of his earliest ancestors who were farmers, whether he and Kate had heard of good property deals in northern Michigan along the Pere Marquette Railroad for which he worked, or whether this young couple simply possessed the adventurous spirit of their immigrant forebears, they decided in 1908 to sell the home they had purchased at a price of $550 from the Vander Laans only four years previously, for “$1.00 and other valuable considerations.” And fittingly, by train, in the cold December of that year, they moved north to Ellsworth, MI, their second son, John, safely nestled in Kate’s womb.