Genealogy Data Page 160 (Notes Pages)

Note: A native of Aalten, Gelderland, Netherlands, Gerrit Jan was born January 22, 1826. Gerrit Jan was pretty spry, a smart man, a man of quick action. He was tall and slender, had black hair and was good looking. Gerrit Jan Walvoord was the only son of Hendrik Walvoord. Gerrit Jan's Aunt Jane, (father Hendrik`s youngest sister) was about his same age. Both of them were rocked in the same cradle.

As a young man he left his native land to seek fortune in the New World. He immigrated at the age of twenty before his father, Hendrik, came to America. Gerrit may have sailed on the ship Garrone from Rotterdam to Baltimore. He first located at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he farmed and also worked in the coal mines. While there he married a German girl, Miss Anna Maria Engel Nolten, who had immigrated to America with her brother.

Their oldest son, Henry, was born in Pittsburgh in 1847. When Henry was about two-years old, in the fall of 1849, the Walvoord family moved to Sheboygan County, Wisconsin and lived at the small settlement of Amsterdam on Lake Michigan in the Township of Netherlands. It lies southeast of the village of Cedar Grove.

There the Walvoords had a general store and shipped cord-wood from the pier. Boats came for the wood and instead of money people got their supplies from the store.

Gerrit Jan Walvoord was not permitted to enjoy his new home for long. While measuring cord-wood at the above named pier, he accidentally drowned at only thirty-years-old. No one saw the accident. He was found in the water. Apparently, (according to one account) Gerrit Jan, heard a ship coming while he was eating. He jumped from the table, ran to the harbor, climbed over the wood on the pier and lost his balance. He fell in the water, which was very cold, and although he was a good swimmer, the wood that also had glided in the water, kept him down and he drowned. Gerrit Jan died in Lake Michigan on July 11, 1856 and was buried in the Walvoord Family Cemetery plot on section 26, in Netherlands Township.

When he died, Gerrit Jan left a family of five children of which, Henry was the oldest. Henry was eight at the time of the accident. The daughters of Gerrit Jan were Jane, Mary, Tonia and Delia. Delia, the youngest, was only three-months-old at the time of her father's death.

Soon afterwards the business at the pier was destined to bring still more sorrow to the Walvoord family. In January of 1857, the store and dwelling burned and the family lost most of their belongings and nearly everything they had invested there.

The elder Hendrik Walvoord had money and purchased some land. Both his family and Gerrit Jan's family moved to a farm near Amsterdam. The house was built for the two families and they lived there together for some time. Henry Walvoord (son of Gerrit Jan) was married there.

Source: (Name)
Title: Census
Media: Census
Page: 1850-WI, Netherlands, Sheboygan
Data:
Text: Father, Henry was living with him.

Death: 11 JUL 1856 Amsterdam, Sheboygan, WI

Burial: Walvoord Cemetery, Cedar Grove, Sheboygan, WI

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Gaffney, Arden Dale (b. --Not Shown--)

Death: --Not Shown--

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Grover, Anna (b. 2 MAR 1738/39, d. JUN 1838)

Source: (Name)
Title: MA MAG
Media: Book
Page: 4:254

Source: (Name)
Title: History of Gloucester, Mass.
Author: J. J. Babson
Media: Book
Page: 2:160

Source: (Name)
Title: The Burnham Family
Author: Roderick H. Burnham
Publication: Case, Lockwood & Brainard 1869
Media: Book
Page: pg 342

Source: (Name)
Title: Mass. Marriage Index
Media: Book

Source: (Birth)
Title: VR-Gloucester, Essex, MA
Media: Book

Source: (Baptism)
Title: Thomas Grover and Allied Families 1514-1964
Author: Joel P. Grover
Media: Book

Baptism: 2 MAR 1739/40 Gloucester, Essex, MA

Death: JUN 1838 Gloucester, Essex, MA

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Nolten, Anna Maria Engel (b. APR 1815, d. 5 SEP 1897)

Note: In 1860, "Maria Walfoord" was living with her father-in-law and 5 children.

Source: (Birth)
Title: Census
Media: Census
Page: 1860-WI, Sheboygan, Netherlands, pg 164

Death: 5 SEP 1897 Cedar Grove, Sheboygan, WI

Burial: Walvoord Cemetery, Cedar Grove, Sheboygan, WI

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Walvoord, Janna Dina (b. 27 JAN 1825, d. 8 OCT 1894)

Source: (Name)
Title: Internet-Descendants of Benjamin Taft
Media: Other

Note: http://members.cowtown.net/dtaft/taft3.html
Page: Diane Burns

Death: 8 OCT 1894 Netherlands Twp., Sheboygan, WI

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Walvoord, Henry Hendrik (b. 21 MAR 1802, d. 21 DEC 1865)

Note: As was the custom, Hendrik, the oldest son, received all the inheritance from his parents and was beholden to support them, which he did. His youngest sister Janna Dina and son Gerrit Jan were born while Hendrik lived with his parents in Netherlands.

Hendrik lived in Aalten, Netherlands a poor country which was a peat land (people burned peat instead of more expensive coal). Peat was usually cut out of a bog by hand into blocks, which were spread out to dry. Drying could take as long as six weeks. Dried peat burned easily, and would give off a dense black smoke, and left much ash. It had about two-thirds the heating value of coal.

As a young man, Hendrik was tall, dark and slender. During his time in Netherlands, he had married three times. Twice to sisters of the name Doornink.

Hendrik Walvoord was a farmer in the Achterhoekse (back corner) region of Gelderland. He had a farm in the small village of Vragender, which is north of Aalten between Lichtenvoorde and Winterswijk.

Hendrik's mother, Maria, died January 6, 1840 at the age of 58. Hendrik was 37 years old at the time. At the age of 70, his father Saloman died on Thursday, June 8, 1848.

After the death of his mother and father, Hendrik, three times a widower, left Netherlands in 1849 en route to America. He had made some investments with his inheritance before traveling across the Atlantic and had six thousand dollars with him.

He departed with his 24 year-old youngest sister on the sailing vessel "Hektor" from Rotterdam to New York arriving on September 16th. Hendrik came to America and joined his son, Gerritt, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who had preceded his father a couple of years before. Immediately, the entire family emigrated to the township of Netherlands, Wisconsin where Hendrik Walvoord purchased 160 acres of timbered land, and began the development of a farm, to which he added from time to time. Soon after coming to this country he acquired forty-nine shares in the Netherlands Trading Company, which was engaged in merchandising and in the transportation of cord-wood from the Amsterdam Pier that they had constructed. He arrived in Wisconsin and sold parcels of land to new immigrants in a region he called Amsterdam. It would take a while before the authorities officially recognized this name. Each parcel he sold had a view on Lake Michigan. Hendrik also became known as a trader in cordwood. He needed a landing stage for boats, which came to retrieve the wood. He hired a dredger from the government and scooped out a little harbor of eight feet deep. Piles of cordwood were waiting there for boats.

Two or three vessels loaded with cord-wood left the pier each day. Four or five vessels would lie in the bay at a time. Seven or eight teams of men would haul the wood to the pier. (Tony Walvoord, at age eighty or more, told Louise Walvoord all this. He knew the family).

One century later, visitors of "Amsterdam" still saw the deep bottom driven wooden poles of Walvoord’s landing stage.

Hendrik not only owned shares in the cord wood company and pier, he owned a store and had bought large tracts of land near Amsterdam.

Back home in the old country, Hendrik’s cousin, Gerrit Jan Walvoord (not to be confused with Hendrik’s son of the same name), took over the family farm in Vragender when Hendrik left for America. Later on in 1870, Gerrit Jan Walvoord also emigrated with his family to America where he joined his own son William in Nebraska who had preceded his father and sent back glowing reports of abundant prairie land.

The Presbyterian church in Cedar Grove was organized in 1853 and was the first Presbyterian church in the Township of Netherlands. Hendrik Walvoord was a charter member and an elder in that church for many years.

On March 17, 1855, Hendrik became an American citizen. Two days later his son Gerrit did the same.

Death: 21 DEC 1865 Amsterdam, Sheboygan, WI

Burial: Walvoord Cemetery, Cedar Grove, Sheboygan, WI

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Doornink, Teunesken (b. 15 FEB 1800, d. 22 JUN 1828)

Death: 22 JUN 1828 Lichtenvoorde, Gelderland, Netherlands

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VandeWall, Edward Ewaldus (b. 12 APR 1866, d. 7 FEB 1937)

Death: 7 FEB 1937 Cedar Grove, Sheboygan, WI

Burial: Walvoord Cemetery, Cedar Grove, Sheboygan, WI