Emigrants from Aalten to the US
In the 19th century, thousands of Achterhoekers emigrated to the United States in search of land, freedom and new opportunities. Among them was the Walvoord family. They were among the early European pioneers who sought refuge in the fertile but unexplored territories of Wisconsin.
The family name Walvoort/Walvoord comes from manor house ‘t Walfort in Aalten. Scott Anthony Walvoord, who lives in the United States and is a descendant of emigrants from the Achterhoek, has spent years researching his roots. On his website he has collected an enormous amount of information about the Walvoort/Walvoord families, in the Netherlands and the US.
The information below is mostly taken from Scott Walvoord’s website.
Ancestors of ‘The Founding Five’
Scott has been able to distinguish five branches of the Walvoort family that have emigrated to America. He calls these the ‘Founding Five’. They are all grandsons of Derk and Janna Walvoort, three brothers and two of their nephews. Most Walvoords and Walvoorts living in America today descend from this ‘Founding Five’.
Salomon Walvoord (Winterswijk, 21 April 1778) married in 1801 Maria Elisabeth Klumpenhouwer (Dinxperlo, 21 June 1781). They went to live on the Gantvoort farm in Barlo and had ten children there. Maria died on January 6, 1840 at the age of 58. Salomon then moved with his youngest daughter, Janna Diena (1825) to the adjacent farm Leeland. On May 1, 1846, Salomon moved in again, he moved in with his eldest son Hendrik (1802) who lived on a farm in Vragender. There he died on 8 June 1848 at the age of 70.
Hendrik Walvoord (1802-1865)
Hendrik (Aalten, 21-03-1802) was tall, dark and slender as a young man. He married three times, twice to sisters, daughters of Garrit Doornink and Dersken Wesselink. His first marriage was with Teunisken Doornink (Vragender, 16-02-1800). They married in 1824 and he moved in with his parents-in-law. Together they had two children, Gerrit Jan (Vragender, 22 January 1826) and Derk Antoni (Vragender, 24 July 1827). Derk Antoni died on January 24, 1828, at the age of six months. Five months later, Teunisken died on June 22, 1828, at the age of only 27.
Hendrik’s eldest son Gerrit Jan was cradled in the same cradle as Hendrik’s youngest sister, Janna Diena (Gerrit Jan’s aunt, born only one year earlier).
Hendrik remarried on 24 July 1829 to Teunisken’s sister, Johanna Berendina Doornink (1806). Together they had a son, Antoni (Tonie) (Vragender, 29 April 1830). But Tonie died on January 23, 1833 at the age of two, while staying with his grandfather and grandmother in Barlo (Gantvoort farm). They may have taken care of Tonie temporarily because of the death of his mother, ten days earlier, on 13 January 1833 in Vragender, at the age of only 26 years.
Hendrik’s third marriage took place on 4 May 1833 to Johanna Berendina Walvoord (1816). She was a daughter of Antonij Walvoord and Willemina Geertruid Konings. Hendrik and Johanna had two daughters together, Johanna Wilhelmina (1834) and Theodora Maria (1835). Theodora died at the age of five on November 29, 1840. Mother Johanna died on July 27, 1839 in Vragender, 27 years old.
Emigration to America
After the death of his parents, Hendrik Walvoord, three times a widower, left the Netherlands for America in 1849. He had made some investments with his inheritance before crossing the Atlantic and had six thousand dollars with him.
Hendrik’s nephew Gerrit Jan Walvoord (Lichtenvoorde, 1816), not to be confused with Hendrik’s son of the same name, took over the family farm in Vragender. Later, in 1870, Gerrit Jan also emigrated with his family to America where he joined his son Toni Willem (William) Walvoord (Lintelo, 1843) in Nebraska. William had preceded his father and had sent back enthusiastic messages from bountiful prairie land.
Hendrik left with his youngest sister, 24-year-old Janna Diena Walvoord, on the sailing ship Hector from Rotterdam to New York and arrived on 16 September. In America, he joined his son Gerrit Jan in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gerrit Jan had preceded his father and sister a few years earlier. Immediately afterwards, the whole family moved to Holland, Sheboygan County in Wisconsin, where Henry purchased 65 acres of wooded land and began developing a farm, which he expanded from time to time. Shortly after arriving in the US, he acquired 49 shares in the Holland Trading Company, which was engaged in the trade and transport of timber.
After coming to Wisconsin, Henry sold plots of land to new immigrants in a region he had called Amsterdam. It would take some time for the authorities to officially recognize this name. Every lot he sold had a view of Lake Michigan. Hendrik also became known as a timber merchant. He needed a jetty for boats, which came to collect the wood. He rented a dredger from the government and dredged a small port two meters deep. There, piles of wood were waiting for boats.
Every day, two or three ships left the jetty, loaded with wood. There were usually four or five ships in the bay at the same time. Seven or eight teams of men dragged the wood to the pier (according to Tony Walvoord, 80+ years old, who told all this to Louise Walvoord). Although the original pier has disappeared, the wooden piles of Walvoord’s pier are still visible. Hendrik not only owned shares in the timber company and the jetty, he had also bought a shop and large plots of land near Amsterdam.
Henry Walvoord co-founded the Presbyterian Church at Cedar Grove in 1853 and served as an elder for many years. On March 17, 1855, Henry became an American citizen. Two days later, his son Gerrit Jan did the same.
On July 11, 1856, Hendrik lost his only son Gerrit Jan, who drowned in Lake Michigan at the age of thirty. Henry bought a plot of land for a cemetery that is now in the village of Cedar Grove (Walvoord Cemetery) and buried his son there.
Hendrik Walvoord died on 21 December 1865. After his death, his land was inherited by Gerrit Jan’s children (Henry, Jane, Mary, Tonia, and Delia). Henry, his grandson, inherited 32 hectares and the granddaughters each inherited 16 hectares. In addition, Henry received all movable property from his grandfather, namely: horses, cattle, wagons and furniture. The four granddaughters each received $15 for a cow and another $300 when they turned twenty-one. When he turned twenty-one, Henry received the rest of his grandfather’s property (mortgages, notes, securities, credits, and money). When Tonia died, her brother Henry bought her land.
Gerrit Jan Walvoord (1826-1856)
Gerrit Jan Walvoord (Vragender, 22 January 1826) was spry and clever, a man of quick action. He was tall and slim, had black hair and good looking. At the age of twenty, he left his native country to seek his fortune in the New World. His father, Henry, would follow him later. Gerrit Jan may have sailed from Rotterdam to Baltimore with the ship Garrone. He first settled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he farmed and also worked in the coal mines. There he married a German girl, Anna Maria Engel Nolten, who had emigrated to America with her brother in 1846.
Their eldest 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. They settled in the small settlement of Amsterdam on Lake Michigan, southeast of the village of Cedar Grove. The Walvoords had a shop there and shipped wood from the pier.
Gerrit Jan Walvoord was not allowed to enjoy his new home for long. While he was measuring wood on the aforementioned pier, he accidentally drowned, thirty years old. No one saw the accident. He was found in the water. According to one story, Gerrit Jan heard a ship approaching while he was eating. He jumped off the table, ran to the harbor, climbed over the wood on the pier and lost his balance. He fell into the water, which was very cold, and although he was a good swimmer, the wood that had also slipped into the water kept him down and he drowned. Gerrit Jan died in Lake Michigan on July 11, 1856 and was buried in Walvoord Cemetery.
At his death, Gerrit Jan left behind a family with five children. Son Henry was eight at the time of the accident. Gerrit Jan’s daughters were Jane, Mary, Tonia and Delia. Delia, the youngest, was only three months old when her father died. Soon after, the case on the pier would cause the Walvoord family even more suffering. In January 1857, the shop and home burned down and the family lost most of their possessions and almost everything they had invested there.
The elder Hendrik Walvoord had money and bought 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.
Janna Diena Walvoord (1825–1894)
Janna Diena (Jane) Walvoord (born 27 June 1825) was the youngest sister of Hendrik Walvoord. Jane came to America in 1849 with her brother Henry. After arriving in America, she married a man also named Walvoord: Derk Antonij (Dirk Tony) Walvoord (Lichtenvoorde, 1820). Jane died on October 8, 1894 in Holland, Sheboygan. Jane and Dirk Tony had three sons: Garrett, Tony and William.
Garrett married Delia Huenink in 1886 and had six children: Jennie, Minnie, Anna, Elmer, Alice and Della. Tony married Janna Pot in 1886 and had four children: Antoinette, Mabel, Agnes and Alvin. Tony’s second marriage in 1900 to Sarah Hilbelink produced no children. William married Jennie Flipse in 1892, an older sister of Mary Flipse who later married a distant cousin of William’s, John Garrett Walvoord. William and Jennie had five children: Louis, Clarence, Marion, Esther, and Harvey.
Walvoord Cemetery
On 11 July 1856, Hendrik Walvoord (1802-1865) lost his only son Gerrit Jan, who had drowned in Lake Michigan at the age of thirty. In his will, Henry reserved an acre of land (about 0.4 hectares) for a family cemetery in section 26 of Holland Township. As stated in the will:
“First, I give and bequeath to the children of my son Gerrit Jan Walvoord (deceased) and to their children who may be born and their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, in a word to the descendants of the said children of my son Gerrit Jan Walvoord (deceased), an acre of land lying and located in the County of Sheboygan and the State of Wisconsin, known and described as follows: …” (then the exact location is described).
So according to Henry’s will, every descendant of Gerrit Jan Walvoord (“down to posterity”) could be buried on this family plot. Over time, the Walvoord Cemetery was surrounded by Cedar Grove as the village grew. Today, the cemetery is located in downtown Cedar Grove on Main Street.
