Stamboom Van der Pol » Teunis den Dekker (1869-1945)

Persoonlijke gegevens Teunis den Dekker 

• Hij is geboren op 16 februari 1869 in gorinchem.
• Registratie van geboorte.Bron 1
• Hij is overleden op 12 juli 1945 in usa-chicago, hij was toen 76 jaar oud.
• Een kind van Willem den Dekker en Pieternella Adriana Eeuwijk
• Deze gegevens zijn voor het laatst bijgewerkt op 5 februari 2025.

Gezin van Teunis den Dekker

Hij is getrouwd met Johanna Adriana van Baardewijk.

Zij zijn getrouwd in het jaar 1899 te usa-baltimore, hij was toen 29 jaar oud.Bron 2

The Immigration of Teunis den Dekker
0 ksajdak March 10, 2015 den Dekker, Van Der Wal/ den Dekker Family
by Debbie McLaughlin

My great-grandfather Teunis den Dekker, at the age of 28, immigrated to Nederland, Texas, in the United States of America on 22 October 1897 from The Netherlands. He was born in Gorinchem, South Holland, The Netherlands on 16 February 1869.

Nederland is located in the south eastern part of Texas near the Gulf Coast. In 1895 the Port Arthur Land Company made up of a group of Dutch financiers acquired the title to 41,850 acres of prairie land in South Jefferson County Texas which hadbeenpurchased by Arthur Stilwell from the Beaumont Pasture Company at $6.75 per acre.

After purchasing the land, this company sent agents to the Netherlands to attract some of the Dutch people to come to this area and settle this Texas land. The Dutch people are known for being very hard workers. Pictures showing the area as a veritable paradise were distributed. It is believed that some of these pictures were made of the lush vegetation in Florida. As an inducement the land was offered at a very low cost. An employee of the Port Arthur Company contacted prospective applicants for the new colony and he determined their suitability for immigration to a new country. Besides farmers, he was to secure, if possible, tradesmen, clerks, shopkeepers, teachers and even pastors in order to stabilize the economic and social requirements of the planned community. The pleasant year-round temperature and the fertile soil that would grow anything were selling points used by these agents of the Port Arthur Company. One newspaper portrayed Nederland as a Garden of Eden in Texas rather than the open prairie that it was. Many Dutch people liquidated their assests and prepared to travel to America escorted by one of the land agents for the Port Arthur Company. The land company salesmen performed their tasks well and soon many Dutch people were on their way to “this new paradise”.

Teunis den Dekker was one of the Dutchmen who expressed interest in this opportunity.
He braved the unknown in search of a better life. Teunis boarded the North German Diedericksen steamship liner named S.S. Olinda in Antwerp, Belgium on 22 October 1897 heading for America! The Olinda was a steel vessel with 5 bulkheads, built in Newcastle, England in 1887, registering 2,376 tons gross and hailed from Kiel, Germany. The genial Captain Hansen was in the command of this voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.

After a pleasant three week voyage-twenty days at sea Teunis was among a total of 46 Dutch people consisting of men, women and children to arrive in Galveston, Texas. The S.S. Olinda docked in Galveston on 14 November 1897. Before leaving the vessel, the Dutch passengers united in a resolution and extended a vote of thanks to Captain Hansen and the officers of the steamer for the kind and courteous treatment they received during the voyage, and they were pleased to recommend this Diedericksen line to the traveling public. After a medical inspection of each of the new Dutch immigrants, Teunis and his fellow Dutchmen were placed aboard a tug and conveyed across the bay to Boliver, Texas. Teunis and the Dutch families then traveled via the Gulf and Interstate Railroad to Beaumont, Texas. Next they traveled over the Kansas City Railroad to Port Arthur, Texas and were received at the train depot by several of their own countrymen who were residents of the city, together with representatives of the Port Arthur Land Company. Upon sight of these new Dutch immigrants The Port Arthur Herald newspaper stated,
“The Dutchmen were the cleanest, best dressed people to arrive in Galveston in many years and no one carried less than $300, and several spoke English”. Teunis and his fellow Dutchmen were taken to the Terminal Hotel for supper and from there, to the Nash house which had been fitted up for their accommodation to spend the night on Sunday 17 November 1897. They were all well pleased. After rooms had been assigned to them and their personal effects arranged, the Dutch immigrants thronged thestreets bent on sight-seeing.

Many of these Dutch immigrants spoke English and they expressed themselves as being delighted with the promising features of the city of Port Arthur which had a population of 500 people. Their first day in America was spent in Port Arthur, and Tuesday they were taken to the nearby settlement of Nederland where they selected land and made preparations to commence their various buildings. Upon arrival in Nederland, Teunis and the immigrants were taken to the Orange Hotel which was a threestory building consisting of 33 rooms and painted bright orange. This hotel was built to house the immigrants until they could build homes.

Near Nederland Teunis found wind swept prairie grasses and 1,000 umbrella china tree seedlings planted on lawns for the immigrants, two store buildings built of wood boards, two cottages, the depot and an ambitious set of blueprints. Only two blocksof Heeren Straat (Street) were shelled and all other streets in the survey and outlying roads were of dirt only.

My great-grandfather’s first home in America was at the Orange Hotel named for the ruling royal House of Orange in the Netherlands. The foundation of this three story building was built of handmade bricks made in a nearby kiln. A water well usedbythe hotel was located nearby-built of the same hand made bricks. Teunis paid $15.50 a month which included laundry as a boarder at the Orange Hotel. Meals cost 25 cents each. A.J. Elings and his wife Agatha also immigrating with Teunis were hotel keepers in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and upon arrival in Texas they were asked to operate the Orange Hotel. So it was Agatha Elings who began cooking and prepared the first meal for about 46 hungry tenants after their arrival at the Orange Hotel on 18 November 1897. She was known to serve a sumptuous table consisting of such dishes as Dutch soup; boiled fish; roast beef; savory cabbage; green peas; roast chicken; veal cutlets and cakes.

Teunis first observed open pasture land in his new homeland with a nearby large experimental farm which raised rice, seaisland cotton, asparagus, tobacco and imported
Jersey cattle. Also an experimental orchard consisting of pear, olive, fig, and orange trees promised job opportunities for the new Dutch colony along with work on the nearby railroad. Both farm workers and railroad workers were paid 50 cents to onedollar a day working 12 hours a day.

On 24 December 1897 the first town site of Nederland, Texas was plotted. The name Nederland was chosen for the country of The Netherlands. Two parks were established to please the new Dutch immigrants, Mena named for the beautiful queen-regentof theNetherlands and Koning (King’s) Park. Street names were in the Dutch language.

The Orange Hotel became the center of the social life in this new community, religious as well as educational. The Orange Hotel became the local church for the first two years with the services held there each Sunday by a lay minister. May 1898a parish was organized. The Railroad built a Christian Reformed Church at Kuipers and Heeran Streets and the congregation numbered four families and 28 members in 1898. It is within this Christian Reformed that my great-grandfather Teunis den Dekker madehis mark on this small Dutch colony. Not only was Teunis a member of this congregation he was also elected elder and President of this church. According to the minutes of the consistory, Teunis was also responsible for instructing the“older children” in catechism classes. This work was a service to the Christian Reformed Church and Teunis was not compensated.

These Dutch immigrants were dedicated to higher learning which can be attested by the 1,000- volume library that was maintained at the Orange Hotel from its beginning.

It is not known if Teunis held a position working on the expanding Kansas City, Pittsburg, and Gulf Railroad in this area or worked on a farm, or as a nurseryman or horticulturist. Like many of these first Dutch immigrants Teunis became disappointedwith their first impressions of Nederland and the sticky black gumbo soil was not the type of fertile soil that the Dutch were use to farming in their native homeland. There also was a lack of cattle in the Nederland area. Perhaps it was the very hot summer months in southeast Texas or the vast population of mosquitoes in this area that Teunis found undesirable. Mosquitoes proved to be a great problem due to bad drainage and many river swamplands and low lands were breeding grounds for the mosquitoes. There was quite a bit of malaria among the early settlers. The conditions in the first two years of this Dutch colony were quite primitive and harsh so many of these Dutch immigrants decided to move to the North. Some sought greener pastures in America or returned to the Netherlands. It was noted, “Pretty good in the old country is better than very good in Texas”.

“America, many a poet in song has praised your fame wherever it has sounded.”
A feeling that cannot be described by anyone who leaves his native land and arrives in a strange land, in a strange part of the world which in the future he shall have to call his new fatherland was certainly felt by my great-grandfather Teunis.Whensitting in his cozy living room in the old country reading a book of the Dutch poet Bernard Ter Haar,
a prospective immigrant has no inkling of what may befall him when he lands on foreign soil of that beautiful country but nevertheless, the country that may give him a good living. Spurred on by promises, perhaps Teunis had regrets that he shouldhave been more cautious about leaving his native land and all of his family and friends that he left behind.

Perhaps, it was wanderlust that Teunis felt and after 14 months of living in Nederland, Texas Teunis left on 23 January 1898 and traveled North to Chicago, Illinois settling in the Dutch settlement of Roseland. At the time of his departure Nederlandconsisted of only a few buildings-the Orange Hotel, a store, a hardware store, a blacksmith shop, a couple of saloons, the K.C.S. train depot, two three room cottages and acres of unfenced unimproved lands with a muddy main street. In January 1898 land sold from $20 to $50 an acre. A team of mules was valued at $170. A span of horses cost $120 and good Jersey cattle sold at $70 each. The new Dutch settlement was still quite primitive and perhaps Teunis was in search of a more civilized location in America.

Thankfully, my great-grandpa Teunis chose to leave Nederland, Texas. In February 1899 a blizzard hit the Texas coast and thousands of cattle died. A tornado hit this area in the spring of the same year. Then in 1900 a hurricane hit this area causingdamage to the exiting buildings.

The story of Teunis’s life in America continues…

Immigrated to Texas in 1897. After 14 months there, he left for Chicago (Jan 1898. In December (24) 1898, he left for Baltimore, where he married Johanna. He and Johanna moved back to Chicago on 24 Dec 1899. They lived there until March 191 4, when the moved to Randolph, WI. They moved back to Chicago in March 1923.

During the time in Randolph, Tuenis was elected an elder of the East Frieland, WI Christian Reformed Church (November 30, 1915) and remained an elder until he left for Chicago. The Church minutes of January 25, 1923 read:

“Elder T. Den Dekker reported that he had received an offer from Chicago. The whole family was asked to move there. He asked the members to pray for him, while he considers the job offer.”

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