EMIGRATION

"Catholics in southeastern Holland were already talking seriously of emigration to America in 1846. At the time, unemployment was estimated at 27 percent. Along with the lack of jobs, taxes and rent were too high, farms were small and many of the families were large in numbers.

On March 3, 1847, a Dutch priest by the name of Father Theodore van den Broek took leave from Green Bay to return to Holland to settle his family estate at the death of his mother in Amsterdam. Father Theodore, in his mid-sixties at the time, had been born in Amsterdam in 1683 and ordained at twenty-four during the reign of Good King Louis. After serving the Catholics in the Province of North Brabant for twenty-five years as a Dominican priest, he obtained permission to do missionary work in America at the age of forty-nine. Arriving in America in 1832, he was assigned to serve various German communities, after which time the Bishop of Michigan sent him to his Green Bay mission where he arrived on July 4, 1854. Two years later he founded St. John Nepomicene Parish at Little Chute, which he named after the Cathedral of
s’ Hertogenbosch where he had spent his earlier ministry. When he returned to Holland, he found out that the official in charge of his mother's estate had absconded with the funds. He was relying on this inheritance to help bring poor families back to America who might not have enough resources to pay their own way.

Although very disappointed, he decided to continue his plan to bring his countrymen to the United States. On August 10, 1847 he placed an open letter addressed to his "Roman Catholic Countrymen", in the Catholic weekly newspaper in Amsterdam. The following is a part of the letter:

As Father Theodore van den Broek visited among his old friends in the Province of North Brabant, he shared his vision about a Catholic colony in a land where timber and land were abundant, employment was promised and where improved markets would bring great accessibility to market.

The Catholic emigration of the 'zandboren', that is the 'sand farmers', from the communities mainly of Uden, Zeeland, Boekel and Voekel in east Brabant in the spring of 1848, was principally the work of one of those farmers, Cornelius van de Hei. He convinced his fellow countrymen that the emigration to America was worthwhile. Father van den Broek stated that if enough people signed up, it would cost fifty-six guilders per person for the trip, not counting food. Before long Cornelius mustered 9,000 guilders for the passage of 160 people.

He and Nicolaas Denessen, dressed as factory workers walked to Amsterdam with the money. It was wrapped in a sack and carried on a long stick over the shoulder. When they arrived in Nijmegen they stopped at the bridge where Cornelius left the treasure with his companion, while he went into town. While he was gone, Nicolaas became interested in the Jan Klaassen wooden puppet show a short distance away and left the money on the bridge without guard. Cornelius returned just in time and was upset by the carelessness of his friend and the journey continued. It was already dark when they arrived in Amsterdam and since they knew neither the street nor the number where Father van den Broek stayed, they went to the police station and received the information. A map would show the one way trip to have been around seventy miles via the way of the crow. Once they returned home they would celebrate St. Nicholas and Christmas in their traditional ways knowing all the while it would be the last one in their fatherland.

March was departure time for over three hundred emigrants, mainly from the sand farms in east Brabant. They were given a day to rendezvous in Rotterdam. There were two routes to the main waterways to get to the Maas River which flowed into Rotterdam. Those in Zeeland, and to the north including the villages of Oss, Grave, Shaick and Cyk traveled north. For the thirty-nine leaving from Zeeland in early March, the route followed the sandy, narrow road north. They started in the early morning, passed through the villages of Reek, Overangel and Neerloon to Ravenstein. Each of these small villages looked much alike with their long rectangular houses close together around a towering church with a clock face in the steeple. There in Ravenstein along the harbor, they packed their meager belongings onto a boat and followed the seaward flowing current. It would have taken a full day on this river of some 100 yards width to reach Rotterdam where they spent the night and awaited further instructions.

Those departing from Uden, Boekel and Volkel traveled southeast to the village of Vechel and took the William's Canal north to the Maas. They passed through the then largest city in North Brabant, s’Hertogenbosch. The city was then a center of trade and had once been fortified. It's famous cathedral of St. John's, which had taken over 200 years to build, had to have been breath-taking even for the departing sand farmers. They left Volkel on March 9, 1848. Their baggage was brought to Vechel by wagon. From there they traveled by canal boat to s'Hertogenbosch from which their boat was pulled to Rotterdam where, on March 10, they boarded.

They set sail in three ships, chartered from the Hugo and Plokhuizen sailing firm in Rotterdam. 'These ships were called barks--a small sailing ship; three-masted, propelled by sails or oars. The names of these three ships were the Maria Magdalena, the America, and the Libra.'

According to John Verboort, who was fourteen at the time, the Libra was the first to depart. In a letter written some years later he describes the preparations and the trip: