Throop, Nathan	White, Stewart Edward
Throop, Mrs. Nathan	White, Captain Thomas W.
VanDerVeen, Arend	Winsor (Winzor), Zenos G.
VanDrunen, Jan	Wood, Alexander
Wallace, William A.	Wood, Ella
White, Caroline Norton (Mrs. Thomas W.)	Wyman, Charles

 

Nathan Throop Mrs. Nathan Throop	Nathan Throop [Troop], b.  ca.1795- ? Nathan Throop was born about July 1, 1795 in Ontario, Canada. He and his family were early settlers in Grand Haven, arriving by canoe from Canada in 1835. A carpenter by trade, he built his house at the northwest corner of Franklin and First Streets and Louis Campau’s warehouse near Government Pond, then called the Lower Diggings. Nathan purchased the steam sawmill built by William Butts and William Hathaway in Grand Haven in 1836, which he subsequently sold to Francis and Thomas Gilbert. The first meeting of the County Board of Supervisors was held at Nathan’s house on April 11. 1838. In 1839 Nathan became proprietor of the first public tavern in Grand Haven, located on the southwest corner of Washington and First Streets [ Lot 76, 33 Franklin]. On November 1, 1841, Nathan purchased almost 250 acres in Allendale Township. Nine years later he bought 40 acres in Muskegon County. He was included in the census of 1850 as a resident of Ottawa Township [Grand Haven Township, which included the Village of Grand Haven].
Arend VanDerVeen	Arend Vander Veen [Vanderveen], b.1840-d.1930 Born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on September 19, 1840, Arend was the brother of Christian, who became Minister of the First Reformed Church in Grand Haven, and Jacob, who became a druggist, also in Grand Haven. In 1847 Arend and his family joined the second Van Raalte colony that settled on Black [Macatawa] Lake near Holland. Arend studied for the ministry at Van Vleck Hall [Hope College], but did not become a preacher and began instead to study medicine under the tutelage of a local physician. On September 11, 1861,  just months after the Civil War broke out, at age 18 he joined Company D of the 8th Michigan Infantry, called the “Wandering Regiment,” and became known as the “boy surgeon.” He was named Assistant Surgeon on February 26, 1863 , and discharged in July, 1865. Arend was on guard duty in Washington, D.C. after the war and was a witness to the court martial of the group that assassinated President Lincoln and the hanging of David Herold, Mary Surratt, George Atzerodt, and Lewis Payne in the Capitol Prison Courtyard. Following his discharge, Arend attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and returned to Grand Haven in 1868 to begin his practice of medicine. He did a special study of malarial diseases at the University of Alabama where he obtained his medical degree. Arend was said to have delivered over 4,200 infants during the 60 years of his professional career, and he was called to nearby cities for consultations. He had a gold colored horse called “Ned” whom everyone loved and which he used even after the auto had been perfected. If the doctor was out on sick calls, his wife mounted the stairs to the tower in their home at 508 Washington Street, signaled him with a lantern to let him know there was an emergency call, and dispatched a man to tell the doctor where he was wanted. Arend was Alderman for the First Ward; a member of the first City Council in 1867, a member of the Board of Health, and a member of the Grand Haven Concert Band. Arend married Kate Elizabeth Howard of Holland on September 14, 1869 . Kate was born in Grand Haven in 1850, became a physician after studying at Sacred Heart Convent in Detroit. She learned to speak Dutch so that she could understand the medical needs of her local patients, many of them born in The Netherlands. The Vander Veens built a home on the hill at 508 Washington, across from the later City Hall. The couple had two daughters: Marian, who was born in 1870 and married Harold Dubee of Grand Haven; and Marguerite, who was born about 1888, married Charles Floyd, and settled in Detroit. Dr. Vander Veen died on March 14, 1930 and was buried at Lake Forest Cemetery. Kate applied for a widow’s Civil War pension after his death. She died January 26, 1935 and was buried with her husband at Lake Forest. [Tribune obituary, March 15, 1930, and Grand Rapids Press article, “Veteran Doctor of G. H. Lives Eventful Life,” June 15, 1929.]
Jan VanDrunen	Jan “John” Van Drunen, b.1813 –d.1898 Jan Van Drunen, who was born in 1813, came to Grand Haven about 1854. His wife, who was born around 1805, died of the “grippe” on December 11, 1893. The family resided on Pennoyer Avenue. They had a son, Peter, who died on April 9, 1900, and a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Aart Van Hall. Jan died December 21, 1898 and was buried at Lake Forest Cemetery. [Tribune obituary, December 12, 1893 ]
William A. Wallace	William Wallace, b.1829-d.1905 Born in Canada, near its boundary with New York, William Wallace moved west at age 17 and settled in the Ferrysburg area in 1847. He went to work for Colonel William M. Ferry and moved up rapidly in Ferry’s establishment. Within two years he was put in charge of the big store belonging to Ferry & Son of Grand Haven. William learned a lot about the Indian character from the men who came to receive their government money from the store. The Indian paths to the store became the routes to the mills and isolated settlements used by the store to make deliveries to its customers. In 1854 William left for a short time to work in Chicago , but returned to Grand Haven and became a full partner with the firm of Ferry & Son. William married Esther Jane [Jennie] Esther Gray on November 7, 1854. Jane, born in New York around 1835, was the daughter of Curtis and Louisa Gray of Grand Haven. The Wallaces had a son, Walter C., who was born in Michigan in 1858, and one daughter, Minnie, who was born in Michigan around 1856 and taught piano. Minnie married George McKellys. The Wallace residence was at 108 South First Street, in a home reportedly built and occupied by Grand Haven pioneer David Carver. In 1856, William embarked in the wholesale and retail grocery business. He owned a warehouse on Harbor Drive, built in 1836 by Stearns and later purchased by Clark B. Albee, and a dock on the corner of Franklin and Harbor. The store’s sales extended up and down the shoreline and nearly every mill and settlement store was supplied from Wallace’s establishment. Goods were packed through the woods, transported by riverboat, and shipped by schooner to outlying districts. The store was wiped out by the fire of 1865. He never rebuilt on the original site, but moved farther up Washington, where his new store remained for several years. In 1870 he worked for the Detroit & Grand Haven Railway, and in 1874 became stationmaster and express agent at the company s office. In 1867 William was elected to represent the Second Ward in Grand Haven’s first City Council. Born in 1829, he passed away on February 21, 1905 and was buried at Lake Forest Cemetery. His wife and son continued to live at 108 South First until Jane died on May 12, 1912. Walter, who worked at Grand Haven Brass, died the next year and was buried at Lake Forest Cemetery with his parents. Sharing the house with them was Almira Gray, who lived from 1830 to 1919 and was buried at Lake Forest. [Tribune obituary February 21, 1905 .]
Stewart Edward White	Stewart Edward White, b.1873-d.1946   Stewart Edward White lived in Grand Haven in the Boyden House at 301 South Fifth Street for the first eight or nine years of his life.  He was born March 12, 1873 , the son of Thomas and Mary E. Daniel White.  His grandfather was Thomas W. White and his aunt was Mary A. White.  Stewart and his family moved to Grand Rapids in the 1880s, and later he moved to California.  Stewart obtained bachelor and master degrees from the University of Michigan, although his formal education did not start until the move to Grand Rapids.  He spent eight or ten years in lumber camps and on the rivers where he gained the background for his novels and became a well-known author of such works as Blazed Trails, The Riverman, Daniel Boone, and Wilderness Scout.  As a result of his study of bird life, six or seven hundred bird skins were preserved in the Kent Scientific Museum in Grand Rapids.  Stewart died in 1946 in California.
Capt. Thomas W. White Caroline Norton White  (Mrs. Thomas)	Thomas Wait White, b.1805-d.1884 A native of Ashfield, Massachusetts, where he was born in 1805, Thomas White was the son of Thomas and Hannah Harwood White. Young Thomas was an early Grand Haven settler. He arrived in the area in 1836 with Caroline Norton, whom he had married on September 19 that year. Caroline was from the same area in Massachusetts. The newly-weds traveled to Detroit, and walked along the Indian trails from there to lonia, and then they rafted to the mouth of the Grand River. In Grand Haven Thomas built his house on Lot 95 on First Street, near the northeast corner of Columbus. In 1837 he became Captain of the Owashtanong, a flat-bottomed boat used for freight. This river steamer was built in Grand Haven by the Grand Haven Steamboat Company, owned by Thomas, Rix Robinson, and Dr. Sydney Williams. It operated between Grand Haven and Grand Rapids. A blacksmith by trade, Thomas worked for William M. Ferry, and helped build the Butts and Hathaway Sawmill and the Throop Mill in 1855. He served in the Michigan Legislature in 1844. In 1845 Thomas and others were charged with the responsibility of laying out a road between Grandville and Grand Haven “on the most eligible and direct route.” He and Silas C. Hopkins platted the Village of Mill Point [Spring Lake] in late 1849. Thomas was credited with planting many of the maple shade trees throughout the Village and for building the first bridge across the Grand River at Grand Rapids. He bought the Stevens Mill in Grand Rapids in 1865 and operated it with his son, Thomas S. White, until his retirement in 1881. He died three years later. Thomas and Caroline had three children: Louisa, born on February 4, 1838 ; Thomas S., born in Grand Haven on June 28. 1840; and John B., born on June 14,1843 .
Zenos G. Winsor	Zenas [Zenos] G. Winsor [Winzor], b.1814-d.1890 Born on December 14 [28], 1814 in Skaneateles, New York, Zenas, the oldest son of Darius and Sally Winsor, arrived at the mouth of Grand River before Grand Haven existed and saw it grow from a tiny trading post into a city. On May 23, 1833 he arrived in Ionia with 63 permanent settlers from his home state. He befriended Rix Robinson and served as a clerk in his trading post. He left the area and went to California, only to return in 1855 to operate the Grand River Steamboat line between Grand Haven and Grand Rapid. At the Semi-Centennial Anniversary of the founding of Grand Haven, Zenas delivered a retrospective of the ear!y years on December 2, 1884 . Zenas married Emily Hopkins of Grand Rapids in 1838, but she died only eight months after the wedding. Zenas then in 1840 married a widow, Hannah Tower, who died on September 28, 1869. Winsor married again, this time in 1874 to another widow, Anne [Annie] M. Kilgore. Zenas died in Chattanooga, Tennessee on August 23, 1890. A brother, Jacob, who also settled in this area, died in 1874.
Wood, Alexander Ella D. Wood (Mrs. Alexander)	Alexander Wood, b.1838-d.1917   Born in Scotland on April 28, 1838, Alexander Wood came to America by way of Canada with his parents about eleven years later. He worked on a farm in New York and started to learn the blacksmith trade. Prior to the Civil War he was agent for the Creek Indians. At the onset of the war, Alexander was taken prisoner by Confederate soldiers and kept at his trade of blacksmithing. When the war ended he was sent by the U.S. Government to Fort Leavenworth, Arkansas for two years. He also served in Arizona and participated in several Indian battles. In 1870 he moved to Port Washington, Wisconsin. About 1872 he and his wife came to Spring Lake where he operated a blacksmith’s shop until 1916. It was located on the southwest corner of Park and Savidge Streets. During his time in Spring Lake he served as Village President in 1898, was a member of the Spring Lake School Board, and held other offices. On April 4, 1871 Alexander married Ella Chamberlain. Ella was born in Port Washington, Wisconsin on March 4, 1847 to Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Chamberlain. Ella was one of the organizers of the Hatton Memorial Hospital Board and the Spring Lake Cemetery Association, and she was a member of the Spring Lake Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star and the Daughters of the American Revolution. She also was active with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union [W.C.T.U.] and helped collect money for the water fountain installed at the corner of Jackson and Savidge so passersby could slake their thirst there instead of at a saloon. Alexander and his wife lived at 114 East Savidge in Spring Lake. Their son, Harry A., was born in Michigan around 1874, and they also had a daughter, Mary Ella, who died on September 23, 1928 and was buried at Spring Lake Cemetery with her husband, who had died in 1917.
Charles Wyman	Charles E. Wyman, b.1826-d.1899   Born in Essex County, New York on February 10, 1826 , Charles Wyman moved to Ohio when he was 20 and remained there for six years before coming to Michigan. His parents were John and Abigail Potter Wyman. In 1864 Charles built a sawmill in Blendon Township, which necessitated a six-mile lumber run to the river. In 1865 he sold the mill and went into the oil business in Oil Creek, Pennsylvania. Arriving in Grand Haven in 1866, Charles formed a partnership with Henry W. Buswell. They bought the Ferry Mill at the foot of Columbus Street, and when that mill burned down in 1868 they erected a new mill a little farther up the river and also opened a mill on the Muskegon River at White Cloud. That mill employed about 35 men and produced approximately 50,000 board feet a day. In 1887 Charles was named Director of the newly formed Dake Engine Company. He was one of the major shareholders of the company.   In 1851 Charles married Harriet Reynolds of Cuyahoga, Ohio. She was born about 1824 and died on March 8, 1895. The Wymans had four children:  Harvey P., born in 1852; Ellen, who lived from 1853 to 1940; George R., born in 1859; and William P., born about 1862. The Wyman home was at 308 Franklin Street. However, Charles died at another home near Nunica on May 11, 1899 and was buried at Lake Forest Cemetery, as were other family members. [Tribune obituary, May 11, 1899 .]