Dutch Leader and American Patriot Written by Jeanne M. Jacobson, and Elton J. Bruins, and Larry J. Wagenaar, Published for the Holland (Michigan) sesquicentennial, the authors survey Van Raalte’s role and leadership of Secession-ists in the Netherlands, and later in the U.S.A. where they joined the Reformed Church in America, a denomination founded by Dutch speaking colonists in the early 1600s. Van Raalte and his band of followers arrived on the sailing ship ‘the Southener’ in New York in 1846. Within months, they selected a townsite in dense Michigan forests where they and hundreds who joined them literally carved a living out of the forests. How they survived Michigan’s harsh climate, hard frontier life, deprivation and hunger, initial high mortality, isolation, serious setbacks and went on to prosper is detailed in this very interesting volume. Hardcover with jacket, 247 pages, Illustrations, coffee table book format, notes, bibliography, index,
