Jan Binnekant arrived in Holland a few weeks after Albertus Van Raalte, but not via Detroit, Allegan and the Old Wing Mission. Instead, Binnekant’s party came by way of St. Louis, Chicago and Grand Haven. They first sheltered with the Odawa (Ottawa) at the “Landing,” where Heinz is located today.
Then he met up with Van Raalte at Old Wing Mission. From there, they transferred to shelters on the hill near present day Waverly Road and Eighth Street.
Binnekant was a baker by trade, but initially on his arrival in Holland he served as a contractor, helping build a bridge over the Black River. That bridge was needed to link another settlement, Groningen, to the Holland colony. He also helped build roads and a breakwater at Lake Michigan.
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Binnekant became the first merchant, hotelkeeper, and flatboat owner in the colony. Binnekant’s store stood on E. Eighth Street and served as the first public school; his house was used for English language classes.
His hotel stood on northwest corner of Eighth Street and River Avenue, in a structure moved from the abandoned town of Superior. Next door to the hotel, he and his wife, Gerrigje, opened a bakery. Binnekant later added a print shop and bookstore.
As a merchant he needed supplies, which explains why he owned a flatboat: ships could not navigate the Holland harbor because the channel, which then meandered around to the north (where Holland State Park Beach Campground is today), was too shallow.
His early competition was a community store and schooner launched by Van Raalte and owned by the People’s Assembly. Their intent was to purchase, ship and sell goods from as far away as New York state. But that venture failed.
In 1848, Binnekant became embroiled in Holland’s first formal temperance debate. Although the bylaws of the colony forbade the sale of strong drink, some of the colonists bought and sold it anyway. When Binnekant complained to Van Raalte, the sale of hard liquor was stopped.
However, people kept asking for spirits for medicinal purposes, and after much discussion, sales were permitted to resume.
Teunis Keppel, a member of Binnekant’s party, was born in 1823 in The Netherlands. In 1848, he married Janna Gertrude Bloemers. The ceremony was performed by Van Raalte.
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In 1849, the older daughter of the Keppels, Jane, was born. She was one of two infants, out of the 22 born in the colony that year, to survive. The Keppels would have five more children.
Presumably after the Great Holland Fire of 1871, the Keppels built a brick home on the east side of present day College Avenue between Seventh Street and Eighth Street, a building once occupied by Edward Jones and recently razed to make room for @HomeRealty.
In 1873, Keppel’s wife passed away. In 1876, he married Johannna Maria Wilhelmina Oggel, Van Raalte’s widowed daughter. Van Raalte again officiated.
Keppel was a key merchant, church and civic leader of early Holland. In 1885, he built a hardware store on the northeast corner of College Avenue and Eight Street, where The Curragh stands today.
To the north of that hardware store and his house, along Seventh Street, Keppel sold large quantities of coal, wood, bricks, fuel oil and kerosene.
Keppel also served as a school board member, Hope College and Western Theological Seminary board member, highway commissioner, city marshal, alderman and Sunday school teacher.
In 1893, Keppel hired Peter Oosting to build houses for working families; that development became known as Keppel’s Village. In 1894, he built the stately home at 36 E. 12th Street.
When Teunis Keppel died in 1906, his sons, Albert and Bastian, took over his fuel and building products business, named T. Keppel’s Sons. One of their customers was Hope College, for which they supplied many bricks.
In the 1950s, the business changed its focus to hardware. John Keppel VandenBroek, a fourth-generation owner, worked there. The store was sold in the 1990. VandenBroek passed away in 2008. Keppel’s Lock and Safe still holds the name.
Information for this column was gathered from Robert Swierenga’s “Holland, Michigan,” Ruth Keppel’s oral history in Hope College’s Digital Commons, and The Holland Sentinel.
— Community Columnist Steve VanderVeen is a business professor at Hope College. Contact him at vanderveen@hope.edu.
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