Dutch Connections in Unexpected Places

Dr. Joseph Howell (1808-1888)

 This past week I made an unexpected discovery in Jim’s family. It turns out that Dr. Joseph Howell and wife, Letitia VanDuyn, who settled in Macon, Michigan in 1831, also started a church in Macon. It is not unexpected that they helped to start a church, what was surprising (to me) is that they chose for it to be affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church. 

Reformed Church of Macon

Jim’s Howell ancestors  arrived in the new world sometime before 1765 from (unconfirmed) Wales, so they would not have been familiar with the Dutch Reformed Church. VanDuyn’s, although a Dutch name, were part of the early Dutch immigration in mid-1600s, exact date is unknown but Jim’s 8th great-grandfather Gerret Corneliszen Van Duyn was married to Jacomina Jacob Swart in October 1663 in New York. 

So, it was surprising to me that they might be members of the Dutch Reformed Church and help to found the Reformed Church in Macon, Michigan. I found their names sprinkled throughout the US, Selected States Dutch Reformed Church Membership Records, 1701-1995. Dr. Joseph Howell and his wife were 2 of the original 8 members and Joseph served for decades as a church elder. His son, Dr. George Howell (the one who helped build the Lenawee County court house) was also an active member and helped the church to build the new beautiful church when they outgrew the one room building. (See a recently acquired postcard photo I found at a local antique store, mailed in 1908.)

Postcard, postmarked 1908

To learn more about the church, I read a reference to The History of the Churches of Macon (1934) and tracked it down in HathiTrust (an incredible repository of out of print books). This centennial celebration book talks about the history of ministers and members of the 3 churches in Macon: Methodist, Reformed Church, and Baptist. The only one that remains a church is the Methodist Church, but in a town of 1,330 in our contemporary times maybe that’s all that can be supported?

Connections to Hope College

While reading the history, I learned that in the 1850s and 1860’s there were not an abundant number of ministers willing to serve one (or even two) churches when the membership numbers were less than 20, so they were served by a lot of itinerant pastors. But in 1869, they found a pastor willing to move to the area and serve the Reformed Church of Macon along with the Southern Macon Reformed church, a Reverend Peter Moerdyk. Rev. Moerdyk immigrated with his parents as a young man from the Netherlands to (eventually) west Michigan. He was the  youngest member of the first class of Hope College graduates in 1866! After graduation he went on to be a member of the first class of Western Theological Seminary graduates in 1869. 

Top right, Peter Moerdyk

Rev. Moerdyk’s first official post as pastor was in Macon. He served there for 2 years before being enticed to join Hope College as an Assistant Professor of Latin in 1871. It is very likely that Jim’s great-grandmother, Viva Amelia Howell (born in 1870), would have been baptized into the church by Rev. Moerdyk!

Viva Amelia Howell
(left, 1870-1933)

For those that don’t know me, Hope College is where I met my husband, Jim, and where we graduated from! It feels kind of full circle to find this connection.

But what’s even more interesting, is that our daughters also attended Hope College, making them 2nd generation. Hope loves to see the multi-generational family members and for each new class entering will catalog all of the students who are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th generation Hope College. Well, by happenstance, when I google searched for Peter Moerdyk, it turns out that there was a 5th generation descendant of Peter Moerdyk’s in the same class of 2021 with our daughters!! How fun (for me) that our daughters attended college (one of our daughters even had a class with him) with a young man whose 3rd great-grandfather probably baptized their 2nd great-grandmother in a little Reformed church in Macon, Michigan in 1870.

I guess the old saying, “we are all just 7 degrees of separation” continues to hold true, even with our long lost relatives!