Dutch Catholic Immigration

St. John Nepomucene Parish in Little Chute owes its existence to the arrival of Rev. Theodore Van den Broek in 1836. Rev. Van den Broek had been a missionary, working with the people of Green Bay since about 1834. When the bishop assigned three Redemptorist Fathers to the territory, Rev. Van den Broek pulled up stakes and journeyed 24 miles up the Fox River to Little Chute -- which the early fur traders had named “La Petite Chute,” because of the rapid movement of the Fox River. On Rev. Van den Broek's arrival, an Indian woman built a bark-covered wigwam on the river in half a day for his first church.

Rev. Van den Broek wrote at the time, “The climate in Wisconsin is normally the same as that of the Dutch Province of Noord-Braband. One would find excellent fields of wheat, rye, barley, flax, tobacco, etc. In addition one could obtain a great many acres from the government for ten shillings. In a few years, Wisconsin will be similarly populated as the other states."

Rev. Van den Broek published his letters about the Fox River Valley to groups in the Netherlands in the Roman Catholic paper, De Tijd (The Times) beginning in 1843. He described employment opportunities associated with the Fox River Canal, which included free passage to America for workers. The results were immediate. By 1848, three wooden sailing vessels called "barques" (small three-masted sailing ships) had been booked for passage. Approximately 918 Dutch Catholic immigrants boarded the three boats -- the Libra, the Maria Magdalena and the America -- to make the journey.

Most of the early emigrants were from villages near Uden, including Zeeland, Boekel, Mill, Oploo and Gemert. The Dutch economy was stagnant. Many Dutch Catholics also emigrated for reasons of restricted worship, high unemployment, high taxes and limited farmland. The emigrants were not poor. After all, they knew they had to afford at least the cost of their passage and the expense of their eventual land in Wisconsin. But neither were they rich. Many risked most of their wealth to make the journey.

Typical passage to La Petite Chute included:

• passage across the Atlantic from Rotterdam to New York City,
• a train trip from there to Albany,
• a train or Erie Canal-barge trip across New York state to Buffalo,
• steamship travel through the Great Lakes to the head of the Fox River at Green Bay
• and finally a 30-mile, ox-cart trip to the mission at La Petite Chute.

The first group from Rotterdam arrived on May 22, 1848, led by a Franciscan missionary, Fr Adrianus D. Godthard. Rev.Van den Broek’s group, held up by an ice jam on Lake Michigan, arrived on June 10, 1848 -- the year Wisconsin became a state. Entire families carrying everything they owned were cramped together for the six to eight week trip at sea. The only thing provided by the shipping ompany was drinking water.

When they arrived in Wisconsin, the emigrants discovered not plowed fields and an established village but forested, uncultivated land -- despite the wording of the De Tijd advertisements that translated acres as "akkers," meaning cultivated land in Dutch. So the early arrivals resorted to drawing straws with the winners naturally picking the best lots to cultivate.

Despite the hardships, including the death of Rev. Van den Broek in 1851, Little Chute prospered. Waves of Dutch Catholic emigrants followed from all over the Netherlands. Whole families and neighborhoods moved to join family and friends already established in Little Chute and the outlying farming communities. It is estimated by 1927 as many as 40,000 Dutch Catholics had immigrated to the area — an average rate of 10 per week for 80 years.