The Cedar Swamp Village

Holland has only been a settled city for a little over 170 years. But, it's got a dense, unique history. I took an interest in local history during my college years at Northern Michigan University, and was able to take that interest back home after graduation. Recently, I began researching for this blog, and hanging out at the library, poring through the Local History section. I found an old, forboding looking book, entitled Memorials Of The Grand River Valley, flipped open to a seemingly random page, and read the passage "The Indian village, near the southeastern limits of the city,w as also a prominent landing-place. The log-houses, built by the Indians, were of great service to the newly arrived immigrants; and, as it appears, there never has been any trouble between the Red man and the Dutchman." This piqued my interest, as I live near the southeastern limits of Holland. Was there an Indian village in my own neighborhood that history forgot?

Memorials adds further description on page 460:

"The first work was the opening of a road from Mr. Fairbanks' place to the head of Black Lake. They followed a line running between sections 33 and 34, and 28 and 27, T. 5, N. 15 W. At the latter place, they found that the cedar swamp was a serious obstacle in their way, and they resolved before proceeding any further up to put their first quarters on the hill of Mrs W. Van Der Haar, on section 28 of same town"

But, there's that phrase: cedar swamp. I knew the areas around Paw Paw Park and Legion Park were incredibly swampy, and that there was a lot of lowlands in the general area that were quite prone to flooding.

The road in Sections 28 and 27 is modern day 8^th St. The road in Sections 33 and 34 is modern day 16^th St. As best as I can tell, modern day Waverly Road forms the westerly edge of the Van Der Haar property. So, the "hill" where the first quarters were built is somewhere in the vicinity of the Aramis Center...or, the section of 8^th that gets incredibly icy in the winter time.

On the immediate next page (p. 461, Memorials...), the following passage mentions the Indian Village again:

"For weeks and months now, the colonists applied themselves to the making of roads. From the log sheds, the road was continued along the farm of Ds. Van Raalte through the present city to the head of Black Lake and the "Indian Village" so-called."

The Holland City News, in 1874, ran an article about continuing a project of "clay and gravel" east, to the cedar swamp. The article further elaborates that "this continuation of Eighth street, in as straight a line as possible, will add greatly to its beauty, and gives a road-bed, two miles in length from Black Lake, East, the like of which cannot be found in any place along this shore."

And there it is again: Cedar Swamp. This time, with a beautiful description, and placed in terms I understand! It's nearly exactly 2 miles from the western edge of Holland Civic Center to the intersection of 8^th St. and Paw Paw Drive, and gives our second reference to this swamp, and if we take the previous paragraph with an 1840's plat map, we can see that A.C. Van Raalte actually did own farmland between the present location of Hope College and Waverly Road.

I began researching using the terms "Cedar Swamp Village," and found a passage from Walter Romig's book, Michigan Place Names:

"CEDAR SWAMP, Ottawa County: the village was platted and recorded in 1848, with Albertus C. Van Raalte, founder of nearby Holland, as proprietor [Lillie]"

Wikipedia added:

"It was located in sections 27 and 28 of Holland Township."

The pieces began falling into place: There seemed to be an Indian village, named the Cedar Swamp Village, located on the outskirts of the City of Holland. But, where was the precise location? I had all these bits and pieces, but nothing concrete. East of downtown, near the intersection of 8^th and Paw Paw, at a landing point on the Macatawa River.

Plat map, prepared by Williams And Works, showing the northern part of the Cedar Swamp Village

The answer hit me one day as I was out to buy some lunch. The very business district that houses Little Caesar's, Family Farm and Home, Engedi Ministries, Taco Bell, and the like, is called the Cedar Village Mall! I scarfed my lunch and tore out to the library in search of something, anything, that could help me put it all together. Fortune struck again as I found a plat map from the 1950's, prepared by Williams And Works out of Grand Rapids, MI, labelled as "Cedar Swamp Village". Having just a wee little bit of experience in land surveying, I was able to take the W&W information and locate the actual Cedar Swamp Village in real-time via the Ottawa County GIS website.

The plat itself sits where the Elhart auto dealership sits today, then extends north to the Black River and south to Paw Paw Drive in the Holland Heights area. I was able to snap a few pictures of the area as it sits today, but have not been able to walk the site...It's all private land in 2019, and I don't want to mess with that sort of thing without the permission of the landowners.

Now, I'm in a quandary. There are lots of sources about Indian villages in and around the Lake Macatawa basin; the so-called Indian Village where Kollen Park and the Heinz Pickle Factory sit today, Superior Landing on the north shore in the modern-day Waukazoo Woods neighborhood, and numerous others. But, the only mention of a settlement inland is in Memorials Of The Grand River Valley. I like that particular book because it was written in 1878 originally, and is as close to a primary source as anything I've come across. But, with no mention of a Cedar Swamp Village in any other local history sources, in the Holland Museum displays, or in the Hope College Archives, one wonders if this is typical "whitewashing" of history wherein the history of indigenous peoples is deliberately covered up, or if I've truly stumbled upon something brand new.

A panorama, taken from behind Elhart Automotive, showing an open field.  The field housed the Holland Fairgrounds for a hot minute, but before that, was one of the areas in the Cedar Swamp Village

A drainage ditch acting as a line of demarcation between the Cedar Swamp Village and the rest of Holland

Works Cited:

“Cedar Swamp, Michigan.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Aug. 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Swamp,_Michigan.

Everett, Franklin. Memorials of the Grand River Valley. Chicago Legal News Company, 1878.

Holland City News, "Holland City News, Volume 3, Number 24: August 1, 1874" (1874). Holland City News:
1874. 30.

Property Mapping 4.10, https://gis.miottawa.org/ottawa/geocortex/propertymapping/.

Romig, Walter. Michigan Place Names: the History of the Founding and the Naming of More than 5000 Past and Present Michigan Communities. Wayne State Univ. Pr, 1986.