Why is Morrison, Illinois a Dutch town?

If you know how to pronounce the name “Huizenga” and know there are at least 3 more ways to spell it, there is a good chance you are either of Dutch descent or live in a Dutch community.

But why did all these Dutch folk come to Morrison, IL? This is not a scholarly work, but I have a theory based on experience, a little reading and a little internet research. In other words it is not the “true story” but my hypothesis. The Fulton, IL website says John Smith (obviously an alias) was the first immigrant from Holland to arrive in Whiteside County in the year 1856. What was he thinking? No one is sure.

The Dutch founded and settled New York City in the early years of the American colonies, mostly for commercial reasons when the Dutch East India Company was in direct competition with the English Hudson Bay Company. Anyway they didn’t hang around long and probably didn’t want to be involved with the France vs. England conflict going on at the time and they had other colonies to profit from so there never was a large influx of Dutch settlers.

Later some guy named Napoleon took over control of the Netherlands and gave everyone last names and probably disrupted the social order a bit. There was some kind of Dutch potato famine of sorts in the late 19th century and a little bit of religious persecution to boot. At first glance this seems a little odd since the Dutch (in the Netherlands) are notoriously liberal and tolerant of all religious beliefs. The Dutch in Morrison don’t seem to really fit that mold, so my theory is that the conservative Dutch didn’t totally agree with the Reformed Church in the Netherlands and it is a lot easier to tolerate someone who is completely different from you than to accept a different opinion within your own ranks. Anyway, the conservative crowd probably followed some of their like minded preachers here to the USA where they could mind their own business. Eventually someone knows someone who immigrated to the US for whatever reason and a safe/accepting/nurturing community forms.

But why come to Morrison? A little web searching shows a lot of Dutch towns in the Midwest and almost all of them alongside a significant body of water like a Great Lake or a great river like the Mississippi or the Missouri or the Des Moines. If you come from a country mostly below sea level and grow only by reclaiming land from the sea, you are probably comfortable with water and like to live by it. It looks like Fulton, IL got filled up with Dutch and Morrison became the spillover.

Another interesting aspect and probably another reason for coming to Morrison is that many of our local residents can trace their ancestry to the province of Groningen in the Netherlands. A small area of a small country tucked in between Germany and the North Sea and the Frisian province to the west where a different language/dialect is spoken, the folks in Groningen probably didn’t feel all that attached to anywhere so moving to the USA, where you might have some relations and more opportunity, wasn’t that big of a leap.

And the final kicker is that Morrison really isn’t a Dutch town – it is German like most of the USA. Fulton is 30% Dutch, 25% German and 11% Irish (the folks who built the railroad in our neck of the country). Morrison is 29% German, 22% Dutch, 11% English and 10% Irish. Welkom bij Morrison, ya’ll!

(by Marc Adami, Guest Columnist)