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and P. Welle, commissioners. A postoffice was opened, with the luxury of mails three times a week. Mr. Scholte was postmaster. Mrs. Post opened a hostelry and Wouters and Smink the first "store." The first child born in the settlement was named Bart Synhorst, and Lena Blanke was the first infant baptized in the church. Pella was platted in this same year by Stanford Douds. The nomenclature of the streets, running east and west, and of the avenues, running north and south, was unique, a combination of religion and patriotism. Beginning on the north the streets were named in succession: Columbus, Washington, Franklin, Liberty, Union, Independence and Peace. Beginning on the east the avenues were named: Entrance, Inquiry, Perseverance, Reformation, Gratitude, Experience, Patience, Confidence, Expectation and Fulfilling.
While the mechanics were building houses, the farmers tilled the virgin soil with a willingness that has never been excelled, even in America. Everything was new to them-the oxen and the plows, the soil and the crops, the times of sunshine and of rain, but they were apt pupils in nature's great school-room. And, by the hand of God, as they believed, they had come to a place where, as Douglas Jerrold says, they had but to tickle the earth with a hoe to make it smile with a harvest.
But, to their honor be it said, no material considerations were allowed to take precedence of religion and education. At first they worshipped in "God's first temples," and then in G. H. Overkamp's log house, until a church was built. The first schoolmasters were Isaac Overkamp and James Muntingh, both of whom are still living. The first teacher in the English language was Benjamin Sturman. Education was at first under the control of the church and in the Holland language, but both features were soon abandoned. Since those first attempts, although nearly a score school districts have been under their control, all education has been in the language of their adopted country. Not a dollar of public moneys has since been expended for either sectarian or foreign education.
The religious and educational liberality of these people was shown in the inducements they held out to the Baptists of the state, when early in the fifties this denomination was seeking a site for a college. As a result Central University came as a godsend to them. Foremost among those who labored for this university was A. E. D. Bousquet. Mr. Bousquet's influence, in this as in everything else, was in behalf of progress in worldly affairs and toward the complete merging of the colony into the larger life of the American people. The university was founded in 1853. It was formally opened for students of both sexes (which circumstance makes it a pioneer in higher co-education) September 1, 1857. The teachers were Rev. Elihu Gunn, president; Rev. E. H. Scarff, vicepresident; Prof. A. N. Currier, Mrs. Ira Joy Stoddard and Miss Marse. Four years later one hundred and twenty-four young men who were, or had been, students, including every able bodied male student of age, and some who were not of age, and Professor Currier, enlisted in the Union armies. In the college library there now stands a marble slab on which are the names of the twenty-four who never returned, or came back to die of wounds received in their country's service. Is there another college that has such a record as this? And the colony also offered up its best young men, some families giving three and many two sons to the service of their adopted country. The oath of allegiance which they had taken in 1847 was not a matter of form, it was a baptism into a new and broader citizenship.
But no account of the moral and educational development of a community would be complete without a mention of its newspapers. The press is the ally of the schools and the churches. It is the complement of either and the supple-