Albertus van Raalte

Albertus Christiaan van Raalte (17 October 1811 – 27 July 1876) was a 19th-century Dutch Reformed clergyman.

Early life and education
Van Raalte did not set out to follow in his father's footsteps and become a clergyman. He was initially attracted to medicine, but he enrolled in the theological school at the University of Leiden to please his father. After being spared by cholera, which ravaged the Netherlands, van Raalte was inspired to devote his life to preaching.

Emigration to America
Van Raalte was first ordained in the Secession Church in 1836 before he moved to the United States and was eventually ordained in the Reformed Church in America. When he visited the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, he met with the Grand Haven founder William Montague Ferry. Ferry encouraged van Raalte to settle in the Holland area. He found the area to be what he believed to be ideal for farming, the occupation of many in the Netherlands who were being burdened by high taxes and very little land that was so little that farmers could no longer divide their land between their sons as an inheritance. Van Raalte sent home a handbill with such glowing descriptions of the area that many farmers' sons emigrated, cleared the heavily wooded land and found the farming to be fruitful.

Van Raalte himself was the spiritual leader for the Protestant Reformed Dutch immigrants who founded the city of Holland, Michigan in 1846 and played an important role in establishing the school that would become Hope College. In 1857, van Raalte disputed a number of issues with another reformed minister, Roelof Smit, which lead to the secession of Smit's congregation.

In addition to settling Holland, Van Raalte also later started a Dutch colony in Amelia Court House, Virginia.

Personal life
Van Raalte married Christina De Moen in 1836. He was the father of ten total children; seven of those ten children survived into adulthood: three boys and four girls. One of these children was future Union soldier and politician Dirk Van Raalte.

Legacy
Van Raalte's personal papers are housed at the Heritage Hall Archives of Calvin University.