The New Homeland
While the villages of Alto and Waupun are just mere points on a map for most other Wisconsin residents, they represent everything the Loomans family knew after immigrating to the United States.
Being some of the earliest pioneers to the region in the mid-1840s, Jan Willem and his family effectively helped found the community of Alto Township, and contributed to the gradual growth of Waupun.
Origins of Waupun & Alto Township
A few years earlier in the autumn of 1838 Seymour Wilcox settled on a strip of land along the Rock River. Coming from Green Bay, Wilcox and his associates John N. Ackerman and Hiram Walker arrived in 1839 to erect a few habitations prior to moving his family south to their new home.
Of Native American origin, the name Waubun roughly translates to “the early light of day” and was officially founded in 1846 as the Village of Waupun (a spelling error by the cartographer led to the name being spelled with a p rather than a b). The small village now included a school, church, mill, shops, and other establishments for Waupun’s handful of residents and passerby on their way to and from Madison, Milwaukee, and Green Bay.
It wasn’t until 1857 that the Wisconsin legislature officially granted a special charter to Waupun and incorporated the village.
Meanwhile just a handful of miles to the northwest sat a smaller village named Alto. Albert Meenk, an immigrant from the Netherlands, was one of the first settlers to the area in 1845. The following year ten more families arrived, including the large and mature family of Jan Willem Lomans and his wife Wilhelmina.
A year later seven more families arrived, all of which were of Dutch descent, having found their way across the same journey traveled by the Loomans family after 1844.
A central part of the Alto community was religion. Church services were conducted in the living rooms of congregant’s homes until they built a 20 by 28 foot church in 1847 and welcomed their first reverend, Mr. Baay, in 1848. For his contributions to the service, Rev. Baay received wheat, potatoes, and other products from the farms of those living in Alto. Less than ten years later, a new church was constructed on five acres of land donated by a congregant.
Gradual Growth & Expansion
By the 1870s, both Waupun and Alto were gradually adding more residents, with Waupun considering incorporation as a city, an upgrade from village. The city charter was rewritten and accepted by the local council prior to being approved by the Wisconsin legislature.
Until this time it was still common to see bands of Native Americans traveling on ponies through the countryside. A newspaper article written about the history of Waupun and published in 1910 recorded that one could “hear the tinkle of the bells on their ponies on a still night.”
There was intermittent political conflict between the Native Americans and settlers, especially close to the old Zoellner mill and a French trading post where pure spring water flowing from the Rock River spilled into an open pond.
It seems possible that Jan Albert and his family may have interfaced periodically with Native Americans during the 1840s and 1850s when they were still common in the Wisconsin countryside (especially given that the Native Americans lived removed from the town centers of communities like Waupun and Fond du Lac). The exact details of these encounters are lost to history, but we may ascertain that these were unique, new experiences for the immigrants.
Postcard of Main St. in Waupun, Notice the Loomans Lumber Co. Sign in the Foreground | Image Courtesy of Waupun Historical Society
As the twentieth century approached, the communities of Alto and Waupun remained largely separate but developed a unique relationship.
The advent of the automobile allowed people like Henry and Hannah Loomans to drive into Waupun much more easily, likely increasing their total trips and ultimately triggering their eventual retirement to State Street in the 1920s.
Even after moving to Waupun, however, Henry and Hannah still drove every Sunday to attend the Alto Reformed Church.
In 1898 the current church was erected in its English style architecture with an octagonal auditorium and rolling partitions (the total cost of the project at the time was approximately $8,000).
All church services were conducted in Dutch until 1924 when two services per month were spoken in English; it gradually became less and less, however, and the last Dutch service was communion, held on December 30, 1945.
As part of their centennial celebrations, on August 8, 1998, the Alto Reformed Church opened a time capsule placed in the building’s cornerstone. According to current congregants who were at the event, the church found mostly newspaper clippings, a colored picture of the church, and a handful of old cigars (it is worth noting some additional items were added to the capsule and everything was placed back for safe keeping over the next 100 years).
Waupun’s growth as a thoroughfare toward the much larger City of Fond du Lac to the north, led the once small community of settlers to become its own self-sustaining bustling municipality.
LEARN MORE:
History of Waupun Newspaper Article in the “Waupun Democrat,” 1910: Link Here
Fond du Lac County Wisconsin: Past and Present by Maurice McKenna, 1912: Link Here
Dodge County Wisconsin: past and Present by Homer Bishop Hubbell, 1913: Link Here
Alto Reformed Church History: Link Here
Waupun Historical Society Online Archives: Link Here