But when we contemplate the wonderful results of the labors of the
pioneers of the Holland colony, when we see the splendid city of homes,
we are moved to be thankful for the splendid work they did.

I have kept in close touch with Central and Pella all these years, was a
member of the Board of Trustees of Central several years representing
the alumni, and it is a pleasure to me to look back over the sixty-five
years I have known Pella and to testify to the faithfulness and loyalty
of its citizens both then and now.

Mrs. Adriana Maria Hasselman-Van Horsen

With my parents, Adam Peter Hasselman and Alida Christina Gerdesse
Timmermans, and seven brothers and sisters, I came to America in the
sailing vessel, the Maastroom, which left the Netherlands early in
April, 1847.

As others have already described the voyage up to the arrival in St.
Louis, I will begin my narrative at that point. While we left Holland
with a family of ten members, there were but nine when we arrived in
America. My infant sister, Anna Susanna, died at sea.

In St. Louis we lived for some three months in a large room in a
two-story building on River street. Living at that time was very cheap.
I well remember that mother would go to the market to buy the material
for our dinner, and that twenty-five cents was sufficient to buy meat,
potatoes and vegetables enough for a dinner for nine persons.

While we had no ice cream, cake or pie, we could buy a bucket full of
delicious peaches for ten cents. I will never forget the time when
father came home with a huge, round object which, when he laid it down
on the floor, burst open and exposed to our astonished eyes a deep red
interior. We children had seen so many turtles crawling about in St.
Louis that when we saw the object with its red interior, we ran away in
fear, thinking it was some kind of new and fearsome river beast. But
when father cut a generous slice for each of us, we soon concluded that
our adopted country produced more luscious fruit than any we had ever
enjoyed in the home land. It has already been recorded in the history of
that time how the good Christian people of St. Louis vied with each
other in open-hearted hospitality toward the strangers within their
gates, and how one of their largest church buildings was offered, rent
free, for the use of our people during their entire slay in the city.

In harmony with that spirit an American Sunday school teacher called on
us the first Sabbath morning of our stay and asked that all the children
should come to the school where he taught. Upon learning from father
that we were afraid to go far from the house because of the many
negroes, none of whom we had ever seen before coming to America, he
offered to take us with him and promised to bring us safely back after
the services. Not only did he do this, but from that time until we left
for Pella, this Godly man came for us every Sabbath morning. This was
not only for our spiritual good, but it was a great help to us in
mastering the English language.

When the Commission finally sent word that a suitable location for the
colony had been secured, our household goods were packed back into the
nine large boxes in which they had made the journey from Holland, and
in the last part of September we started by steamboat for Keokuk. The
trip lasted about twenty-four hours, and the scenes along the mighty
Father of Waters made an impression on us that remains to this day.

At Keokuk a fortunate incident occurred that enabled us to start for
Pella the next morning after our arrival at Keokuk. Father met a man who
had just