History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Henry P. Scholte
HENRY P. SCHOLTE, the founder of the Holland Colony of Marion County, was born at Amsterdam, kingdom of Netherlands, September 25, 1805. He was educated at the University of Leyden and studying theology was licensed to preach in 1832. Two years before, Mr. Scholte had volunteered to assist in suppressing a rebellion in Belgium in which he won medals for bravery. In 1833 he became a preacher in the National Reform church but soon after joined the dissenters and was tried in 1834 for teaching heresy and expelled from the established church, suffering persecution by fine and imprisonment. In 1846 Mr. Scholte became president of an organization to promote emigration to America and in April of the following year four ships bearing between seven and eight hundred persons sailed for Baltimore. No profane, immoral or intemperate person could be a member of the colony, nor an atheist, skeptic or Roman Catholic. A location was chosen in Marion County, Iowa, where two thousand acres of land were purchased and the town of Pella (city of refuge) was platted. Mr. Scholte here adopted the profession of law, taking an interest in American politics, and in 1860 was one of the delegates from Iowa to the National Republican convention at Chicago, which first nominated Abraham Lincoln for President. He was the first postmaster of Pella and donated five acres of the most beautiful ground in the town to the Iowa Central University. He remained the dominating spirit of the colony until his death on August 25, 1868.