My older brother Don researched our family history some years ago, for which I am deeply appreciative. He did the hard work, and I merely repackaged some of his findings. As is the case with some families, the name was recast several times over many years before arriving in its current form—Van Scotter. I suspect this will be the final version, although there are times it would have been convenient to drop the “er.”

As I’ve said to puzzled people on occasions, “It’s two words: think Van Dyke, Van Buren, or Van Gogh, as in the Dutch painter. Yet, for some it comes out as “Van Scooter” or just “Scotter” or “Scooter. As can be imaged, I often go by the nickname “Scoots” or “Scooter,” mostly said, I hope, with affection. I prefer just “Van,” a label that my dad, Henry, carried during his working years in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, where I grew up.

Don referenced a book published in 1907 by William Henry van Benschoten that traces the variations on our last name. The early family name van Bunschoten (“van” a preposition meaning “of” or “from”) became shortened to van Schoten, after which the “h” was dropped and the “n” transformed to its lookalike “r.” Before long an extra “t” was added and the “V” capitalized. With this van Scoter became Van Scotter.

A branch of the family still goes by Van Benschoten, or Van Bunschoten, now distant cousins. My father Henry and his younger brother William have the same first names as family author William Henry.

The first van Bunschotens to America arrived in New Amsterdam (later renamed New York), where they were among many kin. In time the English came to dominate. This original generation headed by Theunis Elissen married Gerritje Gerrit van de Bergh, who lived in Kingston, New York and had ten children, two who died young. These homesteaders braved the wilderness as weavers and woodsmen.

I can imagine their journey to and reception in America was challenging: little or no knowledge of the language, peculiar names, awkwardness in observing American customs, but with a determined work ethic. They were not different from many others who came to this country on ships and boats, over the border from north and south, or via refugee status.

Many Americans resisted accepting these people, which is generous way to say they were narrow-minded, xenophobic, and ignorant. In time, however, they learned the language, celebrated customs, acquired civic know-how, assimilated and dropped the hyphenated label of Dutch-American—German-American, Italian-American, Irish-American, Asian-American, Mexican-American—and became “Americans.”

This is like those now who come here from the Middle East, Far East, Latin America, and elsewhere escaping persecution and hardships. And it may be our nation’s greatest achievement to assimilate strangers, something other countries struggle with and often fail to achieve. Yet, it seems that with each generation or wave of immigrants, chauvinism, bigotry, and prejudice blinds us to the contributions they bring to our culture, economy, and communities. Nativism has a strong hold in some quarters of our county.

By the 4th generation, Anthony, born in 1746, married Margaret Decker. They had nine children and simplified the name to van Scoten then van Scoter. The van Scoter or Van Scoter name can be found in New York state, then Michigan, as kin migrated westward.

It wasn’t until the 6th generation that relatives, who went by Van Scoter, moved west from New York to Wautoma, Wisconsin. Elias married Jane Foote in 1845, and they arrived around the time of Wisconsin statehood (1848) and the promise of fertile farmland. Elias and Jane had nine children among them twins Alvin and Albert, the latter was my great-grandfather.

Albert, born in 1857, relocated to Greenwood, South Dakota and wed Mary Day. He was a merchant and mercifully had just two children, one of whom was my grandfather, Irving, a carpenter. He married Anna Hatie Kering, who had been born in northern Germany.

No nobility among them, but Irving did seek opportunity and made his way to Madison, Wisconsin via Rochester, Minnesota, where his oldest child my father, Henry Irving, grew up. During this time, a second “t” was added to the last name.
 
Dad, born in 1901, had a younger brother, William Anthony, crippled from birth, and three younger sisters, two of whom (Frances and Lillian) died in childhood from scarlet fever. Henry too may have contracted scarlet fever as a boy that impaired his hearing, possibly contributing to learning issues.

His was a challenging existence growing up under modest conditions, but he never played the victim. Dad dropped out of school around 8th grade, to help with family finances, eventually enlisting in the National Guard in 1917 at age 16. The unit departed for New Jersey, but World War I ended before he could be sent to Europe.

Upon returning home, his travels took him to Milwaukee and a job at Harley Davidson, Inc., the motorcycle manufacturer. Dad loved motorbikes his entire life and ventured 45 miles southwest to Elkhorn in the early 1920s. Here he found work as a polisher at the Frank Holton band instrument factory and an apartment at 218 South Washington across the street from the MaGill family, who had a 16-year-old daughter, Helen.

Frank C. Holton had founded the company in Chicago in 1998 then moved it to the small Wisconsin town 20 years later. Holton’s employed 200 workers. Homes across town set clocks by the factory whistle that went off promptly at 12:00 noon, for lunch then 5:00 p.m. signaling the end of the work day. This upgraded Elkhorn’s economy and defined its identity for several decades.

To her parents’ dismay, the girl, who would become my mother, dropped out of high school after 11th grade and eventually eloped with Henry across the state line to Freeport, Illinois. They were married in 1924.


The maternal side of the family is more straightforward. My mother, Helen Evelyn, comes from the English lineage Potter and the Scotch-Irish (or Scots-Irish) Magill, who originated in Scotland with a stop in Northern Ireland, before departing for America during the 18th and 19th centuries.

For whatever reason, my grandfather’s kin spelled the name with capital “G” as in “MaGill.” Perhaps, this was to be similar to the Irish “Mc” or “Mac” prefix followed by a capital letter as in “McGraw.”

The Potters came to the United States in the mid-1700s in time for the American Revolution to which my grandmother, Maud Almira, born a century later in 1878, counts herself among the DAR—Daughters of the American Revolution. She had an older sister, Lorena, named after the famous Civil War song written by Joseph Philbrick Webster, who lived in Elkhorn, Wisconsin.

The Potters made their way to hospitable farm land decades earlier before Wisconsin became a state in 1848 and settled in the middle of what would become Walworth County, near what would be the county seat. The town of Elkhorn incorporated two years later. The country lane where they farmed later was named Potter Road.

Grandmother Maud, born a generation later, married a neighbor, Fred B. MaGill, who lived six miles northeast on Honey Creek Road, north of Burlington. Grandfather was sixth born into a large family of nine girls and four boys, two of whom died as infants, John Herbert and Veda Roe. First born, Clarissa, passed away before her teen years at age 12. Life was challenging in the late 1800s. Medical care was sketchy, drug use primitive, sanitation wanting, and indoor plumbing non-existent.