First, there was celery. Then, there was Holland Transplanter.

In 1856, George Taylor emigrated to Kalamazoo from Scotland and brought celery seeds with him. By 1866, many Hollanders had arrived in Kalamazoo, and one, a gardener named Cornelius DeBruyn, developed a “modern” celery. By 1872, Dutch emigrants had turned the muck-lands around Kalamazoo into celery fields.

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In 1884, George Souter introduced celery to the east side of Holland, growing 25,000 celery plants on 5,000 acres of land. By 1914, celery production in Hudsonville had matched that of Kalamazoo, and production in Hamilton wasn't far behind.

Louis Poll and his twin brothers, Benjamin and Henry, were well-acquainted with the back-breaking work of hand-planting celery. These three inventors, believing they could find a better way, began experimenting with hand-operated, self-propelled machines that would make celery planting more efficient and less taxing on the body.

By then, Louis was married and had his own farm south of Hamilton, and Benjamin and Henry, also married, had moved to Holland. Together, in Henry’s chicken coop behind his home — 353 E. Sixth St. — they invented a machine that worked 8-10 times faster than hand-planting.

Word spread quickly. By 1927, the brothers had quit their jobs to work full-time building machines. They called their business the Holland Celery Planter Company.

In the 1930s, the brothers replaced their chicken coop manufacturing facility with a larger wooden building. By 1932, they were assembling machines that could transplant lettuce, peppers and mint, in addition to celery. After a fire in 1935, they added a tile building.

Then, the brothers designed horse-drawn machines for planting tobacco and tomatoes. Later, they created planters for tree seedlings and became international exporters, sending machines to Canada and Northern Europe. Then Gerber Foods asked them to design a spinach harvester. They did, but sold the design to a California company.

Next, the brothers designed a small engine-propelled garden tractor. But supply chain issues during World War II stopped the project. The government ordered machines to plant grass seed and rubber trees. Uncle Sam wanted to grow grass on the land between newly constructed military runways to keep sand from blowing into plane engines; and rubber trees to supply latex for making tires.

After the war, Louis decided to return to farming. He sold his share of the business to Ben and Henry. Because Ben and Henry needed someone to run the office, they hired Raymond Kolk, a brother-in-law. They also renamed the company Holland Transplanter to reflect its broadened product line.

In 1953, Henry retired to pursue his passion of restoring and collecting antique cars. To do so, he and his son, Clyde, built car museums along U.S.-31. The first museum was south of Holland; the second north of Holland. That year, Kolk also left to start his own business, Mechanical Transplanter, which is still located today at 1150 Central Ave.

To replace Henry and Raymond, Ben asked his son-in-law, Chuck Knooishuizen, to run the office. Later he asked his son, Howard, and his son-in-law, Vern Kraai, to join the company as well. Holland Transplanter came out with the first tractor-mounted transplanter, which could plant up to twelve rows simultaneously. Then, it developed a new plant holder. Boosted by those inventions, sales doubled for each of the next four years. Sales of tobacco planters led the way.

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Needing more space, in 1963, Holland Transplanter relocated to the former Standard Grocery facility at 510 E. 16th St. and, over the next four years, sold more machinery than its competitors combined.

By 1980, Holland Transplanter controlled over one-half of the market, producing 6,000 machines with 40 employees. Then the bubble burst as the high interest rates stalled the farm economy.

Next, the business created a machine to plant potted greenhouse plants. Later, it marketed a black plastic material used to cover crops to reduce weed growth and warm the soil, a machine that could plant through it, and a machine to lay and remove the plastic mulch. It even built a rotary planter and machine that could dig up tulip bulbs along city streets.

The business continues today.

Information for this article comes from Robert Swierenga’s “Holland Michigan,” The Holland Sentinel, a Holland Transplanter document and migenweb.org/kalamazoo/celery.

— Community Columnist Steve VanderVeen is a resident of Holland. Contact him through start-upacademeinc.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Holland History: Three brothers, plenty of celery and Holland Transplanter