Steve VanderVeen: James De Young and the Beckers
Home Furnace Company was Holland’s "other" furnace company, the tortoise compared to the hare. The tortoise won. James De Young and the Beckers were the reason.
James De Young was born in 1860. In 1877, he became plant supervisor at Black Jake’s Van Putten Butter Tub Factory at Fourth Street and River Avenue.
In 1891, he joined the Wolverine Electric Light Company. But when, in 1893, 71 percent of the voting public approved the formation of the Board of Public Works to oversee the water commission and a new electricity commission, De Young became the board's first superintendent.
In 1896, De Young ran for mayor of Holland as a Democrat and defeated Republican Gerrit Diekema. From 1898 to 1910, De Young again served as the BPW’s superintendent.
Then De Young left for Owosso, where he led another public works organization and served as mayor. Next, he moved to River Rouge. Fortunately, he returned to Holland.
From 1918 to 1929, De Young was plant manager at the struggling Home Furnace Company. Nick Yonker, a native of the Netherlands, had founded the Home Furnace Company in 1916 to make and sell cast iron furnaces. His factory was at Sixth Street and Fairbanks, where the BPW’s natural gas plant is today.
One of Home Furnace’s customers was the U.S. Army, which needed to heat barracks during World War I. Yet, by 1918, the year WWI ended, Home Furnace was insolvent — even though it had three patents on furnaces for small bungalows and large buildings.
One reason was that Home Furnace had strong competition: John Kolla and August Landwehr’s Holland Furnace Company, the hare in our story. In contrast to Home Furnace, Holland Furnace had sales of $500,000 (about $10 million in present-day dollars).
As manager of Home Furnace Company, De Young cut spending, changed operating processes, and created effective national advertising campaigns. He served on the board of Holland BPW. Between 1923 and 1935, the BPW returned $1 million in excess revenue to the city, plus $184,000 to help fund Holland Hospital.
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In 1938, the BPW announced it would build a coal-fired power plant on the swamp on the west side of Pine Avenue, a project of which 45 percent was funded by Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. It was De Young’s final project. Workers completed construction of the plant in 1940, the year James De Young died. BPW named the plant in his honor.
It came down Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023, with crowds of people watching at Kollen Park and Dunton Park.
Meanwhile, Conrad Becker was born in 1831. He was a miller in the Netherlands and then in Holland, Michigan. His son, Christian Becker, born in 1886, learned bookkeeping at the Gregman’s Holland Business School, which also taught him English, spelling, shorthand, and to sign his name C.E. Becker, even though he didn't have a middle name.
C.E. worked at Veneklasen Brick and Klein Lumber before becoming Holland Furnace Company’s first bookkeeper in 1906. In 1909, his son, Clarence Becker, was born.
When James De Young retired as manager of the Home Furnace Company in 1929, John De Vries took his place. In 1935, after resigning from the Holland Furnace Company, C. E. Becker became manager of the Home Furnace Company.
His son, who had graduated from Hope College and Harvard Business School, joined him there as president. By 1937, using fuel oil and natural gas as power sources, Home Furnace bested Holland Furnace in the air conditioning business, and built a new facility at Seventh Street and Fairbanks Avenue.
In 1956, while Holland Furnace was battling lawsuits over its unethical sales practices, Home Furnace had incorporated metal stamping technology into its furnace manufacturing and replaced its company-owned direct selling system with independent wholesalers. By 1960, Home Furnace had exclusive rights to an oil-fired heat pump called the “miller gun” just in time for the booming mobile home manufacturing industry.
In 1966, the Beckers sold the successful Home Furnace to Lear Siegler, Inc. By that time, the Holland Furnace Company was out of business, and its leader had spent six months in jail.
Christian Becker died in 1967. Clarence died in 1996.
Information from this story comes from Robert Swierenga’s "Holland, Michigan," Donald Van Reken and Randall VandeWater’s "The Holland Furnace Company," Donald Van Reken’s Oral History Interview of Clarence Becker in 1976, and my interview with Hermina Becker Buys in 2005.
— 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: James De Young and the Beckers
