Van Zanten, James (Jacobus Everardus Van Zanten)
1888-1979 | Cook, and Chief Steward, Alaska Railroad
Jacobus Everardus Van Zanten was born in Hillegon, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands, on July 25, 1888[1] and received training there as a cook. He immigrated to Canada, where he worked as a cook in railroad construction camps. He first arrived in the United States in 1910.[2] After he was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1929, his name was changed to James Van Zanten.[3]
In 1911, Johanna Helena Mathot [Matot] left her home in The Netherlands and traveled to Canada. On December 26, 1911, Jacobus Van Zanten and Johanna Helena Mathot [Matot] (1886-1980) were married in Lytton, British Columbia. She was born in Haarlem, Holland, on March 6, 1886.
After Van Zanten’s job ended with the completion of railroad construction, they moved to Ballard, Washington, where Van Zanten was hired as a cook in his uncle’s restaurant. On July 21, 1915, their first child, named John Jacob "Jack," was born in Ballard.[4]
In the spring of 1915, Van Zanten arrived in the Tent City at Ship Creek and was hired as a cook at railroad construction camps by the Alaskan Engineering Commission (AEC), the temporary federal agency in charge of building the Alaska Railroad. Around 1917 or 1918, he accepted a job as a cook for the U.S. Navy Alaska Coal Commission site at Chickaloon, probably at the Eska mine, where over a hundred civilian miners were at work digging coal. In 1918, his family rejoined him at Chickaloon, where a daughter, Helen, was born on September 21, 1918, followed by a second daughter, Bertha, on July 2, 1921.[5]
There was a brief attempt by the U.S. Navy to mine coal in Alaska to supply its Pacific fleet, but the whole effort was shut down in the spring of 1922. A major deposit of 500,000 tons of minable coal had been found at Wishbone Hill, a mountain in the King River district approximately fifty miles east of Anchorage, with Chickaloon Creek at its eastern end and Eska Creek on the west. Despite the high quality of the coal, it was difficult to mine. The cost of mining and shipping the coal from Alaska was too high. The Navy decided it could not depend on Alaska coal to fuel its ships and converted its fleet to oil-burning engines.[6]
After operations were closed at Chickaloon, Van Zanten obtained employment as a cook at mining camps in the Nelchina mining district. He left his wife and three young children in a cabin on the Chickaloon River while he worked on the Nelchina. The family spent a lonely winter chopping holes in the river ice for water, until his return.
In 1924, Van Zanten and his family moved to Anchorage. Their fourth child, Dorothy, was born in Anchorage on August 7, 1924. After his wife, Johanna, was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1936, her full name was changed to Johanna Helen Van Zanten.[7]
After repeated work separations from his family, Van Zanten accepted a job as school custodian at the Anchorage public school on Fifth Avenue, and worked there until 1942. He was finally employed as chief steward for the Alaska Railroad until his retirement. He later returned to cooking for the Alaska Road Commission (ARC) camps with his wife, Johanna, as his assistant.[8] He was a member of the Pioneers of Alaska, Igloo 15, Anchorage.[9]
In 1947, the couple moved to Whidbey Island, Washington and, in 1967, to Ellensburg, Washington.[10]
James Van Zanten died on May 10, 1979, at the age of ninety, in Ellensburg, Washington. Johanna Helen Van Zanten died on November 17, 1980, at the age of ninety-four, at the Kittitas Valley Community Hospital, in Ellensburg. They are both buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, in Ellensburg.[11] They were survived by their four children: John Jacob "Jack" Van Zanten of Juneau, Alaska; Helen Van Zanten Gilbert (1918-1993) of Seattle, Washington; Dorothy Van Zanten Secondi (1924-.) of Ellensburg; and Bertha Van Zanten Porter (1921-1986) of Homer, Alaska; and nineteen grandchildren.
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![Johanna Helena Mathot [Matot] Van Zanten (1886-1980) and Jacobus E. "Jim" Van Zanten (1888-1979). The child is not identified.](/media/2546/669.jpg)
Endnotes
[1] Draft registration card James Van Zanten, Draft Registration Cards for the Fourth Draft Registration for Alaska, April 27, 1942, NAJ Number 4504983, Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group 147, National Archives at St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016); and James Vanzanten [Van Zanten], U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016).
[2] James J Vanzanten [Van Zanten], 1920 U.S. Census, Anchorage, Third Judicial District, Alaska, ED 11, page 21B, National Archives Microfilm Publication T625, Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920, Roll 2031, 1920 Federal United States Census [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016).
[3] Index card, James Van Zanten, U.S. District Court, Anchorage, AK, January 17, 1929, National Archives Microfilm Publication M1788, Indexes to Naturalization Records of the U.S. District Courts for the District, Territory, and State of Alaska (Third Division), 1903-1991, Roll 18, U.S., Naturalization Record Indexes, 1791-1992 (Indexed in World Archives Project) [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016).
[4] Jack Van Zanten to John P. Bagoy, April 6, 1999, attachment, handwritten account of Jacobus E. Van Zanten and Johanna Helena Mathot [Matot] Van Zanten, n.d. 1-2, File: Jacobus Van Zanten, Bagoy Family Pioneer Files (2004.11), Box 8, Atwood Resource Center, Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Anchorage, AK; John P. Bagoy, Legends & Legacies, Anchorage, 1910-1935 (Anchorage: Publications Consultants, 2001), 90-91; and Index card, Johanna Helen Van Zanten, U.S. District Court, Anchorage, AK, January 13, 1936, National Archives Microfilm Publication M1788, Indexes to Naturalization Records of the U.S. District Courts for the District, Territory, and State of Alaska (Third Division), 1903-1991, Roll 18, U.S., Naturalization Record Indexes, 1791-1992 (Indexed in World Archives Project) [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016).
[5] Index card, Johanna Helen Van Zanten, U.S. District Court, Anchorage, AK, January 13, 1936, National Archives Microfilm Publication M1788, Indexes to Naturalization Records of the U.S. District Courts for the District, Territory, and State of Alaska (Third Division), 1903-1991, Roll 18, U.S., Naturalization Record Indexes, 1791-1992 (Indexed in World Archives Project) [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016).
[6] Stephen Haycox, “The Orchestra at Chickaloon, Alaska,” A Warm Past: Travels in Alaska History: 50 Essays by Stephen Haycox (Anchorage: Press North Inc., 1988), 130-132.
[7] Index card, Johanna Helen Van Zanten, U.S. District Court, Anchorage, AK, January 13, 1936, National Archives Microfilm Publication M1788, Indexes to Naturalization Records of the U.S. District Courts for the District, Territory, and State of Alaska (Third Division), 1903-1991, Roll 18, U.S., Naturalization Record Indexes, 1791-1992 (Indexed in World Archives Project) [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016).
[8] Jack Van Zanten to John P. Bagoy, April 6, 1999, attachment, handwritten account of Jacobus E. Van Zanten and Johanna Helena Mathot [Matot] Van Zanten, n.d. 3-4, File: Jacobus Van Zanten, Bagoy Family Pioneer Files (2004.11), Box 8, Atwood Resource Center, Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Anchorage, AK; and John P. Bagoy, Legends & Legacies, Anchorage, 1910-1935 (Anchorage: Publications Consultants, 2001), 90-91.
[9] Application for membership and identification card, James Van Zanten, Pioneers of Alaska, Igloo 15, Anchorage, AK, November 4, 1938, Folder 19, Membership Applications, L-Z, 1921-1973, Pioneers of Alaska, Igloo No. 15, Records, 1916-1988 (HMC-0202), Box 4, Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK.
[10] Johanna Van Zanten, U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016); reprinted from Ellensburg (WA) Daily Record, November 19, 1980, 16.
[11] James Van Zanten, U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016); and Johanna Van Zanten, U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016).
Sources
This biographical sketch of James Van Zanten (Jacobus Everardus Van Zanten) is based on an essay originally published in John P. Bagoy’s Legends & Legacies, Anchorage, 1910-1935 (Anchorage, AK: Publications Consultants, 2001), 90-92. See also the Jacobus Van Zanten file, Bagoy Family Pioneer Files (2004.11), Box 8, Atwood Resource Center, Anchorage, AK. Photographs courtesy of the Longacre family. Edited by Mina Jacobs, 2012. Note: edited, revised, and expanded by Bruce Parham, November 3, 2016.
Preferred citation: Bruce Parham, ed., “Van Zanten, James (Jacobus Everardus Van Zanten),” Cook Inlet Historical Society, Legends & Legacies, Anchorage, 1910-1940, http://www.alaskahistory.org.
Major support for Legends & Legacies, Anchorage, 1910-1940, provided by: Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Atwood Foundation, Cook Inlet Historical Society, and the Rasmuson Foundation. This educational resource is provided by the Cook Inlet Historical Society, a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt association. Contact us at the Cook Inlet Historical Society, by mail at Cook Inlet Historical Society, Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, 625 C Street, Anchorage, AK 99501 or through the Cook Inlet Historical Society website, www.cookinlethistory.org.