http://www.swierenga.com/GronHoekpaper1987.html The first Hollander to live in Chicago is unknown but Dutch settlers drifted into the "Windy City" in ones and twos as early as 1839, only two years after the city's founding.[6] The first city directory, published in 1839, listed Leonard Falch (Valk), a soap maker and chandler on La Salle Street, who is identified in the 1850 federal population census as Dutch-born. (The 1850 census was the first to record the nationality or state of birth of all inhabitants.) Falch and his Dutch-born wife had four children, the first (Charles) was born in Chicago in 1840. Falch was worth $10,000 in 1850 and was the wealthiest Hollander in Illinois. Falch was still a soap maker in the 1860s, living near the north city limits at Hubbard and Fullerton Streets.[7] Leonard Falch and his wife was likely the first Dutch family in Chicago and their son Charles was the first Dutch child born in the city.
