Established in 1847 as the commercial and industrial center of the Dutch colonies settled by immigrants in Ottawa County, Groningen was founded by Jan Rabbers, a follower of Albertus Van Raalte, on the Black River at what he believed would become a major trade artery at the end of a navigable waterway. Rabbers built a small log house and store on this site, a bridge over the river, and a nearby lumber mill, and the village began as a thriving community for Dutch immigrants who were not farmers. The village declined after the bridge washed out in 1856 and a new bridge downstream diverted traffic there. In 1858 the residents relocated about one mile northeast to the village of New Groningen. The original site became New Groningen Cemetery after Rabbers and his wife, Cornelia, sold the property to a churchyard association, and additional land purchases expanded it to its present size. The cemetery is the only remnant of Rabbers's plan, and while most graves have simple headstones, larger obelisks mark family plots of more prominent settlers, and many of the oldest graves are unmarked because their wooden markers deteriorated and disappeared.