Kollum was a village in the northeast of the Dutch province of Friesland, where in the 16th and 17th centuries Mennonites were numerous. Leenaert Bouwens baptized four persons here in 1551-1554, 21 persons in 1563-1565, and 201 persons in 1568-1582, totaling 226; besides these, in 1563-1565 eight others in the Kollumer Nieuwland.

In the early 17th century there were at Kollum at least three Mennonite congregations:

1. A Waterlander congregation which was represented at the Waterlander conference of 1647 at Amsterdam and which in 1695 joined the Sociëteit of Friesland. Its membership then was already very small, probably not more than 30. Its members were for a large part poor and were almost continuously supported by other Mennonites; e.g., in 1658 by the Mennonites from the southwestern part of Friesland and in the 18th century by the Sociëteit of Friesland. Often the pulpit was vacant. Of its meetinghouse at Kollum nothing is known. In 1745 this Kollum congregation united with that of Buitenpost and was then called Kollum and Buitenpost. In 1835 the united congregation, then numbering only 10 members, merged with that of Surhuisterveen and the name of Kollum disappeared.
2. A Groningen Old Flemish congregation called Kollum and Visvliet or also Visvliet and Kollum. This congregation died out before 1700. 
3. An Old Frisian (also called Jan Jacobsz) group is a congregation of which nothing is known but the fact that it died out in the early 18th century, its meetinghouse having been sold before 1729. 
4. There may have been a fourth congregation at Kollum, the Pieter-Jeltjes-volk (followers of Elder Pieter Jeltjes). Jeltjes was banned by Jan Jacobsz in December 1599).
   

In 1932 Mennonites living at Kollum formed a “Menno Simonsz-Kring,” which belongs to the congregation of Zwaagwesteinde. The membership of this group was 38 in 1955.

Bibliography

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 216. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

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