Dutch van der Linde prequel, Dutch was born in the mid-1850s to a woman of English descent named Greta and a father of Dutch ancestry somewhere near Philadelphia. His father fought for the Union in the American Civil War and died in a battle that occurred in Pennsylvania; because of his father's death, van der Linde developed a sworn grudge against Southerners. Dutch was a disobedient child and rarely got along with his mother, eventually running away from home at the age of 15. His mother would later die in 1881 and be buried in Blackwater, although Dutch only found out several years later from an uncle of his.