There were, moreover, a host of people from Telemarken and Numedal, who could not accompany him, as there was no more room in the ship.

In the meantime these people from Telemarken, not to be deterred long in their plans to go to the New World, immediately set about organizing their party and went to Skien to seek passage there. They were all from Tin and Hjertdal parishes in Upper Telemarken. The leaders of the party were the Luraas family, which was represented by four heads of families, in all about twenty persons of the total number of forty, composed almost exclusively of grown men and women. They embarked at Skien, May seventeenth, somewhat earlier than the party from Numedal and arrived in America before, hence it is to this group that we shall now turn our attention, leaving for the time being Nattestad and his party. The Luraas party was in all composed of eleven families, most of them being from Tin Parish. We have already, under Causes of Emigration, spoken briefly of John Luraas, who perhaps was the chief promoter of this emigration.

The party consisted of John Nelson Luraas, Knut Nelson Luraas, Halvor Östenson Luraas, Torger Östenson Luraas, Halvor T. Lönflok, Halvor Nelson Lohner, Helge Mathieson, Ole Hellikson Kroken, Östen Möllerflaten, Ole Kjonaas, Nils Johnson Kaasa, and the latter’s brother, Gjermund Johnson Kaasa, all of whom had families, besides three unmarried men, namely, Nils, Ole and John Tollefsjord. The Kaasa brothers were from Hiterdal; the rest I believe were all from Tin Parish. In Gothenburg they met another small company of Norwegian emigrants, who had just arrived there from Stavanger, bound for America. This party included Gitle Danielson, the leader of the party, from the island of Rennesö, a little north of Stavanger, and who had a large family, Halvor Jellarviken, with family, and Peder Rosöino, both with families, Erik Svinalie and sister; the party also included John Evenson Molee from Tin in Telemarken, who was at that time in the service of Gitle Danielson. In all there were now about sixty. The journey across the Atlantic took nine weeks and the journey from Boston to Milwaukee took another three weeks. The latter led by way of New York and then by canal boats, pulled by horses, to Buffalo; thence by way of the Great Lakes to Milwaukee, the most common westward route for the early immigrants. This was at the close of August. It was the intention of the emigrants to settle in La Salle County, Illinois; but in Milwaukee they were induced to remain in Wisconsin, and a site for a settlement was selected near Lake Muskego in the southeastern part of Waukesha County, about twenty miles southwest from Milwaukee.

A story is told how it came about that they did not go to Illinois as originally intended. A good-natured fat man is said to have been pointed out to them as the product of Wisconsin. On the other hand Illinois was described as a hot and unhealthy region in substantiation of which a pale, sickly man was presented as the result of life in that state. Whether this was done or not I do not know; but the story may serve as an illustration of frontier humor and immigrant credulity both.

Suffice it to say that the people of Milwaukee succeeded in diverting the immigrants from Telemarken from going any farther, but selected a site for a settlement, as we have said, near Lake Muskego in Waukesha County. Then they returned to Milwaukee to perfect their purchase of land there, the price paid being the usual one of a dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.

Before reciting further the fortunes of this group of immigrants, the first to enter the State of Wisconsin, let us turn for a moment to a consideration of the larger movement. With the year 1839, emigration from Norway begins to assume larger proportions, and certain districts, which hitherto had sent very few, now begin to contribute the larger share of the number of emigrants to America. This year may very properly be said to have inaugurated the second period in Norwegian immigration history. Down to 1839 the immigration movement in Norway had not really gone beyond the provinces of Stavanger and South Bergenhus in southwestern and western Norway. Indeed, nearly all of the emigrants had come from these sections. In fact, before 1836 the movement was almost confined to Stavanger and Ryfylke. In that year it reaches Hardanger, and in 1837, Bergen. It does not reach Voss properly before 1838, although Nils Röthe and wife had emigrated from there in 1836. In 1837, as we have seen, the first emigrant ship, the Aegir, left Bergen with eighty-four passengers. Before 1839 we meet with occasional individual emigration from provinces to the east and northeast. Thus Ole Rynning and Snaasen in Trondhjem Diocese emigrated in the Aegir in 1837. The first emigrants from Telemarken also came in 1837. As we have seen above, 1837 is also the year which records the first immigration from Numedal. Among the emigrants from other parts of Norway prior to 1837 must be mentioned also Johan Nordboe, from Ringebo in Guldbrandsdalen, who came in 1832 and resided for some time in Kendall, New York, later going to Texas, and Hans Barlien from Trondhjem County, who came to La Salle County in 1837. Neither of these two men, however, were instrumental in bringing about any emigration movement in Gudbrandsdalen and Trondhjem. It is not until a much later period that these two districts are represented in considerable numbers among emigrants.

It is the year 1839 in which emigration on a larger scale takes its beginnings. Similarly, the year 1839 marks a change also in the movement of the course of settlement. Down to this time all emigration from Norway stands in direct relation to the movement which began in Stavanger in 1825, and which in the years 1834–36 resulted in the formation of the Fox River Settlement in La Salle County, Illinois. This settlement then became the center of dispersion for what may be called the southern line of settlements. All through the forties and the fifties the southern course of migration westward, which includes southern and central Iowa, stands in direct relation to early Norwegian colonization in New York and Illinois,—that is the first period of Norwegian emigration from the provinces of Stavanger and South Bergenhus (and this province only as far north as Bergen, Voss being excluded) in Southwestern Norway. In 1839 the first settlements are formed in Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Muskego in Waukesha County, and in Rock County; and in 1839–40 that of Koshkonong in Dane and Jefferson Counties. These settlements then became a northern point of dispersion. From here we have a second northern line of settlement westward and northwestward into Northern Iowa, Minnesota, and the more northerly localities of Wisconsin.

CHAPTER XIV
Shelby County, Missouri. Ansten Nattestad’s Return from Norway in 1839. The Founding of the Jefferson Prairie Settlement in Rock County, Wisconsin.

Before returning now to the thread of our narrative, I wish to speak briefly of an early effort, and the only one, before the fifties, to found a settlement from the southern point of dispersion.

In 1837 Kleng Peerson, Jacob and Knud Slogvig, Andrew Askeland, Andrew Simonson, Thorstein Thorson Rue, several of whom had families, and about eight others, left La Salle County, went to Missouri and made a settlement in Shelby County; this, however, proved unsuccessful, principally on account of the lack of a market.

Peerson does not seem to have selected a very desirable locality, and he did not possess the steadfastness of purpose that would seem to be a prime requisite in the pioneer. He was too much of a lover of adventure, and hardly was a plan brought to completion before his head was again full of new dreams and fancies.

He was something of a Peer Gynt but without Peer Gynt’s selfishness or his eye for the main chance; the roving spirit dominated Peerson wholly; not until old age had laid its hand on him did he yield to the monotony of a settled life; but even then in the wilderness of Texas in the fifties. I have personal information of his life there; he took no part in the upbuilding of the community, no active interest in its progress. In a settled community he alone was unsettled; he was never able to gather himself together into concentrated action and prolonged effort in a definite cause or undertaking. A vagabond citizen, he died in poverty. The only activity we associate with his name is the adventurous wanderings of his youth.

After having spent a year in Missouri Peerson returned to Norway, evidently for the purpose of recruiting his colony, but I have no evidence that he succeeded in this. Independent of Peerson’s efforts, the little colony did receive an accession of three in 1838, namely, Knud and Ole Lydvo and Lars Gjerstad, and of one person in the fall of 1839, namely, Nils Lydvo, who had just come from Voss, Norway, with a group of immigrants from that region, most of whom remained in Chicago. The Shelby County settlement did not thrive. It was too far removed from other settlers, too far from a market; the settlers suffered want and became discouraged. The colony was practically broken up in 1840, when most of the settlers removed north into Iowa Territory into what is now Lee County. Here they established the first Norwegian settlement in Iowa. Of this we shall have occasion to speak under the year 1840. Let us now return to Ansten Nattestad and his party of emigrants, whom we left above, page 119, as about to depart for America.

Ansten Nattestad’s party of one hundred then sailed from Drammen by the Emelia, Captain Ankerson, late in the spring of 1839. It was the first time, says he, that the people of Drammen had seen an emigrant ship. Every person paid thirty-three dollars and a half (specie); they were nine weeks on the ocean, going direct to New York. They took the usual route inland and arrived in Milwaukee just at the time when the Luraas party had returned to Milwaukee to purchase land already selected in Waukesha County, as we have seen above. They urged the new arrivals to stop in Milwaukee and go with them to Muskego, but Nattestad objected, and so they continued their journey to Chicago.

Here Ansten learned that his brother had located in Wisconsin the year before. The party’s destination was La Salle County, but this changed the course of some of them. Some who had friends there did go to La Salle County, a few remained in Chicago, especially single men, but the majority went with Ansten to Clinton. All these (excepting some to be noted below) bought land and began the life of pioneers there in the fall of 1839 on what came to be known as Jefferson Prairie. Besides Ole Knudson Nattestad and his brother Ansten, those who founded this settlement were: Halvor Pederson Haugen, Hans Gjermundson Haugen, Thore Helgeson Kirkejord, Torsten Helgeson Kirkejord, Jens Gudbrandson Myhra, Gudbrand, Myhra, Erik Skavlem, the brothers Kittil and Kristoffer Nyhus, and T. Nelson. Halvor Haugen did not come with the Nattestad party, although he was in Drammen intending to sail on the Emelia. Owing to lack of room about thirty persons, including children, had to be left behind. Halvor Haugen has himself told (in Amerika, September, 1907) of the coming of these. After several days of waiting, they secured passage on a boat bound for Gothenburg, Sweden. The journey went via Fredrikshald, where another stay of two or three days took place. At Gothenburg a wait of ten days followed before the brig Bunyan, on which they were to sail, was ready. “It was certainly fortunate,” says our narrator, “that people were not in such haste then, or the repeated delays of several days duration would have been the cause of much unpleasant irritation.” Landing in Boston, the immigrants travelled by rail to Providence, Rhode Island, thence by steamboat to New York. Here they boarded the boat which was to carry them to Albany. As they were told the boat was not to leave before five o’clock in the afternoon most of the men of the party went ashore again to purchase food. When they returned however the boat had sailed having left at ten in the forenoon instead of five in the afternoon as planned. Those left behind managed to reach their destination also, though with many difficulties and unpleasant experiences. From Albany they travelled by canal to Buffalo. “Of this part of the journey,” says Haugen, “there is nothing to be said except that, like all other earthly things, this also at last came to an end.” From Buffalo the journey went by steamboat to Chicago. They did not go thence to La Salle County though undoubtedly intended originally to do so. I do not know what changed their course, but on the next day after arriving in Chicago, they went to Du Page County, Illinois, where a week later they met those who had gone with Nattestad in Captain Ankerson’s ship. The party whose coming has thus briefly been related was composed of Halvor Haugen, wife, three sons, Peder, Halvor and Andreas, and two daughters Bergit and Sigrid; Halvor Stordok, Lars Haugerud, Gunder Fingalpladsen, Engebret Sæter, Lars Dalen, Gjermund Johnson, and Sven Tufte, all of whom also had families, besides some single persons. Halvor Haugen’s family and most of the party remained in Du Page County for a time, and Peder Haugen and his brother Andreas and the two sisters secured employment there. The father, however, went with Erik Skavlem to Jefferson Prairie to help him build a house. At Christmas the rest of the party also went to Jefferson Prairie. During the winter they all lived in Skavlem’s house. This house is described as follows:

A writer in Amerika, March first, 1907, quotes one of the immigrants as speaking of the cramped quarters in the log cabin, in which the whole party lived that fall and winter; room which to one family would seem too small now. “How these settlers,” he says, “could manage in one log cabin a whole winter is a riddle to me.” The following spring Halvor Haugen also built a cabin which was always full as newcomers were constantly arriving. At the same time other cabins were erected by Kittil and Kristoffer Nyhus, Gudbrand and Jens Myhra, and Torsten Kirkejorden. Two years later all of these built new and more commodious houses.

The settlement thus founded exclusively by immigrants from the district of Numedal has always continued to be recruited largely from that region (see, however, below). In the following year a few more families came from Numedal, while from 1841 the accessions were considerable every year for a number of years. Among these is to be mentioned Bergit Nelson Kallerud, from Vægli, who also came in the ship Emilia, in 1839, but who does not seem to have gone directly to Jefferson Prairie. She married Jens Gudbrandson Myhra at Christmas, 1839, while his brother, Gudbrand Myhra, married Ambjör Olson (also from Vægli) in 1840. The following year they, however, moved to the Rock Prairie Settlement (see below), and in 1852 they settled in Mitchell County, Iowa. In connection with the settling of this county we shall have occasion to speak again more fully of them. Jens Myhra was born in Vægli, Numedal, in 1812.

Of the other founders of this settlement I may here add the following facts. Ole Knudson Nattestad was born at Vægli, in Rollaug Parish, December twenty-fourth, 1807. We have above given an account of his settling at Clinton. In Nordlyset for May eighteenth, 1848, there appeared a communication from Nattestad relative to this occasion, in which he rightly claims to have been the first Norwegian to settle in the state. He married there Lena Hiser in 1840; he lived in the settlement, as an influential, respected member of the community, till his death, which occurred at Clinton, May twenty-eighth, 1886. His wife died in September, 1888. They left seven children; Henry Nattestad, the oldest, at present occupies the homestead. The other children are, Charles (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), James (Dakota), Ann (Clinton), Julia (Mrs. Martin Scofftedt Lawrence, Kansas), Caroline (Mrs. Louis O. Larson, Clinton), and Eliza (Clinton). Ansten Nattestad was born August twenty-sixth, 1813, the youngest of three brothers. Ole was the next oldest.

Their father, Knud Nattestad, was a man of some means, but by the right of primogeniture, the oldest inherited the estate and he remained in Norway. Of these things and the early life of the two younger brothers, Ole Nattestad gives an account in an interview printed in Billed-Magazin, 1869, where also is a detailed account of Ansten Nattestad’s coming to America with his group of one hundred immigrants in 1839. He also there, pages 107–108, gives a description of the settlement as it was in 1869, and he has elsewhere in the columns of that magazine made important contributions to the immigration history of the years 1838–1840, which now are among the original sources of material for a history of Norwegian immigration. Relative to the further career of Ansten Nattestad I shall only add here that he became one of the substantial members of this great and growing settlement, in which he continued to live until his death on April eighth, 1889.

Hans G. Haugen was born at Vægli in Rollaug Parish in 1785. He was an old soldier, having been in the Norwegian-Swedish War of 1814, and having served in the Norwegian army for seven years. His wife, whose maiden name was Sigrid Pedersdatter Valle, was born in January, 1803. The family consisted further of two sons, Gunnul and Gjermund, the former born at Vægli, April twenty-eighth, 1827, the latter on September nineteenth, 1836. The father, Hans Haugen, lived only a year after coming to America; he died in October, 1840. In 1849 the widow and two sons moved to Primrose, Dane County, Wisconsin, where we shall meet with them again. Sigrid Haugen died in Beloit in 1885. It may be added here that the family took the name of Jackson in this country. Of the circumstances that led to the adoption of this name the son gives an account which appeared in Anderson’s First Chapter, etc., page two hundred sixty-three.

Thore Helgeson Kirkejord[83] was born September twelfth, 1812; married in 1837. They had one daughter, Christie, born 1849, and who is married to Gunder Larson.[84] Thore Helgeson died in Clinton in 1871. Christopher C. Nyhus (Newhouse) was born at Vægli in July, 1812. When he came to Clinton Township he first entered claim to forty acres of land, which was later increased to a hundred sixty. He married a daughter of Halvor Halvorson in the fall of 1843. They had five children, Christopher, who died in infancy, Oliver, Christopher 2d, Torrena (Mrs. Gustav Nelson, Clinton), and Christiana. T. Nelson settled on section twenty in 1839; he married Rachel Gilbertson that year. They had five children. The son, T. T. Nelson, married Mary Tangen of Manchester, Illinois, in 1872. They have two daughters, Anna R. (b. 1875), Gertine (b. 1878).

CHAPTER XV
The Earliest White Settlers on Rock and Jefferson Prairies. The Founding of the Rock Prairie Settlement. The Earliest Settlers on Rock Prairie

We have seen that when Ole Nattestad settled at Clinton on July first, 1838, the country was a wilderness, he being the only white man there. He speaks, however, of eight Americans living some distance from him, in similar condition. It was less than three years prior that the first white settlers had located in the county. On the eighteenth day of November, 1835, John Inman, of Lucerne County, Pennsylvania, Thomas Holmes, William Holmes, and Joshua Holmes, of Ohio, Milo Jones and George Follmer, settled on the site of the present city of Janesville, opposite the “big rock.”[85] This was the first settlement in Rock County. Inman and William Jones had visited the locality and selected this spot in July of that year. On this occasion they had camped on the bluff on the Racine road. Our authority relates: “From this point they saw Rock Prairie stretching away in the distance to the east and south, till the verdant plain mingled with the blue of the horizon. They saw before them an ocean of waving grass and blooming flowers, and realized the idea of having found the real Canaan—the real paradise of the world.” They returned to Milwaukee, having in their ten days’ exploration of the Rock River Valley, found but one family, namely, a Mr. McMillan, who resided where Waukesha now stands.[85] Somewhat later in the year came Samuel St. John and his wife, the last being the first white woman in the county. The next year there were several new arrivals. On December seventh, 1836, townships one, two, three, and four north of ranges eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, of the fourth principal meridian, afterwards the eastern sixteen of the present twenty townships of Rock County,[86] were taken from Milwaukee County and constituted a separate county, called Rock. The county took its name from the “big rock” on the north side of the river, now within the city limits of Janesville, and an ancient landmark among the Indians and the early traders.

All these earliest settlements (1836–1837) were made near and along the Rock River. In 1838 there were four hundred and eighty settled in this region chiefly, the centers of population being already then Janesville and Beloit. Next follow Johnstown, Lima, and Milton, in the northwestern part of the county, and Union. The region west of Beloit, Newark, Avon, Spring Valley, was still wholly unsettled in the summer of 1839. The Town of Bradford, the next north of Clinton, was first settled by Erastus Dean, in 1836; there were very few before 1838. The Town of Clinton, as originally organized (1842), comprised the territory of the present town, the south half of Bradford, and portions of Turtle and La Prairie.

The first actual settlement in the present township was made in May, 1837, on the west side of Jefferson Prairie, by Stephen E. Downer and Daniel Tasker, and their wives, on the southeast side of the prairie. In July, Oscar H. Pratt and Franklin Mitchell, from Joliet, Illinois, made claims. These were the earliest. On the west side of the prairie settlement was made in October, 1837, by H. L. Warner, Henry Tuttle, Albert Tuttle, and Griswold Weaver. We recall that Ole Nattestad said that when he came to Clinton on July first, 1838, there were eight Americans living isolated at considerable distance from him. Nattestad located on section twenty. Here Christopher Nyhus also settled, while Thore Helgeson settled on section twenty-nine. Who the eight settlers were that Nattestad met, remains somewhat uncertain, but it does not seem unlikely that it was the four last mentioned, and some of the first explorers, who are named as Charles Tuttle, Dennis Mills, Milton S. Warner, and William S. Murrey.

The Town of Turtle, directly west of Clinton, was not organized until 1846. The first settlers were S. G. Colley, who located on section thirty-two, in the spring of 1838, and Daniel D. Egery, who came there about the same time, locating on section thirty-six (to Beloit, however, in 1837). Such were the beginnings of settlement east of Beloit prior to Nattestad’s coming, and it was still virtually a wilderness when Ansten Nattestad’s party came at the close of September, 1839. West of Beloit, in the Town of Newark, the Norwegians were the first, while in Avon and Spring Valley they were among the earliest groups of settlers. It is the settlement of this region, and especially the Town of Newark, to which we shall now turn.

We observed above that some of Ansten Nattestad’s party who came to Jefferson Prairie in September, 1839, did not remain there. These went fourteen miles farther west and established a settlement in the Township of Newark, which had not been settled by white men before, while a few of the members of this latter party went south from there eighteen miles, crossing the Illinois line, and located in the Township of Rock Run, in Stephenson County, Illinois.

The founder of the Rock Prairie Settlement was Gullik Olson Gravdal, of Vægli, Numedal; he emigrated from Norway with Ansten Nattestad in 1839. He came directly to Jefferson Prairie, but did not remain there. With Gisle Halland and Goe Bjöno he went west a distance to look over the country, with a view to settling elsewhere. Having arrived at Beloit, they managed here to secure a map and from it got some idea of where government land was to be had. Then they continued their journey along the Madison road seven miles farther west. Finally, he came to a place which suited him, for he found, as he says, “good spring water, as also prairie and woodland in the right proportion.” Together with Lars Röste, a single man from the Parish of Land, he then bought forty acres of land.[87] Gisle Halland bought land one mile farther east, while Goe Bjöno took a claim on a piece of land for Mrs. Gunhild Ödegaarden, three miles south of the site selected by Gravdal.

Gunhild Ödegaarden (who emigrated from Nore, annex parish in Numedal) was a widow of considerable means, who had paid the passage of several other persons. Her family, among whom were grown sons and daughters, emigrated with her to America in the Nattestad party and came directly to Jefferson Prairie. Immediately after Bjöno’s purchase of land for her in Newark Township she, with family, moved out there and had a log cabin erected, this being the first dwelling built in that township. This statement is based upon the authority of Gravdal himself, as printed in an interview on page 162 of Billed-Magazin for 1869. The History of Rock County agrees in this statement that Mrs. Ödegaarden’s log cabin, built in the fall of 1839, was the first house erected in the Town of Newark. Gunhild Ödegaarden’s name appears regularly as Mrs. Gunale (or Gunile). She is there mentioned several times, her family being extensively intermarried with the old pioneer families in the settlement.[88] Gravdal completed the erection of a cabin late in the fall, and his family having been left on Jefferson Prairie, he brought them to Rock Prairie in the latter part of November (Billed-Magazin, 1869, page 162).[89]

That same fall Gisle Halland married Margit Knudsdatter Nösterud from Rallaug Parish, Numedal, being obliged to go as far south as Rockford, Illinois, to get the ceremony performed. Their oldest child, Kristine, born in the fall of 1840, was the first white child born in that township. Gravdal, speaking of those days, says: “When I located in this region, the whole country to the west was a desert. I do not know whether there lived white people anywhere between my home and the Mississippi. The same was also the case toward the north; however, about seven miles west (east?) from my home two Yankees had settled in the wilderness. The Indians were still lords of these regions. They often visited us in our houses, but they were always friendly and courteous. We were never molested by the wild son of the desert. There was at this time an abundance of game; we saw stags in large herds, and prairie chickens literally swarmed.” There seem to have been no fresh accessions of settlers until the spring of 1841. Then Lars H. Skavlem arrived and located on section eleven. Gullik Knudson Laugen also came at the same time, and not long after several Americans moved in. Both Skavlem and Knudson had come to America in 1839, having been members of Nattestad’s party. Skavlem had, in the interval, lived on Jefferson Prairie. Gullik Knudson had remained in Chicago, as had also Gunnul Stordok, securing work there,[90] as did also two girls from Numedal, to whom they were engaged in Norway. These two couples were married the following winter, and, having saved some money from their small earnings, they decided to buy a home somewhere in the Norwegian settlement in Rock County. Knudson relates: “I walked about several days to find a location for a home, and at last came to a place on the verge of a prairie, where a rushing spring of water poured out of the ground. Here I decided to build and live, and I called the place Springen (the spring). The land about was like a desert; barring the four Norwegians who had come before me, there were no settlers. Toward the west one had to travel twenty-two miles to find white people. It was fortunate that there was an abundance of game, for what we secured by hunting was the sustenance on which we chiefly relied during the winter.” He tells how, with the first fall of snow, he and another[91] walked on skis to Beloit to buy flour, and how the tracks left in the snow by the skis had aroused considerable wonder and speculation among the Americans about there, who afterwards discovered the tracks, and that it became the subject of extensive discussion as to what unknown monster could have left such tracks. Beloit, he says, consisted then of a mill, a hotel, two stores, and a few laborers’ cottages.

From the fact of his location near the big spring, “Springen,” as Knudson called it, he came to be called Gullik Springen; his sir name, Laugen, he no longer used, but wrote himself Gullik Knudson. Here by this spring, Knudson built a hut of shrubs, thatched with straw, in which they lived for three months while the log cabin was being built.[92] The flat cover of a chest, brought from Norway, served for a table, and the cooking was done on the ground. In December the log cabin was ready. Gunnul Stordok and wife, who did not come to Newark until September, lived with Knudson during the first winter, after which they removed to Illinois.[93]

In the summer of 1841 a considerable number of Knudson’s acquaintances from Norway came; these found a temporary home with Knudson, sharing in his genuine pioneer hospitality. Among them were Halvor Skavlem and his wife, Berit, the daughter, Kari, and two sons, Ole and Paul Skavlem, the latter with wife and child, Bessie. Halvor Skavlem died one week after their arrival. The son Paul bought land; Ole first, however, went to Mineral Point, in Dodge County, returning, however, later; he settled near Orfordville. Another of this group was Halvor Nilson Aas, who, with his family, settled near Gravdahl, in Newark Township. Knut Kristensen also came in 1841 and located on section eleven, erecting a log cabin there. Finally, Ole Halvorson Valle, who later moved to Iowa, was among this number.

Several of those who had come to Jefferson Prairie in 1839 removed to Rock Prairie in the summer of 1841. Thus, Hellik Glaim, Lars Skavlem, and the latter’s three brothers, Gullik, Gjermund, and Herbrand; these all moved there upon their father Halvor’s arrival from Norway that summer. Hellik N. Brække and Nils Olson Vægli came directly from Norway in 1841. The last mentioned was from Vægli Annex to Rollaug Parish in Numedal. He was born at Vægli Parsonage and was therefore often called Nils Prestegaard. He lived at Gravdal’s the first winter; the following summer he, with two others, Paul Skavlem and Hellik Brække, bought a quarter section of land together in section thirty-two in Plymouth Township. Nils Vægli was married in 1844 to Kari Skavlem, daughter of Halvor Skavlem; they went to Koshkonong, in Dane County, to be married by Reverend J. W. C. Dietrichson, who had just come there from Norway. They were one of the first couples to be married by him. Hellik Brække sold out his share in the land, and in 1852 moved to Mitchell County, Iowa. Lars Skavlem bought land and settled near Halvor Aas, whose daughter (Groe Nelson) he married in 1844; hence, he was also called Lars Aas. He later bought his father-in-law’s farm, the place being called “the Skavlen farm” (Skavlenfarmen). Gullik Skavlem bought land three miles east of Gisle Halland in Beloit Township, about three miles from Beloit; he, however, moved to Mitchell County, Iowa, in the fifties.[94] Hellik Glaim had stopped in Chicago till 1840, when he came to Rock Prairie. Ten years later he sold out and moved to Fillmore County, Minnesota.[95]

The above is a brief record of the beginnings of the Rock Prairie Settlement. Of some of the founders of this settlement, which, in a few years, became one of the most prosperous in the state, I may here add:

Gullik Gravdal, the nestor of the settlement, was born in Vægli, Numedal, in 1802; he died in 1873, leaving widow, a daughter, Sarah, and two sons, Ole and Tolle. Ole Gravdal was born in Norway in 1830; he married Jöri Ödegaarden in 1855, after which he lived for thirteen years in Beloit, then removed to Newark Township. He is at present living in Beloit, Wisconsin. Ole Gravdal dropped the latter name and used the patronymic Gulack. Tolle Gulack Gravdal was born in 1833. He married Bessie Skavlem, daughter of Paul H. Skavlem, in 1857. They lived on the farm in Newark until 1894 (Tolle having lived there fifty-five years), in which year they moved to Beloit. He died in September, 1903, leaving a widow and two children, a son, Gilbert Gravdal, in Newark Township, and a daughter, Mrs. C. E. Inman, in Beloit. A son, Henry, died in 1902, and a daughter, Nellie (Mrs. W. O. Hanson), died in the summer of 1903. Amerika for September twenty-fifth, 1903, prints an obituary notice of Tolle Gravdal, according to which his death was sudden, being stricken as he was at work. The notice says, “he was one of those who had tried the privations and the trials of pioneer life, and he was always ready to extend a helping hand to all who needed it. He enjoyed universal respect and love for his sincerity and his integrity and his lovable nature.” Sarah Gravdal, daughter of Gullik Gravdal, married Halvor Halvorson (son of Cleophas Halvorson), of Newark Township, in 1869.

Hellik Nilson Brække married a sister of Reverend C. F. Clausen’s wife; in 1852 he joined the latter’s colony of settlers in Mitchell County, Iowa. Lars Skavlem was born in 1819. He married Groe Nilson Aas in 1844; their children are Halvor, Bessie, Helen and Carolina. The son, Halvor L. Skavlem, born 1848, is a farmer in Newark Township; he married Cornelia Olmstead, in Plymouth, a granddaughter of Mrs. Gunild Ödegaarden.[96] Gunnul Stordok moved to Rock Run (see below). It seems that he had retained some of his land in Newark, for when Gunder Knudson Springen (brother of Gullik Springen) came there in 1843, he bought land then owned by Gunnul Stordok.

We shall now leave, for the present, the Rock Prairie Settlement, and observe what was taking place elsewhere during the period that has been briefly sketched here.

CHAPTER XVI
The Rock Run Settlement. Other Immigrants of 1839. The Immigration of 1840.

It has been stated that a settlement was also established in Illinois about twenty miles southwest of Rock Prairie, the same year as the latter was settled, i. e., in 1839. This came to be known as the Rock Run Settlement, from the name of the town. It lies partly in Stephenson, partly in Winnebago County. The locality is prairie, relieved here and there by bits of timber land. The foundation of this settlement is also to be accredited to an immigrant from Numedal, who came on the Amelia, in 1839. His name was Clemet Torstenson Stabæk, and he came from Rollaug Parish. With him three others located there in the fall of 1839, namely, Syvert Tollefson and Ole Anderson, from Numedal, and a Mr. Knudson, from Drammen. Stabæk was a man of considerable means. He selected land in Winnebago County, near the present village of Davis. His son, Torsten K. O. Stabæk (born in Norway[97]) married Torgen Patterson, and they lived on the farm until 1884, when they moved to Davis.[98] Kristopher Rostad and wife, Kristi, seem also to have moved to Rock Run before the close of 1839. In the following summer came Gunnul Stordok, to whom we have referred under the settling of Newark in Rock County. Stordok lived in Rock Run until 1870; he then moved back to Newark, where the rest of his relatives who had come to America had settled.[99] Gunnul Stordok was born in Rollaug, Numedal, in the year 1800; he married Mary Larson (of Rollaug) before emigrating.

Among the earliest arrivals in the settlement subsequently was Halvor Aasen, born in Numedal in 1823, and who came to America in 1841. For two years after coming to this country he worked in the lead mines at Mineral Point, Wisconsin, and at Galena, Illinois. In 1843 he married Christie Olson, and bought a farm in Laona Township, Winnebago County, whither he and his wife moved in 1844. Here they lived until their death. She died in 1902, and he in March, 1905.[100]

The Rock Run Settlement was prosperous but did not grow to such proportions as its sister settlements to the north. In later years many of its earlier pioneers moved back to Rock County, as Stordok did, and as Lars Rostad and family also did in the sixties. Among those who located at Rock Run in the forties were Hovel Paulson (born 1817) from North Land Parish, Norway, who located near Davis in 1846;[101] Christian Lunde, also from Land, Norway, came to Rock Run in 1848 and later moved to Goodhue County, Minnesota; Narve Stabæk, Torsten Knudson and Nels Nelson, all three from Numedal; Gunder O. Halvorson, from Kragerö; Svale Nilson, from Bukn Parish, Stavanger; Gunder Halvorson, from Telemarken, and Lars O. Anderson. There appears a very brief account of the Rock Run Settlement by Lars O. Anderson in Nordlyset, under date of June second, 1848. According to this there were at that time twenty families, twelve unmarried men over twenty years of age, six unmarried women of over twenty years, while there were thirty-two persons below the age of twenty. The whole settlement, he says, numbers ninety persons and comprises 4,062 acres of land.

We have followed somewhat fully the immigration movement in Numedal and Telemarken in 1839, and we have also noted the fact that that year records its contingent of emigrants also from Stavanger Province. It remains here to note briefly the growth of the movement in Voss and its spread elsewhere. Nils Lydvo came from Voss in 1839, and went directly to his brothers, Knud and Ole Lydvo, in Shelby County, Missouri. At the same time came Anders Finno, Lars Davidson Rekve, Nils Severson Gilderhus, and Anfin Leidal; their destination was La Salle County.[102] The party further contained Ole K. Gilderhus, Lars Ygre, Anders Flage, Lars Dugstad, Knud Gjöstein, Anders Nilson Brække and wife, Knud Brække and wife, Magne B. Bystölen, Anna Gilderhus, and Anna Bakketun.

This party seems to have arrived in New York early in July, 1839, and to have intended to go to Illinois. We shall meet with most of them later as pioneers in Wisconsin settlements, but for a time many of them remained in Chicago, so that in the fall of 1839 and the following winter there was a considerable colony of Norwegian immigrants located in Chicago. Nils A. Lie, of Deerfield, Wisconsin, writing of this fact, says there were more Vossings in Chicago about 1840 than all other Norwegians combined.[103] Among those who remained temporarily in Chicago were Ole K. Gilderhus, Lars Ygre and Lars Rekve. The last of these worked for a year on a steamer plying between Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan.[104] I shall give a brief sketch of him below, under Koshkonong. Anders Finno went to Koshkonong, Dane County, in 1840, but later settled in Blue Mounds, in the same county. In 1850 he went to California with a group of gold seekers and has not since been heard from by his compatriots.

Anders Nilson Brække[105] was born at Brække, Voss, Norway, February twelfth, 1818; he had married Inger Nelson in Norway. Brække located permanently in Chicago, working at first for Mathew Laflin and John Wright. He laid the foundation of his future fortune in 1845, when he purchased some property on Superior Street, on part of which he built the residence, where he lived until his death in 1887. He held many offices of public trust in the discharge of which he was able and unimpeachable in his honesty. Brække’s first wife died early leaving three children.[106] In 1849 he married Mrs. Julia K. Williams; three children by this marriage are living.[107]

In the party of emigrants from Voss in 1839 were also Arne Anderson Vinje (born 1820) and wife Martha (Gulliksdatter Kindem). From Vinje we learn that the ship, on which the twenty emigrants from Voss came that year, left Norway April sixteenth and that they arrived at Chicago in September. Vinje located first in Chicago; soon after arriving he built a log house, in which he and his wife lived during the first winter. Anders Brække, it is said, assisted him in the erection of the log house. During the winter Vinje worked on a road that was being laid out on the west side; for this work he received sixteen dollars a month. The next July however Vinje together with Per Davidson Skjerveim (who had just arrived from Voss, Norway) each with his team of oxen left for Hamilton Diggings in La Fayette. Here each took a claim of government land; of this we shall speak more at length in the chapter on Wiota.

During the year 1840 emigration from Norway was rather limited. There had been a considerable exodus in 1839 from Numedal and Telemarken. The lull in 1840 may be explained by the fact that intending emigrants in those regions were waiting for favorable news from their relatives and friends who had gone the preceding year. The settlers at Muskego, on Jefferson and Rock Prairies and at Rock Run had barely gotten located when the winter set in. Communication was of course very slow, and spring and early summer was the sailing season of Norwegian emigrants in those days. The year 1840, however, brought its quota of arrivals from Voss,[108] namely Kund J. Hylle, Ole S. Gilderhus, Knut Rokne, Mads Sanve, Baard Nyre, Brynjolf Ronve, Torstein Saue, wife, and son Gulleik,[109] Klaus Grimestad and wife, Arne Urland and wife, and Lars T. Röthe; there were twenty in all in the party. All of these it is said settled in Chicago.[110] They all came in Captain Ankerson’s ship Emelia, the same ship which carried Nattestad’s party in 1839. They were five months on this journey, arriving in Chicago in September. We shall later meet with some of these elsewhere.

A few other names from different parts of Norway are recorded among the immigrants of 1839. We have observed above that Johan Nordboe of Ringebo in Gudbrandsdalen had come to America in 1832. Though he wrote letters home it does not seem that he succeeded in promoting emigration from that section of Norway, except individually, and then not until 1839. In that year his friend Lars Johanneson Holo of Ringsaker, Hedemarken, together with three grown up sons came to America.[111] Holo did, however, not go to Dallas County, Texas, where Nordboe had settled the year before, but he first located in Rochester, New York. A man by the name of Lauman from Faaberg in Gudbrandsdalen also came with him and went to Rochester. He, however, went west a few years later, settling in Lee County, Illinois. Holo remained in Rochester two years, he and his sons being employed there on the canal. In 1841 they went to Muskego, where we shall find them in our next chapter.

Among the immigrants of 1839 we find one man from Sogn, the first to emigrate from that region to America. His name is Per I. Unde,[112] and he came from Vik Parish in Outer Sogn. He lived in Chicago it seems, the two first years he was in America. In 1841 his brother Ole Unde arrived and the two went to La Fayette County; we shall speak of both of these men later. Among the immigrants of 1839 who did not go to Muskego I may here mention Knud Hellikson Roe and wife Anna and four children who came from Tin, Telemarken. They went to La Salle County, Illinois, where they lived till 1841; thence they removed to Racine County and in 1843 went to Dane County, Wisconsin (see below).

Ole H. Hanson and wife also from Tin, Telemarken, came in 1839. They settled at Indian Creek, near where now stands the village of Leland, La Salle County, Illinois. The first winter they lived in a dugout on the same spot on the homestead where the residence now stands. Mrs. Hanson died in 1842, Mr. Hanson died three years later. The children were Ole, known as Ole H. Hanson, Alex, Betsey, Helen, and Levina. Ole Hanson assumed charge of the homestead and lived there and near Leland till his death in December, 1904. In 1855 he married Isabella Osmundson, who died in 1873. They had six children, one of whom is C. F. Hanson,[113] State’s Attorney, of Morris, Illinois.

CHAPTER XVII
The Settlement of Norway and Raymond Townships, Racine County. The Founders of the Settlement. Immigration to Racine County in 1841–1842.

We have seen how in the fall of 1839 the Luraas brothers established a colony near Lake Muskego in the present Waukesha (then Milwaukee) County. The locality was illy selected, being low and marshy. It was in the first place unhealthy and the settlers suffered much from malaria. Furthermore it was very heavily covered with timber and the soil which was clay yielded but small returns for their labor. The settlers therefore found it difficult enough to make a living.

As early as the next spring several moved farther south into Racine County, where the conditions were more favorable and where a thriving settlement grew up in a few years. The old settlement ceased to become the objective point of intending emigrants from Telemarken. After the cholera year 1849 most of those who survived moved away.[114] The southern extension of the settlement, which took its root at Wind Lake in Norway Township, later spread out so as to include the townships of Yorkville, Raymond and Waterford all in Racine County. The old name, “Muskego,” was retained as the designation of the new as well as the old settlement, although the settlement in Racine County is now often referred to as “Yorkville Prairie.” It is the beginnings of this settlement to which I shall now turn.

The founders of the settlement at Wind Lake in the Town of Norway were Sören Backe, son of Tolleff O. Backe a merchant of Drammen, and Johannes Johanneson. The latter was a clerk in the employ of Tollef Backe of Drammen, whom he latter deputed to accompany his son to America. He was a man of about forty years of age, of strong character and moral principles. He had some knowledge of the English language, having once lived for a short time in England. Sören Backe was a young man, evidently of little promise, whom the father sent to America ostensibly that his ambition might be kindled by American opportunities and by being placed upon his own responsibility. In company with them came also a third man, of whom I shall speak again in a later chapter, namely Elling Eielson Sunve from Voss, a lay preacher and the noted founder of the “Ellingian” sect of the Lutheran Church. These three left Drammen in the summer of 1839, and arrived in La Salle County in the fall of that year. The forest land had all been taken and was now occupied by settlers, and Johannesen seems to have been suspicious of the prairie, where land could still be had.

A contributor to the Billed-Magazin for 1869 says that the conditions of distress, the winter storms and the extreme cold on the prairies were the things that influenced them to seek a locality for a settlement elsewhere, and that they did not go north to Racine County until the spring of 1840. He says: “Early the next spring they walked north and came as far as to Wind Lake, where there was then a single settler, an Irishman. Here in the primeval forest, on the shores of the little lake they had found what their hearts desired; and they bought the piece of ground which the Irishman was cultivating, and Backe chose this place as his home.” It is to be noted, however, that K. Langeland in Nordmaendene i Amerika says that they remained in La Salle County only a few weeks and went north to Wisconsin that same fall (page forty-three).[115] Langeland adds further, that they dug a cellar in an Indian mound in which they lived during the winter.

In touching upon these facts in my article on “The Coming of the Norwegians to Iowa”[116] I did not hesitate to accept this as correct, and I must now adhere to this view. My reason is that as early as the middle of the summer of 1840 a small group of emigrants were ready to leave for America with the view of settling at Wind Lake, having received letters from Backe and Johannesen, urging them to come there. Had these not located at Wind Lake before the spring of 1840 the time would have been insufficient for the second party at Drammen to have not only received word from America but also to have made all necessary arrangements preparatory to emigrating. I assume then that it was about December 1839 that Backe and Johannesen located in Norway Township. I am inclined to think, however, that Elling Eielson remained in the Fox River Settlement during the winter, and that he came to Wind Lake in the spring of 1840. During that spring and summer the brothers John, Torger, Halvor, and Knut Luraas, with their families, as also Gjermund Johnson Kaasa, located in Norway Township. Nelson Johnson Kaasa, who had emigrated in the Luraas party in 1839, remained in Milwaukee for three months and moved to the settlement in November, 1840.

Among the immigrants of 1837, who went to the ill-fated Beaver Creek Settlement in Iroquois County, Illinois, was Mons K. Aadland. We have already observed that he was the last one to leave Beaver Creek. He with family also came to Racine County in the summer of 1840. He however selected a locality on the prairie east of the Indian mound, buying a farm of a hundred and sixty acres on section thirty in Raymond Township. This part of the settlement came to be known as North Cape. The nucleus of the later extensive settlement had then assumed considerable proportions by the fall of 1840; but new accessions were soon to come.

Backe and Johannesen decided to write to friends in Norway and their letters were productive of results. In the summer of 1840 a party of about thirty persons stood ready to emigrate to the settlement in Wisconsin. The leader of these was Even Hanson Heg, the keeper of a hotel at Lier in Drammen, who sold out his property and with his wife and four children came with this party. Other members of the party were: Johannes Evenson Skofstad, Syvert Ingebretson Narverud, Helge Thomson, Ole Anderson, all from Drammen and all of whom had families, Ole Hogenson and family from Eggedal, and Knut Aslakson Svalestuen from Vinje, Telemarken. All these came to Wind Lake and located there in the autumn of 1840.

Sören Backe seems to have been a man whose generosity was as remarkable as his lack of business ability. His father, a man of considerable wealth, had supplied his son generously with funds upon his departure for America. Sören Backe evidently loaned money very liberally to those of his countrymen who were in need, and there were many of these here as in all pioneer communities. It is said that when his funds were used up he made a journey to Norway for more money. With this he purchased land, which he let out on easy terms to new comers from Norway. It was Johannesen who had charge of these transactions in which it seems Even Heg was a partner with Backe. Johannesen is described as a devout christian, a zealous adherent of the Haugian tendency, and in every way a noble character. As we have seen, the settlement developed rapidly, and it continued to grow for many years. Backe and Johannesen then joined partnership and started a store; for this purpose an Indian mound was excavated, the walls were sided with boards, and this structure, which was partly underground, served as store, living room and kitchen combined. Their stock of goods was shipped from Milwaukee, itself then only a village of one or two stores, a hotel and half a dozen pioneer cabins. Backe and Johannesen continued their business together for about three years when Johannesen fell ill and died (in 1845). That same year Backe returned to Norway and settled on his father’s farm Valle, in Lier, near Drammen.

Even Heg was a leading spirit in the settlement in Norway and surrounding townships during his life-time. Much has been written about him and I shall not here repeat the eulogies elsewhere voiced in his honor. After Johannesen’s death it was Heg upon whom the settlers in the early days of the colony leaned for advice and it was Even Heg to whom every new arrival from Norway to the colony came for help and counsel. His hospitality and his resourcefulness in the aid of his compatriots was boundless. Heg’s barn, where large parties of immigrants were received every summer, and in which they were permitted freely to make their home during the first weeks after the long and arduous journey, is famed throughout many an early settlement in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. The log cabins of the settlers were too small to afford the necessary quarters for the numbers that continuously flocked in, and the large barn was a boon for which they were truly grateful. For a time Racine County became the objective point of most of the immigrants from Norway, a distinction which however it was soon to share with the still more famous Koshkonong Prairie in Dane County, Wisconsin.

Of Elling Eielson I shall speak below, as also of Hans C. Heg, son of Even Heg, and of some of the other Racine County pioneers. I wish to add here a few words of Mons Aadland, who as we recall, came to America in 1837, and located at North Cape in 1840. Aadland was born near Bergen, Norway, in April, 1793, being thus forty-four years old when he emigrated. He was one of the few survivors of the Beaver Creek Colony in Illinois. As we have seen, he is the founder of the North Cape branch of the settlement. There he lived till his death in 1869, his wife having died two years before. A settlers’ history says of him: “He was a man of generous spirit, as is shown by his liberal gifts, and one who took a commendable interest in public affairs.” Ten years before his death he owned between five and six hundred acres of land which he then divided among his children. Thomas Adland and Knud Adland both of Raymond Township are his sons, while a daughter, Martha, lives in Norway; the other children are dead.[117] Mons Aadland was a nephew of Nils P. Langeland whom we have spoken of above page 100.

The immigration of 1841 was not extensive. Backe and Johannesen do not seem to have continued their propaganda of immigration; but the party who came with Even Heg wrote home letters full of praise of the New World. But even in the face of such tempting exhortations the old world resident requires time for thought before he decides to bid farewell to the home of his fathers and seek his fortune in a strange and distant land. I am not aware that anyone came from Drammen or Telemarken to Racine County in 1841.[118] Knut Roe and wife located in Racine County, however, in 1841, but they came from La Salle County, where they had settled in 1839. In 1842 there were several arrivals. Thus Hermund Nilson Tufte with wife Kari and three daughters came from Aal Parish in Hallingdal. This was the first family to emigrate to America from that province.[119] In that year came also Aanund Halvorson Bjoin, wife and family from Tin, Telemarken, and John Jacobson; further, Halvor Larson Lysenstöen (Modum) from Hadeland, Norway, the first immigrant from that region, and Helge Sigurdson and wife Bergit Olsdatter, who however, removed to Dane County in 1844.[120] John J. Dale from Norway, who had come to America in 1837 and settled in La Salle County, Illinois, came to Racine in 1842; his wife Anna had died in Illinois in 1839. Another of the immigrants of 1839 came to Muskego in 1842, namely John Evenson Molee. He had lived in Milwaukee the preceding three years; I shall speak of him below. There were individual accessions to other settlements in 1841–42, but they are few in number. With 1843 the immigration movement receives a new impulse, but the discussion of that year will better be postponed until we have recorded the founding of some other important settlements in 1840–42.

CHAPTER XVIII
The Establishment of the Koshkonong Settlement in Dane County, Wisconsin.

The genesis of the settlement of Koshkonong Prairie[121] in Dane County, Wisconsin, the most noted undoubtedly of all Norwegian settlements in America, dates from 1840. The recital of this event, however, will take us back to the preceding year; for the first visit of Norwegians to Dane County, is, I believe, correctly recorded as having taken place in 1839. Before discussing the first coming of Norse pioneers to Koshkonong I shall mention a few “first settlers” in Dane County, who preceded the Norwegians; to do this will help to give us a better idea of the state of wilderness which they found there, and which they in a few years transformed into a settled and thriving community.

The townships in Dane County in which the Norwegians settled most extensively are found in three groups, viz.: in the southeastern, in the northern and in the southwestern part of the county. The first of these comprises originally Albion, Christiana and Deerfield; from this region the settlement soon grew into Dunkirk and Pleasant Spring, and from the latter north into Cottage Grove.[122] On the east it extends into Sumner and Oakland townships in Jefferson County. This settlement came to be known as Koshkonong Prairie, though properly the name applies only to the two first-named towns and adjacent portions of Pleasant Spring and Deerfield. The second settlement includes the townships of Burke, eastern Westport, Vienna, Windsor, and northwestern and central Bristol. The western portion of this settlement is generally known by the name of the Norway (or Norwegian) Grove Settlement, from the post-office of that name in Vienna Township around which it lies. In its northern extremity the settlement extends into Columbia County, northeast into Spring Prairie and Bonnet Prairie and northwest past the village of Lodi. This whole region is in reality a northern extension of the Koshkonong Settlement.[123] It is also from four to eight years later in order of formation.[124] Our third group of townships comprises Primrose, Perry, Springdale, Blue Mound and that part of Verona Township which lies east of Blue Mound Creek.[125]

In the Town of Albion the Norwegians were the earliest settlers, for some of them came as early as the spring of 1841, as we shall see below. The History of Dane County, 1880,[126] says, page 838, that Freeborn Sweet, from New York, was the first settler in the town; and yet on page 1189 we are told that he was “one of the first settlers.” As he did not arrive until August of that year he clearly was not the first. The next earliest American settler seems to have been Samuel T. Stewart of Massachusetts, who located on section fourteen in the fall of 1841.[127] The first white settler in the Town of Christiana was William M. Mayhew who came in 1837, and located on section twenty-eight. The next arrivals were Norwegians (see below).

The first settler in Pleasant Spring seems to have been Abel Rasdall, who located his cabin on the eastern shore of Lake Kegonsa, about half a mile south of the inlet; the year of his arrival, however, cannot be given definitely and I am not able to say with certainty whether he preceded Knut H. Roe (see below) or not. In the Town of Deerfield the first settlement was made by Norwegians in 1840; as we shall show below; however, Philip Kearney had erected a house on section eighteen in 1839; he remained the only American there for several years.

The first settlers in the Town of Rutland were Joseph Dejean, John Prentice and Dan Pond, who located in its southern part in 1842. John Nelson Luraas may have been the first settler in Dunkirk; he came in 1843, and was followed soon after by John Wheeler,[128] Chauncey Isham, and Mitchel Campbell. In the towns of Cottage Grove, Burke, Windsor, and Bristol, Americans preceded Norwegians by several years, as also in Blue Mounds, where Ebenezer Brigham located as early as 1828, or some sixteen years before that part of the county actually became settled.

The Township of Springdale was settled first in 1844, when John Harlow entered it, he remaining the only white man there for a year. A few Americans came in 1845, then Americans and Norwegian immigrants in 1846. An American settlement was effected by Thomas Lindsay and David Robertson in the Town of Bristol (section seven) two years before Norwegians came there, which was in 1847. The earliest settler, however, seems to be William G. Simons who entered in 1838. The first white settler in Perry Township was John Brown of Indiana, who came into the town in 1846. A few other Americans (as B. K. Berry in 1847) preceded the Norwegians, whose coming dates from 1848. In the Town of Primrose, Robert Spears and family were the first comers (1844); a few other Americans had also arrived there before Christian Hendrickson located in the town in 1846. We shall now turn to the events that led to the establishment of the extensive Norwegian settlement on Koshkonong Prairie in the southeastern part of the county.

We have seen that most of the immigrants from Voss, Norway, who came in 1839, located either in Chicago or in La Salle County, Illinois. It has been observed also that not all of those who went to the Fox River region located there permanently. The land here was now mostly taken, besides our pioneers from Voss did not like the prairie; they were in search of a location where timber and water was near at hand. And so some of them decided to try their fortune in Wisconsin, where they had heard there was plenty of forest land with many lakes and rivers.

Our party from Voss had been in La Salle County only a few weeks, when three of them decided to go and investigate for themselves. These three were Nils Bolstad, Nils Gilderhus and Magne Bystölen. They engaged Odd J. Himle (who had emigrated from Voss in 1837), then living in Illinois, to accompany them as their guide and interpreter. Bystölen, being taken sick and thus prevented from going, gave instructions to the rest to select land for him if the region was satisfactory to the rest. Bolstad, Gilderhus and Himle started on foot for Milwaukee, a distance of a hundred and fifty miles. Having arrived there in safety, they procured maps and whatever information they could with reference to the regions that were open to settlement in the interior of the state. Then they walked west about eighty miles inspecting the land on the way, and after two weeks reached the eastern part of Dane County.

The spot where they stopped was about two miles east of the site of the present village of Cambridge. Here a man by the name of Snell had shortly before established a tavern for trappers and frontiersmen; with him our party of homeseekers put up, and from him they received instructions as to the “government markings” of the sections and the stakes placed at the corner of sections and quarter sections, giving the number of each.

After a two days’ rest they continued their tramp westward to Koshkonong[129] Prairie. Himle, Gilderhus and Bolstad inspected the whole prairie from one end to the other, walking about for two days. Then they returned to Cambridge, finally deciding on a parcel of land a little over two miles northwest of that place, lying on both sides of the boundary line between the towns of Christiana and Deerfield. Here Gilderhus and Bolstad selected forty acres each, and forty for Bystölen. This locality was chosen because of its abundance of hardwood timber, and besides there was plenty of hay on the marshes and fine fishing in Koshkonong Creek near by.[130]

Having thus made their choice of land, Gilderhus, Bolstad, and Himle returned to Illinois by way of Milwaukee, walking the whole distance; they remained in La Salle County through the winter. Their account of the land of promise which they had discovered, aroused much interest, and, as we shall see below, brought others in their train later. Early in the spring of 1840, Gilderhus and Bolstad, accompanied now by Magne Bystölen and also Andrew Finno, started for Koshkonong, driving, this time, in wagons drawn by oxen. They arrived there at the end of April and immediately took possession of the land selected. The land that had been chosen for Bystölen was inside the Christiana Township line, where Anders Finno also now located. Nils Gilderhus’s land lay within Deerfield Township; he was the first Norwegian to locate there. He built a log cabin, which was the first house in the town. Nils Gilderhus and, I believe, Nils Bolstad, soon after walked to Milwaukee and filed their claims at the government land office, Nils Gilderhus being the first in the party to purchase land. The date of the purchase is May sixth, 1840; the land is the south half of the southwest quarter of section thirty-five. Nils Bolstad entered on forty acres of section two in the Town of Christiana, and Magne Bystölen’s forty acres lay directly east of Bolstad’s in the same section.[131]

Their first habitation was a hurriedly built log cabin; it was not plastered, and, as we can believe, proved inadequate as a protection against winter, which was already setting in. Here they experienced the intensest suffering from cold,[132] until, the condition becoming intolerable, they dug out a cellar against an embankment, where they lived during the remainder of the cold season. In this “dugout” Nils Gilderhus and Magne Bystölen continued to live another year, but Nils Bolstad erected a log cabin in 1841, when he married Anna Vindeig, who was the first white woman in the locality. Gilderhus erected a cabin in the town of Deerfield near the Christiana line in 1842, but he sold out in 1843 to Gulleik Thompson Saue; for further facts about these men see below. Andrew Fenno and Odd Himle did not purchase land.[133]