In discussing the causes of emigration, we have found that economic factors entered extensively into operation. It was the desire for material betterment that prompted a very large proportion of Norwegian emigrants to leave the land of their fathers. The first five decades of Norwegian emigration was a period in which the battle for existence among the Norwegian peasant and the common man was none too easy. Unfavorable economic conditions, the oppressive methods of the larger land owners, frequent crop failure, often reduced the lesser farmers into a condition of impoverishment. Even wealthy families found themselves burdened by debts from which the future seemed to offer little hope of relief. By the law of primogeniture the oldest son inherited the estate. The sons of men of means, therefore, were financially often no better situated than the cotter’s son, and were often forced to seek their fortune beyond the native village or district. These considerations will make clear first that the great majority of Norwegian emigrants to the United States were at the time of emigration of small means; they were often very poor indeed. Their wealth lay in the ability and the will to carve their way in a land of greater promise. Their wealth lay also in their thrift, in their ideals, and the moral fiber of their race. Many of those who have succeeded best in their adopted country came here well-nigh penniless. To them poverty was no longer a curse when the path of opportunity lay before them. But the above considerations will also have indicated that Norwegian immigrants of that early period were not always of the poor classes even though they came here with little or nothing. Later Norwegian immigration has, it is true, generally been from among the impecunious. But in that early period, especially 1835 to 1865, a very large number of the immigrants came from families which general or special conditions had suddenly so reduced to conditions which became to them intolerable. And it was the hope which America held out which inspired them with the will to seek there the independence now no longer theirs. We have already met with the evidence of this in such families as Hovland (1835), Nattestad (1837), Aadland (1837), Aasland (1838), Gravdal (1839), Stabæk (1839), Gitle Danielson (1839), Luraas (1839), Unde (1839), Heg (1840), Gaarder (1843–49), Nils Haugen (1846), and many others. We shall in the following pages meet with families of considerable means from Numedal, Telemarken, Voss, Ringsaker and elsewhere, of whom the same is true; and among the pioneers who came from Sogn in 1844, 1845, and later there were many old families of property and prominence in their native community. I stress this fact because some who have formerly written about Norwegian settlements in this country have never yet fully recognized the full significance of this; but I speak of it here especially because I have myself also failed to fully appreciate this fact when last I wrote upon the subject. What has been said here applies to the founders of the settlements of Northern Illinois, of Racine, Rock, Dane and other counties in Southern Wisconsin, and many of those who some years later established the settlements in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota. On the other hand also some of those who later became most substantial members of these settlements were men whose transportation to America was paid for by others that they might come and get a start in life. These men emigrated prompted by the desire of material betterment and in that aim they have succeeded, and they have succeeded honestly, often accumulating great wealth.[207]
The second topic in the title of this chapter is the cost of passage. I shall discuss this item briefly, using concrete illustrations from our sources. In that early period the voyage was made by sail-ships. These continued to be used for a long time after steam had come into use, clear down into the seventies. The ticket was then generally somewhat cheaper by sailing vessels than by steamship. Passengers furnished their own board and beading, and they were required to bring a supply sufficient for ten to twelve weeks.[208] The price of passage ranged between 33 and 50 speciedaler, that is between $25.00 and $38.00. Children under fourteen travelled for half price; those under one went free. The Luraas party (page 158 above) paid forty-two speciedaler from Gothenburg to Boston, while the Nattestad party paid fifty dollars from Gothenburg to New York in 1837. In 1839 the party that came with Ansten Nattestad secured passage for thirty-three dollars per person. This may be regarded as normal; it was the price paid, e. g., by Anders Tömmerstigen and family from Christiania via Havre, France, to New York in 1846. Those who came in June from Sogn in 1844 paid twenty-five dollars a person from Bergen to New York. The extremes are illustrated by two groups for the year 1839 and 1845: The little group of immigrants who came from Stavanger via Gothenburg to Boston with Gitle Danielson in 1839 paid, it seems, sixty dollars apiece,[209] while Peder Aasmundson Tanger and others, ninety in all, who came in 1845 from Kragerö, paid only eighteen dollars apiece to New York.
The inland journey, generally in the early days made by canal boat, varied greatly in cost, often amounting to as much as fourteen dollars to Milwaukee or Chicago. But the additional toll inland frequently made the inland journey much more expensive than was the ocean voyage. One pioneer, writing of this later, says that his whole journey cost him ninety dollars.[210] In the fifties the inland journey was made by railroad; the railroad ticket from Quebec to Chicago or Milwaukee was eight dollars.
The course of the journey has been incidentally indicated above. During the first years it was usually by way of Gothenburg, sometimes via Hamburg, not infrequently by way of Havre. The starting point was Stavanger, Bergen, Skien, Drammen, Porsgrund and Christiania, later other ports. New York was most often the place of landing, but not infrequently Boston, in isolated instances, Fall River, Philadelphia and New Orleans. After 1850 sail-ships plied extensively between Scandinavian ports and Quebec.[211] The inland journey from New York went by steamboat to Albany, thence by canal boat to Buffalo, a distance of three hundred and fifty miles, which usually took twelve days but often over two weeks.[212] From Buffalo the journey went by steamboat over the Great Lakes to Milwaukee and Chicago, after 1842 usually to Milwaukee. Those who took the Quebec route after 1850 were then brought to St. Levi by the railroad company’s steamboats, whence they went by rail to Chicago or Milwaukee,[213] a journey which generally took four or five days,[214] over a distance of 1020 miles. Milwaukee-bound passengers were often shipped from Port Huron by way of Lakes Huron and Michigan or were taken by rail from Detroit across Michigan to Grand Haven, thence by steamboat across Lake Michigan to Milwaukee.[215] The latter was of course the shorter and the favored route for immigrants whose destination was Wisconsin, Northern Iowa, or Minnesota. Immigrants who landed in Boston usually went by steamboat thence to New York and from the regular inland route as given above.
The duration of the journey was always a matter of great uncertainty. Intending emigrants who came from the interior of Norway often had to wait as long as two weeks at Bergen or Skien, as the case might be, before the ships on which they were to go sailed. The overhauling and putting in repair of the storm-battered ships often took weeks.[216] The duration of the voyage across the Atlantic depended of course largely upon the state of the weather. With this favorable a sail-boat would usually cross the ocean in six or seven weeks,[217] but in a voyage of such a distance it was practically certain that there would be stormy weather sometime before the other side was reached. In his answer to this question in Billed-Magazin I, page 123, John A. Johnson wrote that the average length was seven weeks, but he adds that those who crossed in that time had no reason to complain. And he speaks of the fact that emigrant ships have in rare cases taken twelve to thirteen weeks.
The Nattestad party made, in 1837, an especially short voyage of thirty-two days from Gothenburg to Fall River. I have no record of any other ship in those early years which sailed so well as did Enigheden. Juno, the most rapid sailer on the Atlantic in the forties, crossed in five weeks and three days in May-June, 1844, which Kristi Melaas of Stoughton, Wisconsin, who was a passenger, says broke the record for speed at that time. Ansten Nattestad and party took nine weeks in 1839 with the ship Emelia from Drammen. Nine weeks is the number which many report as the duration of the voyage in the forties. The party that came with the Luraas brothers from Tin and Gitle Danielson from Stavanger also in 1839 took nine weeks and three days from Gothenburg to Boston. And Aegir took nine weeks on its journey from Bergen to New York in 1837. The sloop Restaurationen we recall crossed in ten weeks. The so-called Brook-ship Albion usually required from eight to nine weeks for the voyage.
In stormy weather the voyage sometimes lasted as much as fourteen weeks. The sail-ship Tricolor took that long in April–July, 1845, the route being from Porsgrund to New York. Ingebrigt Johnson Helle, from Kragerö, who was a passenger, writes of the terrors of this journey (see appendix 2). On a voyage made in 1848 Tricolor took fourteen weeks and four days, according to interview with Kari Gulliksdatter Mogen (from Flesberg, Numedal), who was a passenger on the ship (see Billed-Magazin I, page 388). The little sail-ship in which Nils Hansen Fjeld and family came in 1847 took fourteen weeks from Christiania to New York.[218]
In this connection I shall cite from an article by Dr. K. M. Teigen of Minneapolis, Minnesota, entitled “Pionerliv” (Pioneer Life).[219] He says:
In the days of the sail-ship a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean was more of an undertaking than a journey around the world now. Most of the summer might be required for it if the weather was unfavorable. My mother’s party from Flesberg and Lyngdal parishes in Numedal, took seven weeks and four days in 1843 with the brig Hercules, Captain Overvind, between Drammen and New York; my father’s company from Sogndal in Inner Sogn, three years later, lay for fourteen weeks heaving and lunging in contrary winds between Bergen and the promised land. And then came the journey by steamer up the Hudson to Troy, thence through the “canal” and the sluices at Oswego by canal boats, which were drawn with a snail’s pace by horses, lazily moving along the banks; then by way of the lakes by steamer again westward to Milwaukee. For this journey of about a thousand miles another month went by, without counting the walk from Milwaukee to Koshkonong, lying seventy miles distant in the wilderness, whither so many of the earliest Norwegian immigrants were destined.
At the place of landing the immigrants were frequently obliged to wait for several days before the westward journey was begun. To Rock Prairie, Koshkonong or Norway Grove, as the case might be, required another week, and correspondingly more for those bound for more westerly settlements. In all the duration of the journey from Norway to the settlement which was the immigrant’s ultimate destination was rarely made in less than nine weeks; often it consumed as much as five months.
On page 94 above I have spoken briefly of the first Norwegian settlers in Chicago in the years 1836–1839. On page 150 mention was made of the increase of the Chicago colony by the arrival of a number of immigrants from Voss, Norway, in 1839–41. As there indicated, however, many of those who came during these years lived there only temporarily; we find them later as pioneers elsewhere, especially in Dane and La Fayette Counties, Wisconsin.[220] The same applies also to several of those who came from Voss, Sogn, and Telemarken, to Chicago in 1843–1844;[221] these went mostly to Koshkonong, Wiota or Long Prairie, others to the various parts of the Fox River settlement.
In chapter XXI above I have further related some incidents from the life of some early Norwegian settlers in Chicago. In the following pages I shall merely try to give a brief account of new accessions to the Chicago colony between the years 1842 and 1850. It is estimated that there were in Chicago in 1850 3,000 persons of Norwegian birth; relatively the number was therefore considerable in that year. Yet I shall probably be right if I say that the actual number of Norwegians in the city in the year 1842 was very small, not more than in some of the smallest rural settlements already established. I assume that as the early Norwegian immigrants came here with the intention of settling on a farm, comparatively very few were induced to remain permanently in Chicago. Chicago and vicinity was not particularly inviting at the time; the swamps and marshes soon drove the incoming immigrants to the more inviting and the far more fertile inland counties.
As residents of Chicago before 1839, we have found Halstein Torison, Johan Larson, Nils Röthe and wife Torbjör, Svein Knutson Lothe and wife and two children, Baard Johnson, wife and five children, Andrew Nilson Brække and Anders Larsen Flage, both with families; these were all from Voss except Johan Larsen, a sailor who was from Kopervik, a little south of Haugesund, and Torison, who was from Fjeldberg in Söndhordland.[222] Among Baard Johnson’s sons were Anfin, John and Andrew; the first of these was a tailor in the employ of Simon Doyle on Kinzie Street.[223] The first directory of Chicago, published in 1839, gives a few more names of Norwegians.[224] We know that Lars Davidson Reque lived there then; he seems to have lived in the Cass Street Dutch settlement. His occupation was that of a fireman on the steamboat George W. Dole. There were two other Davidsons, Sivert[225] and Peter; in the latter we recognize our Per Davidson Skjerveim (see above p. 199). Other names in the same directory are: Asle Anderson, musician; Endre Anderson, laborer; Eric Anderson, pressman; all three of whom lived at the same house on North State Street, and were probably brothers; Canute Lawson (Larson), city street carpenter and Iver Lawson, who lived at 240 Superior Street.
But the directory does not give the name of another Norwegian who, if the year of his arrival is correctly recorded, must have been the first Scandinavian resident of Chicago, namely David Johnson, who came in 1834. He was a pressman in the employ of Mr. Calhoun, the publisher of The Chicago Democrat. David Johnson was a sailor, who came from Norway to New York as a boy, locating in New York in 1832, securing work as a press-feeder. About this time Mr. Calhoun was planning to install a cylinder press in place of the old hand press at his printing establishment in Chicago. The cylinder press was ordered from New York, Mr. Johnson having accepted Calhoun’s offer as pressman for him, he went to Chicago at the same time, where he put up and operated the new press. The Chicago Historical Society has among its documents Mr. Calhoun’s account-book for 1834, which gives Mr. Johnson’s name.[226]
But there were other Norwegians in Chicago in 1839 who do not seem to have been found by the census taker. Thus Steffen K. Gilderhus came there from Voss in 1838 and his brother Ole K. Gilderhus came in 1839. They lived in Chicago until 1844, when they settled on Koshkonong Prairie, Dane County, Wisconsin. Further Per Unde, Sjur Ulven and Arne Vinje who came there in 1839; these three settled at Wiota, Wisconsin, in 1841. Of this removal I have given a full account above chapter. Probably the earliest subsequent arrival from Voss were Torstein Saue, wife and son Gulleik, who came in the summer of 1840. They lived in Chicago until 1843, when they also went to Koshkonong. At about the same time of the year came also Baard Nyre, Mads Sanve, Ole Gilbertson, Brynjulf Ronve, Klaus Grimestad and wife and Lars T. Röthe and Anna Bakketun, all from Voss, and all of whom were for some time residents of Chicago. Anna Bakketun married a Mr. Nicholson (Nikolausen), who died from cholera in 1849. From this marriage there were two sons, Henry Nicholson, who served throughout the war, and John G. Nicholson, who is still living (Orchard Street). Torstein Michaelson, who succeeded Halstein Torison in the employ of Newberry, also came in 1840 or 1841. Michaelson was from Voss where he was born in 1808; he remained Newberry’s gardener for about thirty-five years.
We have above seen that some of the early immigrants to Illinois were from Hardanger, Norway, but the number was not large. We shall speak of this immigration more in detail in connection with the settlement of Lee County, Illinois. Here it will be in order now to note briefly Hardanger’s contribution to the Norwegian colony in Chicago in the period under discussion.
In 1839 twenty-two persons emigrated from Ulvik Parish, Hardanger, and all of these came to Chicago. They were: Gunnar Tveito, wife and child; Anders Vik, Johan Vik, Brynjulf Lekve, Lars Torblaa, wife and two children, Nils Vambheim and wife, Olav L. Mo, wife and two daughters and Lars Spilde, wife and four children.[227] This party having started out from Bergen left Gothenburg May 27, landed at Fall River, Massachusetts, August 2, took boat to New York, thence via Buffalo to Chicago, where they arrived August 25.[228] In Chicago they suffered much hardship, many were taken sick and died, among the latter Tveito’s and Vambheim’s wives. The men secured work, some on the canal, some on a schooner on the river, others as wood-cutters in the forests about Chicago. Lekve and the two Vik brothers wrote an account of their trials which was published in Bergens Stiftstidende for June 11, 1841, in which they advised against emigrating to America, and as a result there was no immigration to this country from Hardanger again before 1846–1847. Very few of the later immigrants from Hardanger located in Chicago.
Other arrivals during subsequent years were: 1841, Peter Nelson and Knut Larson Bö; 1842, J. C. Anderson, and in 1843, Ole Kaasa and family, G. A. Wigeland, Nils Bakketun and Randver Lydvo (b. 1813). Ole Kaasa moved from Chicago to Boone County, in 1845, but one of his sons, Jens, became a permanent resident of Chicago and a leading member of the Norwegian colony of Chicago during his life. Jens Olson, as he was known, was born in 1824 in Siljord, Upper Telemarken. In the early part of 1840 the family moved to Bamble Parish in Lower Telemarken, whence they emigrated in 1843. They arrived in Chicago October 20 of that year. The brother, Thore Olson, went out to Boone County; Jens settled permanently in Chicago, where he lived till his death in 1907. In 1853 he married Martha Anderson[229] at Capron, Illinois.[230]
Jens Olson was a master mason and brick-layer, and he built Vor Frelsers Kirke[231] the corner of Erie and May Streets. Later he became a contractor on a larger scale and erected a large number of school houses in Chicago. He was an ardent supporter of the Lutheran church and gave freely to its cause.
Randver Lydvo[232] came to Chicago in October, 1843. In June, 1844, she was married to Lars Knutson Dykesten; the ceremony took place in Nils Röthe’s house and the ceremony was performed by Rev. Flavel Bascum of the First Presbyterian church. Lars Knutson died in the cholera epidemic in 1849. Mrs. Knutson who is still living[233] is one of the oldest Norwegian residents of Chicago.
In 1844 Bryngel Henderson and wife Martha came to Chicago and became permanent residents of the city, as did also Knut Iverson Glimme, Mrs. Julia Nelson, Ellef G. Severtson[234] and John A. Hefte. These were all from Voss; Severtson was from Vossevangen. Ole Bakketun and family and Sjur M. Sære, also with family, both from Voss, came to Chicago in 1844, but lived there only one year, when they went to Koshkonong.
The year 1844 also brought Chicago another permanent resident from Voss, who later became prominently associated with the commercial and political life of the city. This was Iver Larson Bö, born 1821, in Voss, Norway, who came to Chicago that year and not as generally found stated in or about 1840,[235] locating on the north side. Iver dropped the surname Bö, and changed Larson to Lawson, so that his name became Iver Lawson. He was one of the organizers of the First Lutheran church in 1848, located at that time on Superior Street between Wells Street and La Salle Avenue.[236] Lawson took a prominent part in the political life of early Chicago, e.g., as member of the city council, and otherwise. In 1869 he was a member of the House of Representatives in the State Legislature. As legislator his name is most closely associated with the establishment of Chicago’s excellent system of parks; the creation of Lincoln Park in particular was due in great measure to Lawson’s efforts.[237] Iver Lawson’s name is also associated with that of John Anderson in the founding of Skandinaven, now the largest and most widely circulated Norwegian newspaper in this country.[238]
The year 1845 brought a number of accessions to the Norwegian colony of Chicago. Among them Kittil Nirison, from Bö Parish in Telemarken, one of the few from Telemarken who settled in Chicago in the early days, Knud K. Harrisville and wife Maren Karine (née Larson), Christian Lee, from Gausdal, and Andrew Anderson, wife, Laura, and family from Voss. This family included a son John, born March, 1836, who is the well known founder and owner of Skandinaven and president of the John A. Anderson Publishing Company.[239]
Andrew Anderson died of the cholera in 1849, and to the son John, then thirteen years old, fell the task of supporting his mother and baby sister, which he did at first by peddling apples and carrying newspapers. Then he became “printer’s devil” and soon learned the art of distributing and setting type.[240] In the following years he was successively connected with The Argus, The Democratic Press and The Press-Tribune. In 1866 he launched a paper of his own, Skandinaven, which at first a small sheet issued weekly has grown until, through its daily, semi-weekly and weekly issue, it is now the largest and politically the most influential of Norwegian newspapers in the country. Mr. Anderson has engaged extensively in the publishing of books, issuing a far larger number of books a year than any other Norwegian-American publisher. In this connection it is to be especially mentioned that he has also in recent years done excellent pioneer work in the publishing of certain educational works, as school and college texts of Norwegian literature, thereby facilitating materially instruction in this field in our colleges and universities.
In succeeding years the Norwegian colony in Chicago grew rapidly. Already in 1850 it was considerable; to-day there are more Norwegians in Chicago than any other city in the country (see also footnote 443). They resided in the early days for the most part on the north side, south of Chicago Avenue, between the lake and the present Orleans Street. Later the region of Wicker Park became a Norwegian center. To-day they are found very extensively in the vicinity of Humboldt Park and Logan Square, the business center is along West North Avenue.[241]
Among the earliest Norwegian settlers of Chicago now living is to be mentioned finally Mrs. Martha Erickson who come to this country in 1841. She is the daughter of Björn Björnson, who accompanied Kleng Peerson to America in 1825. For account of this see above page 50. The other twin, there referred to came to America in 1866; her name is Mrs. Bertha Fuglestad. They are both living in Chicago enjoying excellent health at the age of eighty-eight. Björn Björnson settled in Rochester, New York, where he died in 1854.[242] On their eighty-fifth birthday in 1906, the twin sisters held a family festival at the home of Mrs. Eric Ross at which four children and one grandchild of Mrs. Erickson were present and Mrs. Fuglestad’s four children, eighteen grandchildren and fifteen great grandchildren.
I have above spoken of the fact that Knut H. Roe was one of the party that emigrated with John Luraas from Tin, Telemarken, in 1839. These two men became the first Norwegians to settle in the townships of Pleasant Spring and Dunkirk respectively in 1843. Roe had lived for a time in La Salle County, Illinois, going to Racine County, Wisconsin, in 1842, as we have seen above. In the fall of 1841 a few of the settlers in Racine County had travelled west as far as Koshkonong Prairie, for the purpose of inspecting the uninhabited country there, of which they seem already to have heard from friends. In the townships of Albion and Christiana, these met and spoke with those who had come there from Jefferson Prairie in 1840.
The favorable report of these explorers relative to the fertility of the soil and the general character of the country on Koshkonong created considerable restlessness among the pioneers at Wind Lake, in Racine County, and many decided to remove to Dane County. Among these were Knut Roe and John Luraas. We shall first follow the fortunes of the former. As soon as the snow was gone with the end of the winter of 1842–43, Roe walked on foot to Koshkonong, where he visited the different parts of the prairie, and selected a spot on which to settle. Then he walked back to Racine County. John Luraas and family also having decided to remove to Dane County, the two families secured a team for the overland journey; they reached their destination on one of the last days in May. “Two weeks before St. John’s eve,” writes Roe, “my first home, a hut of brushwood and leaves, supported at the four corners by an oak, was ready sufficiently so that my wife and child and myself could find protection therein against rain and wind.” This he built in the southeast corner of section twenty-two in the Town of Pleasant Spring, at a point about two miles and a half west of Utica. Knut Roe, his wife, Anne, and family were the first white settlers in the township. An interview with Roe which the editor of Billed-Magazin prints will therefore be of interest. He says: “I often received visits by the Indians, and the many deep paths in the ground showed that the son of the wilderness often held forth in the region about me. In their marches between the Lake Koshkonong and the four lakes which have made Madison famed far and wide for its beauty, the Redskins often pitched camp close to my brushwood hut. Sometimes I accompanied them on their hunts. They never caused me any trouble, but on the contrary were always ready to be helpful. There was game in plenty. Almost daily I saw herds of deer, flocks of prairie chickens, and I was often awakened at night by the howling of the wolf."
In the autumn Roe built a log cabin; in this cabin he and family continued to live till 1870. During the earliest years, he writes, he was obliged to drive as far as Whitewater, thirty miles east, or Madison, a distance of eighteen miles, for flour. At Lake Mills, twenty-two miles, there was a saw-mill. After a time the settlers began to sell some wheat; this had to be hauled to Milwaukee, seventy-five miles away. Their only means of transportation at that time was the Kubberulle, or block-wheeled wagon, drawn by oxen, much of the way through forest, where a way had to be cut by the axe. Two weeks after Roe’s settling, Ole K. Trovatten came from Muskego and located on the farm later owned by Gunder J. Felland. Trovatten, who had been a school teacher in Norway, had emigrated from Laurdal, Telemarken, to Muskego in 1840. He was, therefore, the second Norwegian to locate in Pleasant Spring. He, however, left for Cottage Grove that same fall. See below, page 252.
The next arrivals were Osmund Lunde and his brother-in-law, Aslak Kostvedt, both from Vinje in Telemarken. The latter bought land three miles southeast of West Koshkonong Church, near Trovatten’s place. Lunde lived at first with Kostvedt; thereupon he bought land in section three. Some years later Lunde sold his farm to Kittil Rinden, oldest son of Kittil Rinden, Sr., and moved to Minnesota, whither Kostvedt also moved.
On the third of August a small group of immigrants arrived and selected a home and settled directly west of West Koshkonong Church, on section fourteen. These were Knut A. Juve,[243] his brother, Knut Gjötil (or Jöitil), and his sister, Tone Lien, then a widow. Juve owned an estate in Telemarken, which he sold upon deciding to emigrate, in May, 1843. They sailed on the brig Washington, which carried eighty-six passengers, mostly from the parishes of Hvideseid and Laurdal.[244] They landed in New York on July fourth. It was the intention of the members of this party to settle in Illinois, but in Milwaukee they were advised against doing so; they were told that many who had settled in Illinois had later moved to Wisconsin and bought homes there. Many remained in Milwaukee, some went direct to Koshkonong, while others, including the Juve party, went to Wind Lake, in Racine County. Knut Juve was not pleased with Wind Lake. One day he met a pioneer settler from the Town of Christiana, Dane County, who, when he noticed Juve’s downcast condition, said to him: “Go farther west; not until you get to Koshkonong are you in America.” Juve acted upon the advice; he and his brother and sister started west soon after, arriving in the Town of Pleasant Spring, as we have said, on the third day of August. Half a mile west of where the church was built two years later, they built their hut of brushwood, thatched with straw.
“Our furniture,” says Juve,[245] “consisted of a few chests, that were used both as table and chairs, while the bed was arranged on the ground on some twigs and grass.” Here they lived till October, when they made a dugout, in which they lived till the following summer. Both Juve and Jöitil were soon, however, taken ill with the climate fever. In the interview from which we have already cited, he speaks of how many a time during his illness he longed back to the old home, kindred and friends in his native land. In the summer of 1844 a log cabin was built, and not long after Jöitil and the widowed sister also had erected log cabins of their own in his immediate neighborhood. In the spring of 1844 Juve broke two acres of ground and raised a little corn and potatoes; the next summer he raised enough of grain and potatoes for family use; the third year he was able to sell a little. Such were the beginnings of agriculture in the wilderness.
About the middle of August a large number came and located in the settlement. Among these were Gunleik T. Sundbö (b.1785), with wife and three sons, two of whom were married and had families.[246] Others who came were: Tostein G. Bringa (b. 1817), with wife and son, Halvor Laurantson Fosseim (b. 1810), and family, his brother, Ole L. Fosseim, and Ole K. Dyrland (b. 1819).[247] Sundbö, Bringa, Fosseim and Dyrland all bought land not far from Knut Juve and Knut Jöitil. During the next two months the following arrived: Torbjörn G. Vik, with wife and son Guttorm, and daughter Anna from Siljord, Aslak E. Groven (b. 1812), and family, from Laurdal, Ole E. Næset (b. 1796), and family, and his brother Aadne, from Vinje, and Gunnar T. Mandt, from Moe, Telemarken.[248] Groven settled about a mile east of the West Koshkonong Church near the Christiana Township line; the two Næset brothers also located near there. This group of immigrants came via Racine County, where they had remained a few weeks resting after the journey, as the guests of Even Heg. They arrived on Koshkonong Prairie in the latter part of September, having walked from Muskego. Gunnar Mandt first came to Pleasant Spring, but as he did not have anything[249] with which to buy land, as he says, he worked for others there and elsewhere for five years. From his autobiographical sketch[250] I cite the following account of the method of threshing in those days:
“There were no mowers, no reapers, binders or threshing machines, everything had to be done by hand. When we were to thrash, the sheaves of wheat or oats were placed on the ground in a large circle. Then three or four yoke of oxen were tied together with an iron chain; one man stood in the center of the circle on the sheaves of grain and drove the oxen around over the grain. These would then stamp the kernels out of the straw little by little, and so we kept on, until we had the sheaves replaced by new ones and got the straw away. For cleansing the grain thus secured, we used short basins or bowls such as were made in Norway formerly. After a while we got a kind of fanning-mill, mower, reaper, etc. But they were imperfect and cannot be compared with the machines and implements used nowadays.”
Gunnar Mandt worked in Chicago during the years 1844–45, where he got seventy-five cents a day, but had to furnish his own keep. In 1846 he returned to Pleasant Spring; in April, 1848, he married Synneva Olsdatter Husebö, from Systrond, Sogn, who had come to America with her parents in 1844. Having secured his own farm (on section nine) he farmed there until 1875, when he moved to the village of Stoughton. Gunnar Mandt died in December, 1907, his wife having died a month earlier.
The greater part of nine sections (13–15 and 22–27) in this part of the Township of Pleasant Spring, was settled before the winter of 1843–44. Knut Roe says that, while he was alone there when he came in June, he had neighbors on all sides before winter came, although the distance between the pioneer cabins was, of course, considerable. The year 1844 brought a large influx of settlers, chiefly from Telemarken, but in part also from Voss. Among them I shall here speak only of Hendrik Hæve and family, from Voss, who located somewhat farther north, on section one, on the property later owned and occupied by his oldest son, Ole Hæve (Havey); Anfin O. Holtan and family from Sogn, who settled in the southeastern part of the town on section thirty-six, where the son, Ole Holtan, later lived; and Ole Iverson and his wife Angeline and son Lewis.
There were a few others, as Aanund O. Drotning, from Vinje, and Knut H. Teisberg, from Laurdal, Telemarken, who came to America in 1843, but they, too, settled elsewhere first; we shall have occasion to speak of them again. Finally, relative to Knut Roe, I may add that he and his wife continued to live on the old homestead till their death; he died as early as 1874, but she lived till 1908, being then a little over ninety years of age. The homestead was owned by the oldest son, Helleik. On the occasion of Mrs. K. Roe’s ninetieth birthday, all her children, eight grandchildren and twenty-five great-grandchildren, gathered at the old home to commemorate the event.[251]
We shall now turn to Dunkirk Township, the earliest settling of which also dates from 1843.
The first Norwegian settler in the Town of Dunkirk was John Nelson Luraas. Together with Helge Grimsrud he had explored Dunkirk and surrounding country in the fall of 1842 and selected a site on which to settle. His father, Nils Johnson Luraas (b. 1789), arrived from Norway in June, 1843, and came with his son direct from Muskego to Koshkonong, where the party arrived on June sixteenth. An American by the name of John Wheeler had settled in the town two weeks earlier, being the only white man there.[252] Luraas settled on section three, about two miles east of the present city of Stoughton, and three miles south of where his companion, Knut Roe, located in the Town of Pleasant Spring. Only about a week after Luraas’s arrival, two more families, who also came from Muskego, arrived and settled there, namely, Helge Sivertson Grimsrud, wife Birgitte, son Sigurd, and Hans P. Tverberg and wife Ingeborg, and John P. Tverberg. The former had emigrated from Norway (via Drammen and Gothenburg) the year before, while Tverberg had come in 1841. They were all from Tin, in Telemarken. Helge Grimsrud possessed considerable means in Norway and owned a fine estate, which he sold upon emigrating. Grimsrud bought land in section two, directly east of Luraas, while Tverberg settled a mile south of Luraas in section ten.[253] The next settler was Gaute Ingbrigtson Gulliksrud (b. 1815), from Tin, Telemarken, who arrived there five weeks later, that is, in August.[254] He came in a party of about one hundred and twenty persons, mostly from Telemarken, embarking at Skien, and sailed via Havre de Grace to New York. Most of the party went temporarily to Muskego. Gulliksrud did not like Muskego, and soon after set out for Koshkonong. Having selected a location for his home, he bought, for $200, a hundred and sixty acres of land, near his countrymen, chiefly in section ten, and erected his log cabin a short distance north of Hans Tverberg’s home.
There were then in the fall of 1843 four Norwegian families settled in the Town of Dunkirk. In the following year a considerable number of immigrants came from Norway (Telemarken, Voss, and Sogn) but Dunkirk did not receive many of those who came that year; they settled mostly in Christiana or Pleasant Spring, while some now began to find homes in Cottage Grove and Dunn, immediately north and west of Pleasant Spring.
The first Norwegian settlers in the Town of Dunn were Nils Ellefson Mastre and Lars Mastre, who had come to America in 1845; they located in Dunn, just across the Pleasant Spring line soon after arriving; American families had settled in the township before them. Ingebrigt Johnson Helle, from Kragerö, was the next settler there, but he didn’t enter Dunn until 1849; he emigrated in 1845 but had worked in Buffalo four years.
John O. Hougen, from Solör, Norway, was the first Norwegian to settle in Cottage Grove, where he came in the summer of 1842, consequently a year before Roe and others came to Pleasant Spring. Hougen had been a baker in Christiana and usually went by the name of John Baker (or Bager). Some years later he removed to Coon Prairie, in Vernon County, Wisconsin. Björn Tovsen Vasberg, from Laurdal, Telemarken, also located in Cottage Grove in the summer of 1842. Nothing seems to be known of his antecedents, and little that is favorable seems to be known of him during his brief career in the township. He later moved to Minnesota, where he lived, it seems, a roving life, being at last found dead on the public highway. He was a notorious, and as far as I know, the only instance of the vagabond and ne’er-do-well among the Norwegian pioneers of those days. The next Norwegian settler in the Town of Cottage Grove was Halvor Kostvedt,[255] from Vinje Parish, who emigrated in the spring of 1842; he lived for a year in Christiana Township, and came to Cottage Grove in the summer of 1843 and made a dugout on section twenty-four, in which he lived the first year. Others who came on the same ship were Alexander O. Bækhus (or Norman), Ole A. Haatvedt and Osmund Lunde. The first of these located in Christiana, but later moved to Minnesota; Ole Haatvedt settled on Jefferson Prairie, whence some years later he went to Iowa, while Asmund Lunde, after remaining a year in Muskego, came to Pleasant Spring, as we have seen, in the summer of 1843. Ole Trovatten, whom we have already met, both in Muskego and in Pleasant Spring, came to Cottage Grove in the fall of 1843. Trovatten is reputed to have been a man of unusual natural gifts and considerable eloquence. He served as deacon in West Koshkonong and Liberty Prairie churches for many years, a capacity in which he had officiated also in Norway. He later affiliated with the East Koshkonong Church, which congregation he, with O. P. Selseng, represented on the occasion of the founding of the Norwegian Synod in East Koshkonong Church, on February 5th, 1853.[256]
Asmund Aslakson Næstestu, with wife and family, came to Muskego in the fall of 1843, where he worked as a blacksmith for six months. He removed to Koshkonong early the next spring, going direct to Halvor Kostvedt, with whom he lived in the dugout the first summer. In 1847 he bought land in the same locality. Næstestu[257] is said to have been famed in Norway as a mechanical genius of rare talent. On one occasion King Carl Johan was shown a gun made by the farmer’s son in Vinje; the King afterwards sent Asmund Næstestu a silver cup as a token of his pleasure over the excellent workmanship of the gun. Asmund Næstestu bought a farm a mile and a half northwest of Nora Post Office in 1854, where he, in the course of time, became the owner of two hundred acres. Among others who came to America with Asmund Næstestu in 1843 and later settled in Cottage Grove, were Næstestu’s nephews, Aslak and Halvor Olson Bækhus (or Gjergjord as they called themselves in this country), Björn O. Hustvedt, Halvor Donstad and Knut Teisberg.[258]
Finally I shall add the names of Björn A. Stondall and Björn Stevens Hustvedt, two of Cottage Grove’s well known early pioneers, who emigrated in 1843 and stopped through the winter in Muskego; thence they came to Koshkonong, locating in Cottage Grove in the spring of 1844.[259] Björn Stondal was from Vinje, in Telemarken, being born on the farm Næstestu in Bögrænd in 1823. He sailed on the ship Vinterflid from Porsgrund in the spring of 1843, as he relates.[260] They were eleven weeks on the ocean before reaching New York. The objective point was Milwaukee and the Muskego settlement; here they stopped during the winter with an American by the name of Putnam,—seven persons in a hut that was fourteen feet long and ten feet wide. In the spring of 1844 he walked west to Koshkonong, where he decided to buy eighty acres of land in section thirty-two in southern Cottage Grove, and begin the occupation of a farmer. Four years later he married Gunhild Bergland. Björn Stondal died in April, 1906, at the age of eighty-three, survived by his wife and nine children.
In our discussion of the settling of Koshkonong by immigrants from Numedal in 1840–42, mention was made of Tore Knudson Nore and wife Gjertud among those who arrived in 1842. Tore Nore did not, however, locate in Christiana or Albion townships, where his compatriots had settled. He selected land about three miles southeast of where Gunnul Vindeig had located, across the Jefferson County line in what later was named Sumner Township. Tore Nore, who was then a man of about forty years of age and had a large family, had emigrated in the spring of 1842, but had not, as the immigrants from Numedal so far had generally done, gone to Jefferson Prairie or Rock Prairie, but had stopped in Muskego. Being dissatisfied here, he decided to go to Koshkonong. Taking his family with him, he arrived there about October first of that year. Soon after he erected his log cabin in Sumner,[261] being, therefore, the first Norwegian to settle in that part of Jefferson County, his being the second family to enter the township of Sumner.[262] Here he lived till his death in 1868, at the age of seventy-six. Gjertrud Nore died in 1884. Three sons are prosperous farmers living in the neighborhood of the father’s original homestead. A daughter, Gro, married Peder Larsen Svartskuren (or Svartskor) in Norway, in June, 1842. They became the second Norwegian family to settle in the township. Peder Svartskuren was a native of Konigsberg, Norway, being, as it appears, the third emigrant to America from that locality.[263]
In an interview with Svein Nilson printed in 1870, Peder Svartskuren mentions Björn Anderson (Kvelve), Amund Hornefjeld, Gunnul Vindeig and Thorsten Olson as being the only Norwegians living in the neighboring towns of Albion and Christiana when he came there. He speaks of Sumner Township as being a heavy primeval forest, with only here and there a stretch of open country. “There was an abundance of game, deers and prairie chickens, and the lake (Koshkonong) and creek were full of fish. The Indians were roving about the country, but they did no one any harm and were kindly and ever ready to help.”
Mrs. Svartskuren, who is now eighty-seven years old and quite feeble, has, since 1902, lived at Leeds, North Dakota, with a son, Carl, he having sold the homestead after the father’s death, and moved to Viroqua, Wisconsin, and later to Leeds. Peder Svartskuren was among the founders of the East Koshkonong Church; he was a man of strong character, who enjoyed in large degree the love and the respect of his fellows.
The Town of Sumner did not receive many accessions from Norway. In the same interview Svartskuren says: “There are now twelve Norwegian families, besides six Swedish families. The rest are German and English.”
The Town of Oakland, Jefferson County, also received a few settlers at this early period. The earliest arrival there was, I believe, Tollef Bækhus and wife, Aasild; they came to Koshkonong in 1843 and located two miles east of the village of Rockdale. They were from Laurdal Parish, in Upper Telemarken, had been married in 1838, and had two children when they came to this country. Tollef Bækhus died in 1897, the widow lived until 1906, being ninety years old at the time of her death. A son, John Bækhus, now owns the homestead.[264]
In Chapter XVIII above we gave an account of the founding of the Koshkonong Settlement, which began in the townships of Christiana, Deerfield and Albion, in 1840–41. We spoke briefly of the founders and of those who came and joined the three groups of pathfinders in the following year. In Chapter XXVIII a similar record has been given of the events which led to the settling of the Town of Pleasant Spring by four families in 1843, and by others in the following year. We have also observed how the towns of Dunkirk and Cottage Grove became settled in 1843, and that Dunn received its first Norwegian settlers in 1844. The towns of Sumner and Oakland, in Jefferson County, in the eastern extremity of Koshkonong Prairie also received a small contingent of Norwegian immigrant settlers in 1842 and 1843 respectively. The original nucleus and the subsequent expansions of the settlement, east, west and north, are thereby indicated.
In four years after its inception, the settlement covered an area of about fifteen square miles. But the settlers lived, for the most part, far apart; geographically they had made ample provisions for a great settlement in this garden spot of Wisconsin. While there were as yet (in 1843) not more than a hundred and fifty individuals in the settlement, there was room for thousands more without going beyond the boundary as already laid out. The beginning made in a few years was remarkable, but the growth in the years immediately following was even more wonderful. For a time Koshkonong was the destination of four-fifths of those who emigrated from Norway.
The year 1842 records the beginning of the great development, which in five years resulted in the settling of almost the whole of this vast area by immigrants from Norway. The next year was that of the great influx from various points in Telemarken, especially, Siljord, Laurdal and Hvideseid, although there were considerable numbers also from Vinje and Tin. The year 1843 was the one in which the Telemarkings took possession of Koshkonong; they gradually selected their permanent homes in Pleasant Spring, extending into Dunkirk and Cottage Grove and the northeastern sections of Christiana (as Eggleson, Bjoin, Hauge, Borgerud, Bosbön and Kingland). The Numedalians came only in limited numbers after 1842 and did not spread much beyond the original center around East Koshkonong church in southeastern Christiana and northern Albion townships. Those on the extreme west were Levi Kittilson, Levi Holtan, O. O. Lenaas and Tore E. Smithback, all coming somewhat later than those in the eastern extremity. The immigration from Numedal, which began in Rollaug, is after 1842 almost confined to Flesberg, a parish which furnished no immigrants before 1842.
In the year 1843, there came to Koshkonong, 35 families and many single persons, or a total of 182 individuals. This was the year of heaviest immigration to Koshkonong. The year’s influx is significant in the large number of districts in Norway represented, Telemarken leading as has been pointed out above. In addition to 9 persons from Numedal, and a small contingent from Voss, the first party of fourteen persons arrived from Kragerö. These first immigrants from Kragerö were: Bjorn O. Rom, Kjöstolf Tollefsen Hulderöen[265] (b. 1821), Even E. Buaas (b. 1799), Abraham K. Rönningen, Erick K. Rönningen, Halvor E. Dahl (b. 1802), wife Anne, and family, Torbjörn K. Rönningen, Glus P. Tyvang and wife, Audi, and Peder K. Rönningen. From Leikanger in Sogn[266] Anna L. Eggum (or Eggene, b. 1811), who in 1845 married Sjur C. Droksvold, from Voss; from Lier came Knut O. Lier, as also the widow Anne Thorstad, Knut Asdöhldalen and Gabriel Björnson (from Drammen); from Drangedal came Baruld J. Strandskougen and family, from Sandsværd, Ellef A. Berg, from Skauger, Halvor J. Stubberud, from Rögen, Lars P. Haukelien and family, from Holte, Tarald E. Midböe, from Gjerpen, Peder H. Moe, and from Hallingdal, Even Olson.
We have noted the fact above that there came for the first time in 1843 a group of immigrants from Flesberg Parish in Numedal. We shall note here briefly who these were. For the facts I am indebted to Mrs. Levi Holtan, formerly of Utica, at present of Stoughton, Wisconsin. The name of the ship on which these people came, Mrs. Holtan cannot remember, but it was commanded by Captain Overvind; the first mate was Friis. In the party of ninety persons were: Halvor Kjölen, Juul Hamre and wife Anne, Tostein Ullebær and Halvor Aasen, who went to Jefferson Prairie,[267] Gulleik Laugen, who stopped in Rochester, but soon after came west, locating on Rock Prairie, Paal (“Spelleman”) Lund, Guldbrand G. Holtan, a widower, his brother Ole G. Holtan,[268] Knut K. Bakli and Kittil G. Bakli and families, Ambjör Olsdatter and Synnöve Kristoffersdatter Bekkjorden from Lyngdal Annex of Flesberg. This was the ship on which also Per Svartskuren and wife Gro, Knut Lier and Baruld Johnson came on.[269] In the same party emigrated also Klemet Larson Stalsbraaten and wife Gunild, and his brother Halvor Stalsbraaten (Kravik) from Sigdal in Numedal. Halvor Stalsbraaten took the name Kravik from the estate where he had worked five years before emigrating. Reverend Kasberg writes me, citing Halvor Kravik, that they (the Stalsbraatens)