Hadle Evenson moved to Perry, Wisconsin, in 1854, where Mrs. Evenson died in 1861. The oldest son Edwin Hadley, enlisting in Co. E, 15th Wisconsin, was killed at the Battle of New Hope Church, Georgia, in May, 1864. In 1875 Mr. Evenson settled at Slater, Story County, Iowa. Peter Hadley, Treasurer of Webster County, is the only surviving son.

Among the early settlers at Skoponong was Mrs. Ingeborg Nelson who came from Evanger, Voss, in 1849. She left Skoponong a few years later, settling permanently at Deerfield, Dane County, in 1853, where she is still living at the age of ninety-five. Mrs. Nelson is the mother of Senator Knute Nelson of Minnesota, who was born in Norway in 1843. Knute Nelson was educated at Albion Academy, Albion, Wisconsin, and removed to Alexandria, Minnesota in 1871. He was Governor of Minnesota during 1892–1895. In the latter year he was elected U. S. Senator and has been reëlected twice since, serving now his third term.

I shall mention one more settler, namely Torstein Rio,[314] born at Vossevangen in 1835, who, with his wife Ingeborg (Bershaugen) and family came to America in 1849 on the ship Henrik Wergeland and located at Skoponong. A brother whose name also was Torstein came at the same time, and the family included a son Nels (Thompson), who is living at Madison, Wisconsin, having moved there in 1860.[315] Torstein Rio died at Skoponong in 1869, his wife died in Madison in 1876.

At Pine Lake and Nashota in northwestern Waukesha County a considerable number of Norwegians lived among the forties and fifties, since which the settlement has dwindled very much.[316] At Pine Lake the first Swedish settlement founded in America in the last century had been established in 1841 by Gustav Unonius.[317] In 1843 about fifty Norwegian families located at Pine Lake, according to Unonius Minnen, 1862, page 3. Unonius mentions especially a Captain Hans Gasman as the principal figure there. Gasman had a large family of sons and daughters, and the name is a well known one among the early pioneers of Racine, Waukesha, and Dodge Counties.[318] Other members of the family were Charles, Peter and Captain Johan Gasman, who commanded the Salvator, plying between Skien and New York. This very ship brought a number who located at Pine Lake, among them Halvor Salveson from Gjerpen.[319]

Among the fifty families who came to Pine Lake in 1843 I may name Engelbret Salveson from Gjerpen, Erik Helgeson, Hans Roe, Christen Puttekaasa, Halvor Rosholt, Jacob Rosholt, Peter Næs from near Skien and Gjerpen, Ellef Björnson and Halvor Halvorson from Saude, Telemarken, and Tollef Waller from Eidanger in Lower Telemarken, Christopher Aamodt and Hans Uhlen from Modum, Tolleiv Röisland and Ole Nummeland from Vallö in Sætersdalen and Ole Lia from Gausdal.[320] Some of these, as e. g. Halvor Halvorson[321] located in the extreme northern part of the settlement at Toland, and John Lia settled across the Jefferson County line,[322] but most located in Waukesha County at Hartland or Nashota.

In subsequent years there arrived constantly new settlers from Skien, Sætersdal and Gudbrandsdalen, but even in the later forties many began to go to the counties immediately northwest to Waupaca and Portage counties and elsewhere. In 1850–54 these counties, as also Waushara and Winnebago counties on the south, received hosts of Norwegian settlers, some coming direct from Norway, a large number however from Racine and Dane Counties, and the Pine Lake region.[323] The period of growth in this settlement was therefore relatively short, and the removals relatively large. The result was that the Norwegians came to live more scattered and the community soon began to lose its distinctive national character. Thus it is significant, that of the ninety services held during 1907 in Vor Frelsers Kirke at Oconomowoc sixty-three were in the English language.[324] But we are here touching upon questions which it is not our purpose to discuss in connection with the survey of settlement.

CHAPTER XXXV
The Earliest Norwegian Settlers at Sugar Creek, Walworth County, Wisconsin. The influx from Land, Norway, to Wiota and Vicinity, 1844–1852

We have briefly referred to Sugar Creek, Walworth County, Wisconsin, in chapter XXXIII above. This little settlement received its first Norwegian settlers in 1844 when Ole Vale and wife Anne from Holden Parish, Skien, located there; with them came the sons John and Anders and the daughters Aasta, Anne, Turine, Andrea and Maria. Vale and his wife lived in Sugar Creek till their death, and the daughters all married and settled there. In the same year Ole Kittelson and Nils T. Kvamodden, both unmarried and both also from Holden, came to the settlement. Ole Kittelson located permanently in Sugar Creek, but Nils Kvamodden and wife moved to Norway Township, Goodhue County, Minnesota, in 1857. There they died years ago, the homestead being now occupied by the son Ole.

Christian L. Vestremo and wife Ingeborg and three children, and Gunder K. Næseth emigrated from Gjerpen near Skien, in 1844. Næseth moved to Norway, Minnesota, in 1856 and Vestremo in 1857. According to Ole Jacobson of Elk Horn, to whom I am indebted for these facts, there were no further accessions to the colony before 1847. In that year his parents came from Gjerpen, as also Jacob Torstenson and wife Maren Margrete and three sons Ole, Torsten and Jacob, and a daughter, Maria with her husband Lars Jensen Teigen and family. With them came also Teigen’s mother. Jacob Torstenson died in 1861; the widow is still living at the old home.

Ole Jacobson writes me that his father and family left Skien in April by the ship Axel (og) Valborg, Captain Bloom, going first as far as Havre, France. There they waited three weeks, then secured passage with an American ship, the journey being very slow. Landing in Boston, they went by train to Albany, thence by canal boat to Buffalo, and by steamboat via the lakes to Milwaukee, where they arrived sometime in August. From Milwaukee they thereupon proceeded to Sugar Creek, where they located permanently. Ole Jacobson is at present living on the farm purchased in 1847. In 1849 Aslak Rasmusson Slettene with wife Gunild and eight children came from Gjerpen, Norway.[325] Grindemelum, with wife, son, and daughter, also came in 1849, as did Peter J. Gromstulen, wife Svanang and five children, and Nils J. Overholt, wife and two children.

There do not seem to have been any further accessions of Norwegian immigrants during the pioneer days of the Sugar Creek settlement. In the sixties quite a number came and located at and about Elk Horn but these do not fall within the scope of our survey.

The original home of immigrants from Land, Norway, was Rock Prairie, as we saw above, chapter XXIV. From this as their distribution point they migrated west and north, aiding in the founding of other settlements. As early as 1844 we find one pioneer at Wiota from Land, Norway, namely Syver Johnson Smed (see above page 213). But the influx from Land did not begin until 1847.[326] In that year two families, numbering in all fourteen persons, arrived via Rock Prairie; they were those of Svend Nörstelien (wife Karen, and five children) and of the widow Kari Lillebæk, who had six children.[327] In 1848 Hovel Tollefsrude, wife Bertha and children: Christopher, Hans, Jahannes, Siri, and Lovise arrived. Further immigrants of that year were: Johannes Brenom, wife Ingeborg and three children; Hans Halvorson (Brenna), wife Eli, and children, Berte, Halvor and Johannes; Johannes E. Smedsrud, with wife Anne and two sons Engebret and Mathias; and Johannes Smehögen (or Smed) with wife Engeborg, and two children.

In 1849 came Torkild Husværet, with wife and three sons, Gulbrand, Lars and Frederik; Ole Monson Tollefsrude, wife Karen and three children, and Nils Aason, Ovre Hasle and wife Ingeborg, who had come to Rock Prairie in 1848 (removed to Wiota in 1848). Hans Lillebæk came in 1850 and about twenty in all in 1851–52.

Ole Monson, whom we have mentioned as coming in 1849, was the builder of the old Norwegian church at Wiota, which is still standing; the present larger and more commodious structure stands on the wall built by Ole Monson.

There were not very many from other provinces in Norway among those who emigrated to Wiota in the late forties. We have spoken of Ingebrigt Fuglegjærdet’s coming in 1846 from Long Prairie, where he had lived two years; he was from Vik, Sogn.[328]

From Vik came Erik I. Haave and wife in 1847, while Harald Melland and wife Anne came from Telemarken. From Sigdal there came one family in 1848; Ellef (Alef) Johnson and wife Anne. The latter served in the Civil War, in Company G of the Twenty-Second Wisconsin Regiment.[329] In 1872 he married Mary Larson,[330] of Blanchardville, La Fayette County, where they are now living.

I may conclude this chapter by saying that Arne Vinje, whose name is so intimately interlinked with the history of the community, died in 1903, having lived on the old homestead for sixty-two years. Of his eight children, three are living: Peter S. Anderson, Newell, Iowa, Daniel K. Anderson and Mrs. Martha Brunkow of Woodford, Wisconsin.

CHAPTER XXXVI
Continued Immigration from Aurland, Sogn, to Koshkonong. The Arrival of Settlers from Vik Parish, Sogn, in 1845.

In the year 1845–1846 immigration to Koshkonong from Laurdal, Vinje and Moe Parishes continued and a considerable number came from Flesberg. The accessions from Laurdal, Moe, and Hvideseid for these years record the end of a movement that began in 1843. But that which especially characterized the growth of the Koshkonong Settlement in 1845–1846 was the extensive additions through immigrants from Sogn. So extensive, in fact, was the influx from Sogn these years as to make their total representation on Koshkonong at once exceed that from either Voss or Numedal, and equal to about half that from Telemarken. These four have ever since been the dominant elements in Koshkonong’s population. A part of this immigration from Sogn was from parishes represented among the arrivals of the year before. Such were Botolf J. Grinde, Ole N. Steenhjerde and Sjur I. Romören from Leikanger, Herman T. Vee, Joseph J. Gjellum and Hermund O. Offerdal from Lærdal, Anders S. Övrebö, wife Anne and three children from Lyster, Erik L. Grov and Anders H. Ödegaard and wife Martha from Hafslo.

But much more significant was the immigration from Aurland Parish in 1845–1846, from Sogndal in 1846, and the new immigration from Vik Parish in 1845. We shall discuss these three groups in order briefly.

We have noted above, Chapter XXXI, that there were several persons from Aurland Parish, Sogn, among the immigrants who settled on Koshkonong in 1844. I am now in receipt of a letter from Anders J. Flaam of Flaam in Aurland, Norway, relative to the earliest emigration from Aurland to America. His letter, as also that of Reverend E. P. Juul, the present Minister of the Parish, shows that the earliest emigrants left there in 1844. I quote in translation from Reverend Juul’s letter:

Reverend Juul thereupon gives a list of those who emigrated from Aurland in 1845, and while several of these did not settle on Koshkonong it will be of interest to the reader to see this list. I therefore give it complete here:

Some of the immigrants mentioned by Reverend Juul are still living on Koshkonong. Thus among the children of Erik J. Ytreli (who died in 1892, at the age of 90),[332] Johannes (John E. Johnson) is still living on the old homestead, two miles east of Utica, and his brother Haakon is living there with him.[333] Simon Gjellum lived two years in Chicago, then entered the Mexican War, after which he came to Koshkonong. Ivar I. Ytreli[334] had been a school teacher and deacon at Systrond, in which capacity he continued serving here in this country, at Rock Prairie, Rock County, whither he went soon after arriving in Wisconsin; he died there about 1875. Of other immigrants from Aurland, which Mr. Anders J. Flaam speaks of, I shall mention Peder J. Gjeirsme, and Torbjörn O. Gjeirsme, wife Metta and family, who came in 1846, and Hans Torjussen Flom, who, he says, went soon after Ole T. Flom.

During the year 1845 there came also a group of immigrants to Koshkonong from Vik Parish, namely several families from near Arnefjord. This party included several Næset families, the oldest living survivor of which is Jens J. Næset (b. 1828), well-known Koshkonong architect, who resides at Stoughton, Wisconsin.[335] I have had several interviews with Mr. Næset relative to their sailing, and their early life as pioneers; it will be possible to give here only the briefest facts. Jens Næset tells me that there were eight estates at Næset and that the owners of four of them sold out at the same time and went to America. The biggest of these estates was that of Ingebrigt Næset, or as he was usually called, Skuungen. In the party were Jens Næset’s parents, Johannes Jensen Næset and wife Eli, his oldest sister Gro, married to Ole Larson (Haugan)[336] who is living in Cambridge, Wisconsin, two brothers Ingebrigt and John, and another sister who later married Henrik Lien of East Koshkonong.[337]

There were three ships that sailed at the same time, Næset relates. One of these was the Kong Sverre, Captain Fischer (of which Haakon Lie speaks above), and on which the emigrants from Aurland were embarked. Another was a two-masted sloop, Peder Schröder, and which carried about 130 passengers, among whom the Næset families; this sloop had crossed twice before. The third was one commanded by Captain Brock. The passengers on this ship were mostly from Sogn, but there were three boys from Hardanger, and a few persons from Voss. Peder Schröder also carried emigrants principally from Sogn, but there were two from Voss, says Næset. One of these was Brynjulf Leland, who settled at Norway Grove, where he is still living. The other was Odd Himle, whom we have met with above page 168, as the guide of the first party of explorers of Koshkonong in 1839. He had returned to Norway in 1844, married there in 1845, and was now returning to America. Among those who came on the Brock-ship were Skuungen and Ole Menes.

We recognize in Captain Brook’s ship the same ship that Lasse Ellingson of Capron, Illinois, came on in 1845. It was furthermore the very same voyage of this ship. The name of the ship was Albion. For a partial list of the passengers on this ship as of Peder Schröder, whose captain was Vingaard,[338] the reader may now be referred to the account of the sailing of these two ships above, Chapter XXXII.

The two ships Kong Sverre and Peder Schröder sailed side by side the whole way, relates Næset, Kong Sverre arriving in New York in the evening, Peder Schröder the next morning. Captain Brock’s ship which had started ten days earlier, arrived three days later (see above page 275). From New York the immigrants were taken over the usual route to Milwaukee.[339] Having arrived in Muskego, they secured Halvor Luraas to take their goods to Koshkonong; he brought them to Clinton (Rockdale), where the first man they met was Torstein Selseng, who had emigrated from Aurland, Sogn, to Koshkonong the preceding year. Johannes Næset, who was a man of considerable means for the time, bought the land, which is now occupied by the son Ingebrigt Næset, which is section thirty-five in the southeastern part of Christiana Township.

Johannes Næset was born in Leikanger Parish in 1795; his wife, Eli I. Berdahl, was born in 1797. She died in Koshkonong in 1850, Johannes died in 1882. He was noted for his ability as a mechanic, was successful as a maker of violins, and was himself a capable player. Jens Næset early distinguished himself as a builder and an architect. Though but sixteen years old he assisted in the building of the old log church in East Koshkonong in 1844, and it was Næset who took it down again in 1858 and constructed the old stone church, which a few years ago was replaced by a handsome brick edifice. He also built the tower of the old Liberty Prairie Church, and a number of the oldest houses on Albion Prairie were erected by him. Jens Næset was married in 1850; he has no children. Mrs. Ole Melaas of Stoughton, Wisconsin, is an adopted daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Næset.[340]

As has been noted, there was a considerable immigration from Sogndal, Sogn, in 1846; to name only a few: Ole C. Teigen, Ellend T. Quale, with wife Dordei Baardsdatter and family, eight in all, Anders S. Hundere, Nils O. Selseng and wife, and Johannes I. Gjerde. From Aurland, Sogndal, and Hafslo there came others in the following four years. I shall here name Peder Sylfestson Aaberge from Hafslo, who came in 1847, Ole O. Anderson (1848), Ole O. Hemsing (1849), both from Sogndal, Atle S. Gjellum and family, Per Sherping and wife Kristine and Kristen Olson Gulvangen from Aurland in 1849. Of these Aaberge later moved to Minnesota. Ole Anderson (often called Skog-Ola) settled three miles north of Albion, where he lived till his death. He married Guri Pederson, adoptive daughter of Torstein Selseng in 1851, who had come to America in 1849. She died in June, 1909. Ole Hemsing located first in Cottage Grove; in 1855 he purchased the old Hemsing farm three miles north of Stoughton, later owned by the son Ole H. Hemsing (b. 1853), since 1884, of Stoughton, Wisconsin. Ole O. Hemsing died about 1895, the widow (Ragnilda) died in 1907. Per Sherping died early and the widow married Kristen Olson, who then took the name Sherping (Sherpi). Kristen Sherpi (b. 1823) is still living at the old homestead near West Koshkonong Church. There was scattered immigration from Telemarken down to 1850, especially from Hvideseid, about forty in all came from Hallingdal, and twenty-five from Hardanger; Valders, Ringsaker, Biri and Vardal, and a dozen other provinces and parishes are represented by four or five settlers each. The first to arrive from Hardanger were Svend L. Lund, Ingebrekt, Nicolai, and Johannes Erdahl, Guttorm Buo, Ole L. and Aslak E. Quammen; these came in 1847. From Ringsaker came Anders J. Tömmerstigen, wife Maria Olsdatter and children Johannes, Olive, Peter (b. 1843) and Karen Marie, in 1846, while from North Aurdal in Valders came Ole Loe and Ole H. Hippe, both with families, and from Slidre, Tollef H. Gvale, all in 1847.

I shall now offer a copy of the official register of members of the Koshkonong churches during this period, according to the Parochial Records left by Reverend J. W. C. Dietrichson for the years 1844 to 1850. This is here printed for the first time and will be read with considerable interest by the many descendants of the founders of these two historic congregations on Koshkonong Prairie.

CHAPTER XXXVII
“Kirkeregister.” Church Register of the East Koshkonong,
West Koshkonong and Liberty Prairie
Congregations as Constituted During the
Years of Reverend J. W. C. Dietrichson’s
Incumbency of the Pastorate
from 1844 to 1850, and as Recorded
by Reverend Dietrichson. [341]