USA > Illinois > Henry County > Bishop Hill > A history of Bishop Hill, Illinois : also biographical sketches of many early pioneers in Illinois, 100 years > Part 7
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III-Emigration of the Jansonists and the Founding of the Bishop Hill Colony
While hiding in the mountain fastnesses of Söderala and Alfta, Eric Janson had planned the emigration of his followers from Sweden, and the founding in America of a socialistic theocratic community, for he had by this time abandoned all hopes of obtaining in Sweden religious liberty, either for him- self or for his followers. Impelled from one point to another
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by the spirit of opposition, he had now developed an inde- pendent system of theology, directly antagonistic to the au- thority of the Established Church. Without incurring the dis- pleasure of the Church, he had begun his reformatory activity by opposing the use of the devotional literature. Then he had opposed the Lutheran doctrine of sanctification. For this, him- self and his adherents had been excluded from participation in the Lord's Supper, whereupon he had dealt out the Lord's Sup- per with his own hands. Meeting with legal prosecution at the hands of the inferior clergy, he had rejected the authority of the Established Church altogether, and proclaimed himself as the representative of Christ, sent to restore the true Christian Church, which had disappeared from the face of the earth with the introduction of established state churches.
The central idea of Jansonism in this final stage of its development may be summed up as follows: When persecution ceased under Constantine the Great and Christianity became the state religion, Christianity became extinct. Eric Janson was sent to restore Christianity. He represented the second coming of Christ. Christ revealed himself through him, and should continue to do the same through the seed of his body. The second advent of Christ was to be more glorious than the first. "As the splendor of the second temple at Jerusalem far exceeded that of the first, erected by the son of David, so also the glory of the work which is to be accomplished by Eric Janson, standing in Christ's stead, shall far exceed that of the work accomplished by Jesus and his Apostles." Eric Janson was to separate the children of God from the world and gather them into a theo- cratic community. In America he was to build up the New Jerusalem, from whence the Gospel should go forth to all the world. The New Jerusalem should quickly extend its boundaries until it embraced all the nations of the earth. Then should the millenium be ushered in, in which Eric Janson, or the heirs of his body, should, as the representatives of Christ, reign to the end of all time.
In 1845 he had sent Olof Olson to America to examine the country and fix upon a suitable location for the community. This was before the modern Swedish emigration to the New World. America was a name almost unknown to the peasants of Helsingland. But in 1943 an adventurous Swede from the
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parish of Alfta had wandered as far west as Chicago. He had written home glowing accounts of the country. His letters had been circulated among friends and acquaintances, and their con- tents had inspired the persecuted Jansonists with a new hope. In America there was no established church; there were no inquisitorial and tyrannous priests, no supercilious aristocracy ; there was a home for every one, and, above all, religious and political liberty. The Jansonists possessed a strong love of home and country, but the exile which they had formerly feared under the conventicle laws no longer appeared so terrible.
In New York, Olof Olson made the acquaintance of the Rev. Mr. Hedström, who is known as the founder of the Swedish Methodist Church in America. Hedström was stationed as a missionary among the Scandinavian seamen in New York. He held his services in a dismantled vessel, a part of which was fitted up for the reception of Olof Olson's family, consisting of his wife and two children, who remained there during the winter of 1845-6. Under the influence of Hedström, Olof Olson joined the Methodist communion, and presently proceeded on his way to Victoria, Knox County, Illinois, where he was hos- pitably received by Hedström's brother. After a prospecting tour of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, Olof Olson wrote back to Sweden confirming previous favorable reports of the country, and recommending Illinois as the future place of settlement. In July of 1846 he was joined by Eric Janson, and together they fixed upon a point in Henry County as the location of the settlement. Olof Olson, however, never joined the community, but purchased a farm near Victoria, where he died shortly after the arrival of the main body of the Jansonists.
Before leaving Sweden, Eric Janson had appointed certain trustworthy men to conduct the emigration. Chief among these were Jonas Olson, Olof Johnson, Andreas Berglund, and Olof Stenberg, all of whom were to play an important part in the later history of the Jansonists.
While the orthodox Devotionalists in Helsingland consisted chiefly of independent farmers and artisans, the Jansonists in- cluded in their number a large proportion of miners and factory hands, and poor people of every description, for Jansonism was, in the true sense of the word, a popular religious movement. Many of the Jansonists were therefore persons who were un-
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able to defray the expenses of a long journey. It was this fact which prompted Eric Johnson to make community of goods a part of the social economy of the New Jerusalem. He based his reasons for the adoption of communism entirely on scriptural grounds. Neither he nor his followers knew any other form of communism than that based on religion. The Jansonists were unacquainted with the philosophical systems of the great social reformers of France. The politico-economic questions that were agitating the proletariat in the great world without had left them undisturbed. They were illiterate people. Their read- ing was limited to one book, but in that book they found that the first Christian church had taken care of its poor and that material goods had been held in common. So the wealthy sold their property, real as well as personal, and the proceeds went to the common coffers to be added to the widow's mite. The sums which were thus contributed ranged from 24,000 crowns downward, and were paid over to the men in charge of the emigration.
When the time for the emigration arrived it was found that 1100 Jansonists were willing to abandon their homes for the sake of religion. It was impossible to secure passage at one and the same time for so many people, for the Swedish vessels which touched at American ports were limited in number and were merely freight vessels without accommodations for passengers. So the emigrants were dispatched in parties as opportunity of- fered. The vessels were small, rooming only from fifty to one hundred and fifty passengers apiece. Many of them were un- seaworthy, and not unfrequently they were overloaded. One was lost at sea. another was shipwrecked off the coast of New- foundland, and still another occupied five months in the voyage.
The emigrants gathered in Göteborg, Söderhamn and Stock- holm, but by far the greatest number sailed from Gefle. The first vessel to set sail from Gefle left in the summer of 1846. For weeks previous to the departure of the vessel vehicles of every description came trundling into the seaboard town of Gefle. From a distance of over a hundred miles pedestrians came in, travel-stained and foot-sore. A feverish excitement reigned. No one wanted to be left behind, for the Jansonists believed that when they should stand out to sea Sweden would be destroyed for the iniquity of the Established Church. It was a sad parting.
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Families were torn asunder, children left their parents, hus- bands left their wives, the mother left her infant in the cradle. It was the flower of the youth that went, principally young men and women between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. Their friends never expected to hear of them again. It was fearcd that they would be taken by pirates, or that the captains of their vessels would sell them into slavery, or bring them to the terrible "island" of Siberia where the Czar of Russia sends all his desperate criminals. In American waters, too, there were frightful sea-monsters, more ferocious and destructive than even the Midgard serpent. And if America was the home of freedom and a country of fabulous wealth, it was also the resort of cut- throats and assassins and full of tropical abnormalities.
Everything was ready for the departure when, at the very last moment, the passports were withheld by the authorities. However, a delegation of the Jansonists, headed by Jonas Olson, waited upon King Oscar I., who gave them an order for the necessary papers.
The first shipload of passengers was met in New York by Eric Janson, who had proceeded from Victoria to meet them. From Troy the emigrants went by canal to Buffalo, thence by way of the Great Lakes to Chicago. In Chicago they purchased horses and wagons for the conveyance of the invalids and the baggage. The able-bodied walked on foot one hundred miles across the unbroken prairie to Victoria, where the party arrived in July, 1846. A few days later the Jansonists removed to Red Oak Grove, about three miles west of the present Bishop Hill. where for two hundred and fifty dollars their leader had pur- chased an improved eighty-acre farm in section nine of Weller Township August 2 one hundred and sixty acres of land in section eight of the same township were purchased for $1100. This was a very desirable piece of property, containing not only cultivated fields, but also a log-cabin and outhouses.
It now remained to choose a suitable town-site. The south- east quarter of section fourteen, township fourteen, was finally decided upon, and purchased of the United States government, September 26, for $200. It was a beautiful spot, sparsely cov- ered with a small growth of oak trees, and located on the south bank of the South Edward Creek. On the same day two addi-
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tional quarters were purchased in sections twenty-three and twenty-four of the same township for $400.
Anticipating the arrival of the second party of immigrants, two log-houses and four large tents were erected, all of which were in readiness when Jonas Olson arrived with his party on the 28th of October. Simultaneously with the setting in of cold weather, when the tents had to be vacated, a new party arrived. Several log cabins were hastily put together, and a large sod house erected, which later served as a common kitchen and din- ing-hall. Twelve "dug-outs," about twenty-five or thirty feet long and eighteen feet wide, were also built. In these dug-outs two tiers of beds were placed along each wall, and each bed held two or more occupants. In one dug-out there were three tiers of beds and three occupants in each bed, fifty-two unmarried women performing their toilets there morning and evening. The mud caves were damp and unwholesome, and the mortality was frightful. Nearly every morning a fresh corpse would be pulled out from the recking death-traps. Before the snow fell a fourth party of immigrants had arrived, and four hundred persons wintered in the settlement, of whom seventy were sta- tioned at Red Oak Grove.
One of the first concerns of the Jansonists was to provide a place of worship. Already before the arrival of the second party a large tabernacle had been erected. It was built in the form of a cross and was able to room about a thousand persons. The material consisted of logs and canvas, and the whole structure was intended merely as a temporary makeshift. Divine worship was held here twice a day on week days and three times on Sundays. Eric Janson himself went the rounds of the camp at five o'clock in the morning to call the people to devotion. Half an hour later the services began, and frequently lasted for two hours. The second devotional meeting was held in the even- ing. When spring arrived, however, and the work in the fields began, the morning and evening devotions were substituted by a short meeting during the noon recess, and in favorable weather this was frequently conducted in the open air.
The Jansonists were illiterate people, but they held pro- gressive views with regard to elementary education. Already the first winter, at such times when the weather prevented out- door work, a school for adults was carried on in the tabernacle
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by Mrs. Hebbe and, later Mr. Hellström, who both instructed in the advanced arts of writing and ciphering. A similar school for adults was established at Red Oak. As early as January, 1847, an English school was opened. A Presbyterian clergyman the Rev. Mr. Talbot, taught some thirty-five children in a mud- cave from January to July. At times he was assissted by his two daughters and by Mrs. Pollock, who was a member of the com- munity. Mr. Talbot was succeeded by Nelson Simons, M.D.
Measures were also taken for the propaganda of faith. Eric Janson appointed twelve young men to be the apostles of Jan- sonism in the New World. Great expectations were centered in these twelve young men. After a few months' instruction in the English language, they were sent out upon their mission to convert the United States and the world. They met with but moderate success, however, for the Yankee was too busy invent- ing bad clocks and peddling cheap tinware to listen to what the missionaries had to say.
The community experienced great difficulty in securing sufficient food. After the expenses of the journey and the pur- chase of so much land, the funds of the society were well nigh exhausted, and credit they had none. The grain had to be hauled twenty-eight miles to the nearest mill to be ground. But the mill was constantly under repairs and could not be relied upon. After attempting to supply their wants by means of hand-mills, the society erected a small grist-mill on the Edwards Creek, which, when the water failed, was run by horse-power.
In the spring of 1847 the community began to manufacture adobe. Several houses were built of this material, some of which remained standing until 1862. The ravine which intersected the town-site contained chalkstone in abundance, and the prepara- tion of it into cement was taught the Jansonists by Philip Mauk. The first frame building was also erected in 1847, the lumber being hauled from Red Dak Grove, where a sawmill, run by horse-power, had been put up by the society. As the needs of the society increased, this mill was later on bartered away for a larger one run by water-power. May 4, 1848, the society pur- chased of Cramer and Wilsie forty acres of land for $1500. This land was excellent timber land, and contained a sawmill more than large enough to supply all the wants of the society.
While the Jansonists had been employed in these building
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operations they had not neglected agriculture. The land at Red Oak Grove had been put under cultivation, and pieces of land had been rented here and there, for which they were obliged to pay one-third of the gross produce. During the first year the Jansonists broke three hundred and fifty acres of land and laid three and a half miles of sod fence. In the autumn of the year their threshing was done by Mr. Broderick, whose machine they purchased, only to make it serve as a model for a larger and more improved machine of their own make.
November 18, one hundred acres of land in section seven- teen, Weller Township, were purchased of W. H. Griffins for three hundred and eighty dollars.
June 4, 1847, the fifth party of Jansonists arrived. The party contained, besides children, four hundred adults. This accretion to the community required the purchase of more land. Before the close of the year the following purchases had been made : eighty acres in section seventeen, two hundred and forty acres in section sixteen, thirty-nine acres belonging to Mr. Brod- erick, besides other property.
In January of the following year an old-fashioned wind grist-mill was erected, the mill on the Edwards Creek proving inadequate to meet the increasing demands made upon it.
With the arrival of the new party a great scarcity of dwell- ing room arose. Five new mud-caves were excavated for the peo- ple, while similar provisions were made for the horses and cattle. Nevertheless the Jansonists suffered intensely. The winter was a severe one. The dug-outs were damp and unwholesome and fearfully crowded. The ravine into which they faced was al- ternately swept by fierce wind storms or choked up with snow. There was lack of provisions, and the Jansonists suffered from hunger as well as from cold. The change of climate also pro- duced suffering. Fevers, chills and diarrhoea were common, and many succumbed. The hardships were more than many members of the community had the resolution to bear, and they left singly and in squads as their lack of faith and pressing wants seemed to require. The seeds of internal discord, too, were sown, for religious differences arose which resulted in the withdrawel of about two hundred members in the autumn of 1848. The ma- jority, however, remained steadfast. Their courage was cheered
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by the matchless eloquence of their leader, and their unshakable faith in him helped them to surmount all difficulties.
In the summer of 1848 the Jansonists began to manufacture kiln-dried brick, the kilns being located about one mile west of the settlement. A four-story brick house one hundred by forty- five feet was erected, which, in 1851, was extended one hundred feet. The basement was arranged into a common dining-hall and kitchen, whereas the upper stories were divided into dwelling apartments. At the same time, several frame tenement houses and some additional houses of adobe were elected. In this year also the Old Colony Church, a large frame edifice, the upper part of which was designed to serve as a church, while the basement was arranged into tenements, was begun and completed in the following year, the tabernacle having been previously destroyed by fire.
With improved dwellings came improved health. Even those who had to remain in the mud-caves were better off, be- cause they were no longer so crowded, and they found, in the summer-time at least, plenty of exercise in the open air. For there were no drones in this hive. The incentive to work, which one should suppose had been removed with the removal of in- dividual property, was supplied by religion. They were no longer working for their own advancement, but for the glory of God. Had He not led them, as He had led the people of Israel, to a new Canaan? They were His chosen people. In them His won- derful designs for the regeneration of the world were to be fulfilled. Their city was the refuge of the faithful; it was the New Jerusalem. So they reclaimed the prairie and subdued the forest to further the kingdom of God. Their labor was not in vain. The earth gave forth bountifully of its harvests and pros- perity attended upon them.
Their methods of agriculture were laborious, but as their means improved, and as they learned the ways of the country of their adoption, they became as expert as any in the use of improved machinery. In the autumn of 1847 they harvested their grain in the Swedish fashion with the scythe. In 1848 introduced cradles, and, in 1849, reapers. In order to secure the harvest of 1848 thirty cradle-scythes were kept going day and night, until it was discovered that the night work endangered the health, when eighteen hours were made to constitute a day's
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work. The young men wielded the cradles-and wonderful feats were performed with the cradle in those days-while the middle- aged men and the women bound the sheaves; boys and girls gathered the sheaves together, while the old men placed them in shocks. In the evening, when the day's work was done and the harvesters were retiring from the field, an interesting spectacle presented itself to the observer. Two by two, in a long procession a couple of hundred strong, the harvesters wended their home- ward way, first the men carrying their cradle-scythes over their shoulders, then the women with their hand-rakes, and, finally, the children, all singing some merry harvest-song of their native country, while keeping step to the music. On arriving at the village they repaired to the common dining hall, where a bounte- ous repast awaited them on long wooden tables, some of which were set aside for the men, others for the women, and still others for the children.
Another important industry of the community was the cultivation of flax. This was the staple industry in the pro- vince of Helsingland, and the Jansonists were thoroughly fa- miliar with every branch of it. Already the first year they put part of their fields under cultivation for flax. They also helped the neighboring farmers, who cultivated the plant merely for for the sake of the seed, to harvest their crops, and received the straw in payment for their work. From the crop of 1847 they manufactured 12,473 yards of linen and carpet matting, for all of which they found a ready sale. The volume of manufacture continued to increase till 1851, when it reached 30,579 yards of linen and carpeting. After this it decreased till 1857, when it ceased altogether, except for home consumption, the new rail- road enabling the eastern manufacturers to flood the market with their wares and drive out competition. The aggregate amount of linen sold to 1857 was 130,309 yards and of carpet- ing 22,569 yards. To this must be added the not inconsider- able quantities consumed at home in order to arrive at the total amount of manufacture. The spinning and weaving were done exclusively by women, children of both sexes assisting at spool- ing and other light work. In the early years when looms were scarce the weavers were divided into squads and the looms kept running night and day.
The sixth party of immigrants arrived in 1849, and con-
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sisted of Swedish and Norwegian converts under the leadership of the Jansonist missionary Nylund. Between La Salle and Chicago the party was attacked by the Asiatic cholera. Arrived in Chicago in a pitiable condition, the party was met by a mem- ber of the community, who conducted it to Bishop Hill. Thus the dread disease was transplanted to the society, and, break- ing out on the 22nd day of July, raged without intermission till the middle of September. It carried away one hundred and forty-three persons in the prime of life. The excessive mor- tality was due partly to improper treatment, the fever-parched patients being, according to the old medical superstition, not allowed to touch water. Some of the Jansonists removed to the neighborhood of La Grange, where the community possessed some real property, but, finding themselves still pursued by the destroyer, fled in vain to an island in the Mississippi, where Eric Janson's wife and one child were among the victims.
In 1850 another party arrived under the leadership of Olof Stenberg, who was returning from a business visit to Sweden. Stenberg's party was attacked by the Asiatic cholera between Buffalo and Milwaukee. The party consisted on one hundred and sixty persons. On account of stress of weather and a break- age in the machinery, the voyage by steamer occupied no less than two weeks. The provisions gave out and the passengers suffered famine as well as disease. Many were buried in the waters of Lake Michigan, and many died in the lazaretto at Milwaukee. The leader has been accused of criminal negligence with regard to the performance of certain duties, but on the evidence of surviving members of his party the charge is with- out foundation.
Later in the same year still another party arrived; it con- sisted of eighty persons. The tenth party consisted of seventy persons and arrived in 1854. Besides these larger accretions, converts joined the society singly and in groups, and continued to do so up to a late date.
It was now a little over three years since the village of Bishop Hill had sprung into existence. It took its being eleven years after the first white man's habitation had been erected in the country which came to be organized as Henry County, and nine years after the organization had taken place. Previous to it there existed, besides some others, the infant settlements of
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Andover, Geneseo, Wethersfield, and La Grange, the products of a strange mixture of New England philanthropy and specu- lation. But from the very day of its foundation, Bishop Hill assumed the chief place among the settlements in Henry County. From 1846 to 1850, in the purchase of land and the necessities of life, it put between $10,000 and $15,000 in gold into circula- tion, which was a matter of extreme importance at a time when business was principally conducted by barter, and when the only money in use was paper money valued at a few cents on the dollar. In 1850 its population had swelled to over one thousand, while the entire population of the county, an area of eight hundred and thirty square miles, was only three thou- sand, eight hundred and seven. If the labor value of an im- migrant may be capitalized at ten hundred dollars, then the Jansonists had in their persons alone brought one million dol- lars into the country. Nearly every province in Sweden was represented in the community at Bishop Hill, and the Janson- ists' letters home concerning the new country paved the way for that mighty tide of Swedish immigration which in a few years began to roll in upon Illinois and the Northwest, and which in 1882 culminated in a grant total for the year of 64,607 souls. For nine successive years, from 1878 to 1886, there ar- rived annually from the native land of the Jansonists more im- migrants than from France or Italy or Austria or Russia, or any country save only Great Britain and Germany.
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