USA > Maine > Aroostook County > New Sweden > Celebration of the decennial anniversary of the founding of New Sweden, Maine, July 23, 1880 > Part 4
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Every working party, whether on branch roads, main road, public buildings, or other public works, was in charge of its own special foreman. Each foreman called the roll of his crew every evening, and entered the time of each man in a book provided for the purpose. These time books were handed in once a week to the state store-keeper, and each workman credited with one dollar for every day's work, payable in the provisions and tools he was receiving from the state.
Thus the money appropriated by our state, in aid of the Swedish colony, accomplished a two-fold good. It first supplied the Swedes with food and tools, enabling them to live until they harvested their first crop. Second, It was worked out to its full value by the Swedes, on the roads and other public works, which are a permanent publie ben- efit and worth to the state all they cost. State aid to the Swedes was thus a temporary loan, which they repaid in full, the state gaining hundreds of new citizens by the tran- saction.
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June 6, Anders Herlin died, the first death in New Sweden. June 20, Jacob Larsson, a newly arrived immi- grant, was killed in his chopping by a falling tree.
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Friday evening, June 23, the young people observed " Midsommars afton." They erected a May pole at the center, decorated it with garlands, festoons of flowers, and green leaves. From the top of the pole floated the Amer- ican and Swedish flags. They sung ring songs, played ring games, and danced around the May pole to Swedish music, till far into the night.
In June, arrived an important addition to the colony, the Rev. Andrew Wiren, a regularly ordained minister of the Lutheran church. His ministrations have continued to this day, and long may they continue in the future. He has ever been not only a pastor, but the " guide, counselor and friend " of his little flock, whose love and confidence he has always possessed.
On Sunday, June 25, Pastor Wiren held the first Luth- eran service in the hall of the Capitol. This was the first anniversary of our sailing from Old Sweden, and the op- portunity was improved by the commissioner to speak words of praise and encouragement.
All summer and fall new choppings opened out on every hand ; the old clearings were rapidly enlarged ; shelters of poles and bark gave way to comfortable timber houses ; barns were built near the growing grain, and everywhere trees were falling and buildings rising throughout the set- tlement.
So many people flocking into the woods soon created a demand for various trades and crafts. A variety store was opened in August by a Swede, in a commodious timber building near the center. A blacksmith, a shoemaker, a tinman, and a tailor, set up shops near by, and were over- run with business. A saw-mill was commenced at a good water power on Beardsley brook, four miles from the cap-
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itol, and on December first, was nearly completed. The foundations for a grist-mill were also laid.
Quite a speculation in real estate arose. Several farms changed hands at high figures, and one lot of only one acre was sold for $50 cash. It was the corner lot next south of the capitol, and was sold to build a store on. This store has now been altered into a dwelling-house for Pastor Wiren.
The erops grew rapidly. Wheat averaged five and rye over six feet in height. One stalk of rye, which I meas- ured myself, was seven feet and five inches tall. A man stepping into any of our winter rye fields in August, dis- appeared as completely from view as though he were lost in the depths of the forest. Many heads of wheat and rye were over eight inches in length. Harvest time came car- . ly. Winter rye was ripe and cut by the middle of August ; wheat, barley and oats early in September.
Crops were raised by thirty families. These arrived the year before. The new comers could only clear the land of its trees this first season. Of the thirty families, seven- teen had built barns in which they stored their grain. The crops of the others were securely stacked in the field, and though the autumn was rainy, the harvest was unin- jured.
As soon as the grain was dry a machine was obtained to thresh it. Three thousand bushels of grain were threshed out, of which twelve hundred were wheat, one thousand ' barley, and the remainder principally rye and oats. Wheat averaged twenty, and yielded up to twenty-five, and rye averaged thirty-five and yielded up to forty-two bushels to the acre. The season was late and wet, and much of the wheat was nipped by the rust. In an ordinary year a 1
THE NEWBERRY .LIBRARY CHICAGO
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maximum yield of forty bushels of wheat to the acre has been attained.
An unusually heavy frost the middle of September, which prevailed throughout New England, killed the potato tops and stopped all further growth of the potatoes, diminishing the yield one-third. Three hundred bushels to the acre of those earliest planted was nevertheless ob- tained, and five thousand bushels of potatoes secured, be- sides several hundred bushels of beets, turnips and other roots.
On September 30, all those who had harvested a crop were cut off from further receipt of state supplies. These colonists became not only self supporting, but delivered to the state, in part payment of their indebtedness, five hundred bushels of potatoes, which were sold to the later arrived immigrants.
On November 15, state aid was also cut off from every immigrant of this year who had not wife or children with him. For all such, work for the winter was provided among the farmers, in the lumber woods, at the tanneries, quarries, or railroads.
A free public school was opened in the hall of the capi- tol, November 13, 1871. Pastor Wiren was teacher. He had acquired our language during a four years' residence in the west. There were seventy-seven scholars. The chief study was the English language. To learn to read, write, and speak English was of more importance than all else. Pastor Wiren also opened an evening English school for adults.
Divine service continued to be held in the public hall both forenoon and afternoon, every Sunday throughout the year; and the Swedish Sunday-school kept up its
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weekly meetings without the omission of a single Sunday. The attendance on these religious exercises was almost universal.
As soon as the earth could be made to produce grass or fodder, the Swedes began to provide themselves with cat- tle, horses, sheep, and swine.
They bought, however, no faster than they could pay. If a Swede could not afford a span of horses, he bought only one; if he could not afford a horse, he provided him- self with an ox; if an ox was beyond his purse, he got a steer, and if a steer was more than he could afford, he placed a home-made harness on his only cow, and worked around with her till he could do better.
Americans driving in laughed at these nondescript teams, but all the while the Swedes were teaching us a lesson-to live within our means.
On Thursday, September 5, Bishop Neely visited New Sweden and conducted religious services in the public hall.
On Tuesday, September 26, Hon. Sidney Perham, Gov- ernor of Maine, and Hon. P. P. Burleigh, land agent, ar- companied by friends, made an official visit to the colony. The Swedes, to the number of four hundred, met at the capitol, and gave the official party a warm reception. The commissioner, in behalf of the colony, delivered an ad- dress of welcome, to which Governor Perham eloquently replied. Swedish songs were sung, speeches made, and every Swede shook hands with the Governor. A collation was then served in the store-room of the capitol, and in . the afternoon, the roads, buildings and farms of the Swedes were inspected by the Governor and land agent, who ex- pressed themselves highly gratified with the progress of the colony.
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One great cause of the rapid success of this colony has been the active help the Swedish women have rendered their husbands. Every Swedish wife was indeed a help- mate. She not only did all the house work, but helped her husband in the clearings amid the blackened stumps and logs. Many of the Swedes cut their logs into lengths for piling with cross-cut saws. Whenever this was the case, you would see that the Swedish wife had hold of one end of the saw ; and she did her half of the work too.
Once riding out of the woods, I met one of our Swedish women walking in with a heavy sack on her back. As she passed, I noticed a commotion inside the sack.
" What have you got in there ? said I.
"Four nice pigs," she replied.
" Where did you get them ?"
"Down river, two miles beyond Caribou."
Two miles beyond Caribou was ten miles from New Sweden. So this good wife had walked twenty miles ; ten miles out and ten miles home, with four pigs on her back, smiling all the way, to think what nice pigs they were.
Another wife, when her husband was siek, with her own hands, felled some cedar trees, sawed them up into butts, and rifted out and shaved these butts into shingles, one bunch of which she carried three miles through the woods on her back, to barter it at the corner store here for neces- saries for her husband.
By such toil was this wilderness settled.
This Swedish immigration enterprise advertised Maine throughout the union, and called public attention to our wild lands and new settlements. The files of the land of- fice show that in addition to the Swedish immigration, American immigration upon our wild lands increased in 1871, more than 300 per cent.
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One special instance among many may be given of the outside effect of New Sweden. Mr. Alba Holmes was in- duced to visit Aroostook county by reading a newspaper notice of New Sweden. He put in operation the first po- tato starch factory in Aroostook, at Caribon. These fac- tories quickly increased ; there are now twenty-two in the county, which consume 3,000,000 bushels of potatoes a year, and the manufacture of potato starch has become one of the leading industries of Aroostook.
As illustrating how favorably the New Sweden of Maine, is regarded by the old country, from which it sprung, I call attention to the following admirable letter, written to the, Governor of Maine, by S. A. Hedlund of Gothenburg, Sweden. Mr. Hedlund is editor of a prominent Swedish newspaper, a member of the Swedish parliament, and one of the first writers and thinkers of Sweden.
To the Honorable Governor of the State of Maine :
SIR,-You must not wonder, sir, that a Swedish patriot cannot regard without feelings of sadness the exodus of emigrants, that are going to seek a better existence in the great republic of North America, leaving the homes of their ancestors, and giving their fatherland only a smiling farewell. It will not surprise you, sir, that this must be a very melancholy sight to the mind of the Swedes, and that it must become yet more so on the thought that many of these emigrants are meeting destinies far different from the glowing prospects that were held forth to their hope- ful eyes. Not only Sweden will lose her children, but they will be lost to themselves in the distant new field.
The sons and daughters of old Sweden, will they main- tain, among your great nation their national character?
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Will they retain, at least, some remembrance of their na- tive land ?
We know well, sir, that every nationality, strong as it may be, will be gradually amalgamated in the new, com- mon, all-absorbing nationality of the new world, and it would certainly not be of any advantage, either to Amer- ica or to civilization, if the different nationalities of Europe were to continue their individual life, with their peculiari- ties and emnities, on the soil of their adopted country. We regard it, on the contrary, as a special mission of America to absorb and amalgamate all these different Eu- ropean elements.
But, sir, will they lose also, these American immigrants, the remembrance of their fatherland ? Must the Swedish inhabitors of your country necessarily forget the language and customs of their ancestors? Will they forget the struggles and victories of their native land, its good times and hard times? Will they forget the mother who has borne her children with heavy and self-denying sacrifices, and will they have no feelings left for her love and regret ?
No, sir, they will not do so, and the great people of America will not require it. You have not received the children of Sweden as outcasts, who will be adopted into « the new family only at the price of denying their father and mother. On the contrary, sir, you have given a spec- ial impulse to the Swedes, whom you have invited to col- onize your state, to hold their native land in honor and re- membrance, by giving the new colony, founded in the northern part of your state, the name of " New Sweden;" you have given them also, in Swedish books, opportunity for recalling their fatherland.
Your commissioner, Mr. W. W. Thomas jr., one evening
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last summer, assembled his little colony of immigrants to partake of a collation, where good wishes and kind words were exchanged. We, the remaining friends, left with confidenee our brethren and sisters in his care; his last and firm assurance was, "All that has been promised will be kept."
Yes, sir, these promises have been kept; but not only that, they have been far surpassed by your generosity. The poor immigrants, landing on your shores, have been received and greeted with the most friendly welcome. Their homes established, their future secured, they have not been disappointed in their hopes by the difficulties and grievances of the real state of things.
The young colony will probably be the nucleus of an ex- tended colonization, and you will not, sir, I feel sure, find the hardy Swedes ungrateful and unworthy of your kind- ness ; they would then, surely, be unworthy of their origin.
The colony of " New Sweden " has requested and au- thorized the writer of this letter to convey to you, Honor- able Governor of the State of Maine, the expression of their sentiments of deep gratitude, and you will kindly al- low me, sir, to add thereto, the expression of the same sen- timents of many other Swedes, who have followed the im- migrants with sympathies.
Allow me, at the same time, to express to the people of Maine, who have received their new brethren with so much cordialty, the thanks of the colonists, who have mentioned more especially two gentlemen, Mr. W. W. Thomas jr., and Mr .. P. P. Burleigh, land agent, as objects of their gratitude and high esteem.
May the young colony of " New Sweden " grow and flourish, not only in material strength, but even in devel-
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oping their moral and intellectual faculties. And may the new population thus add to your state and to your great republic a good and healthy element of moral power from the old world, and, becoming imbued with the spirit of your free institutions, reflect that spirit on their native land !
What we have lost, at present, in the old fatherland, will then not have been lost to humanity ; on the contrary, the trees have only been transplanted on a fresher soil, where they will thrive better and give richer and more abundant fruits. God bless the harvest ! God bless your land !
I am, sir, with the highest esteem,
Your obedient servant,
G. A. HEDLUND,
Chief Editor of Gothenburg Shipping and Mercantile Gazette. GOTHENBURG, March 25, 1871.
In January, 1872, a weekly newspaper, "The North Star," was started at Caribou. Every issue of this paper contained one column, printed in the Swedish language. This column was edited by Mr. E. Winberg, one of our Swedish immigrants, and was extensively read in New Sweden.
This was the first paper, or portion of a paper ever pub- lished in a Scandinavian language in New England, al- though the Scandinavians sailed along our coast, and built temporary settlements on our shores, five hundred years before Columbus discovered the islands of our continent.
The examination of the first common school, took place March 15, 1872, after a session of four months. The scholars had made wonderful progress in learning our lan- guage. Many could speak and read English well, and
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some had made considerable advance in writing. These school privileges were highly prized. Some of the schol- ars came to school five miles through the woods, slipping over the snow on skidor-Swedish snow shoes.
Two steam mills were erected and put in operation in the spring of 1872. A large quantity of shingles and some boards were sawed. These mills, however, were an unprofitable investment for their owners.
The Swedes early became experts in manufacturing shaved shingles by hand. It was soon admitted by Aroos- took traders that the Swedish shingles were the best made in the county. Shopping in New Sweden was almost exclu- sively barter. Bunches of shaved shingles were the curren- cy which the Swedes carried to the stores of the American traders, and with which they bought their goods.
The last mile of our main road was turnpiked in 1872, giving the colony a good turnpike to Caribou. Branch roads were improved.
In the matter of government, New Sweden presented an anomaly. It was an unorganized township, occu- pied by foreigners, furthermore, no legal organization could be effected for years, for there was not an American citi- zen resident in the township, through whom the first step toward organization could be taken. The first two years of the colony the commissioner found time to personally settle all disputes between the colonists, organize the labor on roads and buildings, and arrange all matters of general concern.
As the colony increased, it became impossible for one man to attend to all the details of this work. A commit- tee of ten was therefore instituted to assist the commis- sioner. Nine of this committee were elected by the colo-
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nists, the Pastor was the tenthi, ex officio. Three went out of office every six months, and their places were filled at a general election. New Sweden was also divided into nine highway districts, and each one of this committee had charge of the roads in his own distriet. This decemvirate satisfactorily managed all the municipal affairs of the col- ony, until New Sweden was legally organized into a plan- tation.
Many and strange were the experiences of life in these woods.
One evening Svensson eamę running up to my office in the capitol, erying out, "My daughter is lost."
His danghter Selma was a little girl, twelve years old, well known and loved in the colony.
He had taken her with him in the morning to a new chopping, where he was at work, three miles into the woods toward the Madawaska river. At noon he had sent her to a woodland spring to draw water for their dinner, but she did not return. Becoming alarmed, he hurried to the spring. There were the tracks of her feet in the moist earth, but the girl was nowhere to be seen. He hallooed and received no answer, and then searched the woods in vain till night-fall.
I at once sent out a messenger on each road in the town- ship, warning the men to meet at the capitol next morning at sunrise. Over fifty came, bringing with them all the dogs and all the guns in the colony. We followed Svensson to his clearing, formed a line north and south along the Madawaska road, and at a signal, advanced into the woods, moving west. Each man was to keep in line with and in sight of his next neighbor. Thus the men advanced through the forest for hours, shouting and firing guns. But there came no answer.
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· At noon two guns were fired in quick succession. This was the preconcerted signal. The girl was found. She was standing in the bottom of a dense cedar swamp, on all sides the trunks of fallen trees were piled up in inextri- cable confusion. How the child ever got in there was a mystery. She still held the pail, half full of water, in her hand. But she had clasped the bail so tightly in her terror, that her finger nails had cut into the palm of her hand, and blood was dripping from her fingers into the wa- ter in the pail.
" Why, where have you been ?" joyfully asked the Swedes.
" I don't know," she murmured in a broken voice.
" What have you been doing ?"
"I don't know."
" Where did you pass the night ?"
" There hasn't been any night," she cried with a wild glare. She was mad. The terrors of that long night alone in the woods had taken away her reason. She was taken home, tenderly nursed, and after a period of sick- ness, was fully restored to health of mind and body. She then said, that she went to the spring, filled her pail with water, and was just starting back through the woods, when suddenly she saw in the path before her, a bear and a cub. She turned and ran for life. When she dared to look around, she found the bear was not following her. She then tried to walk around to the clearing, where her father was. She kept on and on, crying for her father, till it grew dark, then she recollected no more.
The government of the United States recognized this colony at an early day, by establishing a post-office here, and appointing Capt. N. P. Clase post-master. The road
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to Caribou was subsequently made a post route, and week- ly paid postal service commenced July 1, 1873. Sven S. Landin, one of the colonists, was mail carrier, although, when pressed with work on his farm, his wife not unfre- quently walked with the mail to Caribou and back again, a distance of sixteen and a half miles.
On October 14, 1873, Ransom Norton Esq., clerk of courts for Aroostook county, visited the colony for the purpose of affording the Swedes an opportunity of taking the first step toward naturalization. On that day one hundred and thirty-three men came forward and publicly renounced all allegiance to the " King of Sweden and Nor- way, the Goths and the Vandals," and declared their in- tention of becoming American citizens.
In the fall of 1873, the condition of the colony was excellent. The little settlement of fifty had increased to six hundred, and outside of New Sweden there were as many more Swedes located in our state, drawn to us by our Swedish colony. The settlement of New Swe- den had outgrown the township of that name and spread over the adjoining sections of Woodland, Caribou and Perham. The trees on 2200 acres had been felled. 1500 acres of this were cleared in a thorough and superior man- ner, of which 400 acres were laid down to grass.
The crops had promised abundance, but an untimely frost that followed the great gale of August 27, pinched the late grain and nipped the potatoes. Still a fair crop was harvested. 130 houses, and nearly as many barns and hovels had been built. The colonists owned 22 horses, 14 oxen, 100 cows, 40 calves, 33 sheep and 125 swine.
The schools were in a flourishing condition. Such an advance had been made in English, that most of the chil-
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dren above ten years of age, could read and write our lan- guage tolerably, and speak it well. An American visiting the colony had no need of an interpreter, for every child that talked at all, could speak English.
Your historian then felt that all the conditions of the plan on which this experiment was made, had been fulfill- ed. The colony had been recruited in Sweden, transplant- ed to Maine, fast rooted in our soil, and made self-sustain- ing. The experiment was an experiment no longer. New Sweden was successfully founded, the stream of Swedish immigration was successfully started. The infant colony was now strong enough to go alone.
· On Sunday forenoon, October 19, 1873, the commission- er of immigration met the Swedes at the capitol. Nearly the whole colony, men, women and children were there. The commissioner recounted the history of the colony, since the first adventurous little band had met together in old Sweden, spoke such words of friendly counsel as the occasion suggested and justified, and then took leave of the colony he had recruited in the Old World and founded in the New.
In his annual report, at the close of 1873, the commis- sioner recommended that all special state aid to New Sweden should cease. He further took pleasure in recom- mending that the office he held be abolished, since the ac- complishment of the undertaking rendered the office no longer necessary ; and thus laid down the work, which for four years had occupied the better portion of his life and endeavor.
One thousand years ago the great Scandinavian Sea- King Rollo sailed out from the Northland with a fleet of viking ships.
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Landing on the coast of France, he subjugated one of her fairest provinces. Here the Northmen settled, and from them the province is called to this day Normandy.
Eight hundred years later the descendants of these Northmen, speaking French, sailed from Normandy to this continent and settled Acadia. When driven from their homes by the British fleet, a detachment of Acadians came up the St. John river and settled on the interval, where now stands the city of Fredericton.
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