USA > Maine > Aroostook County > New Sweden > The Story of New Sweden as told at the quarter centennial celebration of the founding of the Swedish colony in the woods of Maine, June 25, 1895 > Part 4
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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 for- get the mother who has born 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 special impulse to the Swedes, whom you have invited to colonize your state, to hold their native land in honor and remembrance, 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 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 confidence 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.
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ORATION BY HION. W. W. THOMAS, JR.
The young colony will probably be the nucleus of an extended colonization, and you will not, sir, I feel sure, find the hardy Swedes ungrateful and unworthy of your kindness; they would then, surely, be unworthy of their origin.
The colony of New Sweden has requested and authorized the writer of this letter to convey to you, Honorable Governor of the State of Maine, the expression of their sentiments of deep gratitude, and you will kindly allow me, sir, to add thereto, the expression of the same sentiments of many other Swedes, who have followed the immigrants 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 developing 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, S. A. HEDLUND,
Chief Editor of Gothenburg Shipping and Mercantile Gazette. GOTHENBERG, March 25, 1871.
The winter of 1870-71 was safely and comfortably passed by the Swedes in the woods. They were ac- customed to cold weather and deep snow. Their fires crackled brightly and the festivities of Christmas time
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THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.
were observed as joyously in the Maine forest as in Old Sweden.
In the meantime, active and efficient measures were taken to increase the stream of immigration thus happily started. A circular was printed in Old Sweden describing the voyage of the first colonists, their generous and honorable welcome at the Ameri- can border, the attractions, healthfulness and fertility of their new homes, the location, extent and produc- tiveness of the settling lands of Maine, the advantages our State offered to settlers, interesting letters from the Swedish colonists already on our soil, and every other fact and suggestion which seemed appropriate or advantageous. This circular was issued early in December, 1870; a month in advance of the circulars of any other state or association. Five thousand copies were distributed, and the information they con- tained read and discussed at thousands of Swedish firesides during the most opportune time of all the year-the Christmas holidays.
Capt. G. W. Schröder was appointed agent in Old, and Capt. N. P. Clasé in New Sweden. Large editions of circulars were struck off and distributed in the old country in quick succession; two columns of the " Amerika," a weekly emigrant's paper, were bought for six months and filled every week with new matter relating to Maine and her Swedish colony ; advertise- ments were also inserted in all the principal news- papers taken by the agricultural and other working classes, and a brisk correspondence carried on with hundreds intending to emigrate to Maine.
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ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR.
A special agent was employed to travel and distrib- ute information in the most northern provinces of Sweden, their population being deemed best fitted for our northern state ; and another agent, Mr. Carl Johan Ek, one of our first colonists, was sent back from New Sweden to the Old, well equipped with maps, plans, specimens of Aroostook wheat, rye, corn and potatoes, also maple sugar made by the Swedes in New Sweden; for many in the old country had written "if one could only return to us, and with his own lips tell us what you narrate on paper, we would believe." This last agent was sent out without expense to the State, he charging nothing for his services, and the Inman Steamship Line generously furnishing him with a free passage out and back. A condensed circular was printed in Swedish at Portland, placed in the hands of the pilots of that harbor, and by them distributed on board the trans-Atlantic steamers, while yet miles away from land.
Seed thus well and widely sown was soon followed by a harvest. With the first opening of navigation in the spring of 1871, Swedish immigrants began to arrive in New Sweden ; first, in little squads, then in companies of twenty, thirty and forty, till the immi- gration of the year culminated in the last week of May, when one hundred Swedes arrived via Houlton and Presque Isle, followed within five days by two hundred and sixty more by the St. John River.
Provisions and tools for the colony and its expected accessions were shipped in March direct to Fredericton, and thence with the opening of navigation up the
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THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.
River St. John to Tobique landing. From this latter place the goods were hauled into New Sweden, a dis- tance of but twenty-five miles. Seed, consisting chiefly of wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, beans and potatoes, was early purchased in the neighborhood of the colony and hauled in on the snow. A span of young, powerful draft horses was bought in the early spring to help on the work. They were em- ployed in harrowing in the crops, grubbing out and plowing the roads, hauling logs and timber, until November, when they were sold for four hundred and twenty-five dollars, the exact sum paid for them in the spring.
A stable, thirty by forty feet, was erected on the public lot, one hundred feet in the rear of the Capitol ; the Capitol itself painted, the first floor, comprising the storehouse and offices, lathed, plastered, finished and furnished, and the hall above lathed and provided with benches and a pulpit. The stable was erected and the Capitol completed before the snow was off. This work was almost exclusively done by Swedes, at the rate of one dollar a day, in payment of supplies already furnished them by the State.
The snow lingered late. Weeks after it had disap- peared in the nearest villages, it still covered our new clearings in the woods. As soon as the black burnt ground showed itself in considerable patches, we commenced putting in wheat, sowing it partly on the melting snow. The first wheat was sowed May 12; rye followed, then came oats and barley. The State horses harrowed in the grain. Then men, women
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ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR.
and children were busy from morning till night hack- ing in potatoes among the stumps; and last of all, each Swede cleared still a little piece more of land, and put in turnips.
Saturday, May 14, Jacob Hardison and I rode into New Sweden on horseback, through a storm of sleet and rain, with nineteen young apple trees lashed on our backs. With these trees we set out the first orchard in the town on the public lot, just west of the Capitol. The trees flourished, and in a few years bore fruit.
In the spring of 1871, one hundred and sixty-five acres of land were cleared and put into a crop, in- cluding the one hundred and twenty-five acres on which the trees were felled the year before by the State.
The song birds found us out. The year before the forest was voiceless. This spring, robins, sparrows and chickadees flew into our clearings, built their nests among us, and enlivened the woods with their songs. The birds evidently approved of colonization.
All the while the immigrants with their ponderous chests of baggage were pouring in. They filled the hall of the Capitol, the stable, and one squad of fifty from Jemptland, camped under a shelter of boards at the corner. Hon. Albert A. Burleigh took the place of Mr. Barker as surveyor. Mr. Burleigh, with an able corps of assistants arrived at New Sweden as soon as practicable to commence surveying in the woods, and pushed on his part of the work with vigor and ability throughout the season. Roads were first laid out in all directions from the Capitol, then lots
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THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.
laid off to face them. Straight lines were not deemed essential to these ways, an easy grade was everywhere maintained, and hills and swamps avoided. Work- ing parties of newly arrived immigrants, each in command of an English-speaking Swede, were de- tailed to follow the surveyors and cut out the roads. Thus avenues were opened up in all directions into the wilderness. Bands of immigrants eagerly seek- ing their farms followed the choppers, and lots were taken up as fast as they were made accessible. Some enterprising Swedes did not wait for the working parties, but secured choice lots by ranging the woods in advance ; the principle of " first come first served" having been adopted in the distribution of these prizes of land.
Thus the stream of immigration that poured into the Capitol, was continually disappearing in small rills throughout the forest. A party of one hundred crowding our accommodations on Monday, would van- ish before Saturday night. A walk along any wood road soon revealed them ; the blows of the ax and the crash of falling trees led to the men, and the smoke curling from a shelter of poles and bark near by, to the women and children.
A flash of Swedish humor occasionally enlivened our labors. An immigrant, whose Christian name was Noah, settled on the side of a steep conical hill. Instantly the Swedes called the hill " Mount Ararat," and as Mount Ararat it is known to this day.
Our main road to the outside world for three miles from the Capitol was simply a passage way cut
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ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR.
through the woods the year before to let in the first colony. The heavy immigrant wagons and supply teams had since then rapidly worn away the earth ; and protruding stumps and deepening ruts rendered the road almost impassable, yet not a day's labor could be spared to it, till the crops were all in. June 26, however, a force of fifteen men and four horses was put upon this important highway. We com- menced work at the edge of the center chopping, about a stone's throw south of the Capitol ; and until October, whatever hands could be spared from their own clearings were kept at work on this road. The entire three miles were grubbed out full width of thirty feet through a heavy growth of standing trees; two miles of this turnpiked in as thorough a manner as any county road in the state, and a substantial bridge of hewn cedar thrown across the east branch of Cari- bou Stream. The road is three-quarters of a mile shorter than the old one, by which the first colony entered New Sweden, curves around, instead of over the hills, and maintains an easy grade throughout. It was built under the immediate supervision of Jacob Hardison, Esq., than whom no man in Aroostook was better acquainted with everything that pertains to frontier life in the woods of Maine, and who in one capacity or another assisted the Swedish colony from its foundation. In settling New Sweden, my right_ hand man was always "Jake" Hardison.
Meanwhile, branch roads were being cut through the woods by smaller parties of workmen. One road was made west four miles through Woodland into Per-
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THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.
ham, another east toward Lyndon, a third northeast four and one-quarter miles to the Little Madawaska River, a fourth, seven and one-half miles to the north- west corner of New Sweden, beside still other shorter · connecting roads.
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 pur- pose. 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 twofold good. It first supplied the Swedes with food and tools, ena- bling 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 public benefit 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 transaction.
June 6, 1871, Anders Herlin died, the first death in New Sweden. June 20, Jacob Larsson, a newly-arrived immigrant, was killed in his chopping by a falling tree.
Friday evening, June 23, the young people observed Midsommars afton - Midsummer's eve, a joyous, Swedish festival. They erected a May-pole at the
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ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR.
center, decorated it with garlands, festoons of flowers, and green leaves. From the top of the pole floated the American and Swedish flags. They sang 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 continued for many years. He was ever, not only a pastor, but the "guide, counselor and friend " of his little flock, whose love and confidence he always possessed.
On Sunday, June 25, 1871, Pastor Wiren held the first Lutheran service in the hall of the Capitol. This was the first anniversary of our sailing from Old Swe- den, and I availed myself of the opportunity to speak words of praise and encouragement to the colonists.
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 settlement.
So many people flocking into the woods soon cre- ated 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 overrun with business. A sawmill was built at a good water power on Beardsley brook, four miles from the Capitol. The foundations for a grist-mill were also laid.
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THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.
Quite a speculation in real estate arose. Several farms changed hands at high figures, and one lot of only one acre was sold for fifty dollars cash. It was the corner lot next west of the Capitol, and was sold to build a store on. This store was afterwards altered into a dwelling-house for Pastor Wiren.
The crops grew rapidly. Wheat averaged five and rye over six feet in height. One stalk of rye, which I measured myself, was seven feet and five inches
OLD SCHOOL HOUSE.
tall. A man stepping into any of our winter rye fields in August, disappeared 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 early. 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 ar- rived the year before. The new-comers could only clear the land of its trees this first season. Of the thirty families, seventeen had built barns in which they stored their grain. The crops of the others
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ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR.
were securely stacked in the field, and though the autumn was rainy, the harvest was uninjured.
As soon as the grain was dry a machine was ob- tained to thresh it. Three thousand bushels of grain were threshed out, of which twelve hundred were wheat, one thousand barley, and the remainder prin- cipally 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.
NEW SCHOOL HOUSE.
The season was late and wet, and much of the wheat was nipped by the rust. In an ordinary year a max- imum 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 hun- dred bushels to the acre of those earliest planted was nevertheless obtained, and five thousand bushels of potatoes secured, besides several hundred bushels of beets, turnips and other roots. 6
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THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.
On September 30, 1871, all those who had har- vested 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, 1871, state aid was also cut off from every immigrant of that year who had not wife or children with him. For all such, work for the winter was provided among the American farmers, in the lumber woods, at the tanneries, quarries, or railroads.
A free public school was opened in the hall of the Capitol, November 13. 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 deemed 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 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 them- selves with cattle, horses, sheep and swine.
They bought, however, no faster than they could pay. If a Swede could not afford a span of horses,
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ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR.
he bought only one; if he could not afford a horse, he provided himself 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 rope 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 Episcopal religious ser- vices in the public hall.
On Tuesday, September 26, 1871, Hon. Sidney Per- ham, governor of Maine, and Hon. P. P. Burleigh, land agent, accompanied 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. In behalf of the colony I delivered an address 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 storeroom 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.
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 helpmate. She not only did all the house-
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THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.
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, Mrs. Kjersti Carlson, when her husband was sick and her children cried for bread, 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 five miles through the woods on her back, to barter at the corner store here for medicine and food for her husband and children.
By such toil was this wilderness settled. But that bunch of shingles has become a part of the history of Maine. It occupies to-day an honored place in the Capitol at Augusta, and a Maine poetess has rendered it immortal in her verse.
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ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR.
The beautiful lines of Mrs. H. G. Rowe, on the heroic deed of this Swedish wife, run thus :
The morning sun shines bright and clear, Clear and cold, for winter is near,- Winter, the chill and dread : And the fire burns bright in the exile's home, With fagot of fir from the mountain's dome, While the children clamor for bread.
Against the wall stands the idle wheel, Unfinished the thread upon spindle and reel, The empty cards are crost ; But nigh to the hearthstone sits the wife, With cleaver and mallet, - so brave and blithe, She fears not famine or frost.
Fair and soft are her braided locks, And the light in her blue eye merrily mocks The shadow of want and fear ; As deftly, with fingers supple and strong, She draws the glittering shave along, O'er the slab of cedar near.
Neatly and close are the shingles laid, Bound in a bunch,- then, undismayed, The Swedish wife uprose : " Be patient, my darlings," she blithely said, " I go to the town, and you shall have bread, Ere the day has reached its close."
Five miles she trudged,- 'twas a weary way ; The road was rough, and the sky grew gray With the snow that sifted down ; Bent were her shoulders beneath their load, But high was her heart, for love was the goad That urged her on to the town.
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THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.
Ere the sun went down was her promise kept, The little ones feasted before they slept ; While the father, sick in bed, Prayed softly, with tears and murmurs low, That his household darlings might never know A lack of their daily bread.
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. Win- berg, one of our Swedish immigrants, and was exten- sively read in New Sweden.
This was the first paper, or portion of a paper ever published in a Scandinavian language in New England, although the Scandinavians sailed along our coast, and built temporary settlements on our shores, five hun- dred years before Columbus discovered the islands of our continent.
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