USA > Wisconsin > Rock County > Rock County, Wisconsin; a new history of its cities, villages, towns, citizens and varied interests, from the earliest times, up to date, Vol. I > Part 39
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Ole tells of how he tried farming, but at the end of the year there was nothing left as reward for hard work; next he tried his luck as a peddler. In this line he made some money, but there were so many rules and restrictions that he soon tired of this. He says he did not like to be engaged in a business where he was liable to be nipped by the sheriff most any time. So he went from peddler to blacksmith. Here he again ran up against the "law that did not permit me to work in the city."
In 1836 Ole and his younger brother Ansten formed a part- nership as drovers and went to the west coast to deal in sheep. While at Stavanger they heard wonderful stories of America. Ole says he had never heard of America before, but soon became very much interested. He spent Christmas with a member of the storthing (parliament) named Evan Nubbru from Sigdal. Nub- bru had been reading about America in a German paper and spoke very highly of the free institutions of the country. He says: "This information had a magic effect on me. I looked upon it as an injustice that the laws of Norway should forbid me to trade and not allow me to get my living by honest work as a mechanic wherever I desire to locate." Before they reached home he and his brother had resolved to see America. By April in the spring of 1837 they made ready for their journey.
Mr. Natesta delighted in telling of their start for America. The party consisted of three young men, Ole and Ansten Natesta and a third person by the name of Halsten Halvorsen, who was
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very anxious to make the trip but lacked funds. Ansten volun- teered to advance the necessary funds for the passage, and with about $800 in their pockets the three, each equipped with a good pair of skees, the clothes he wore and a small knapsack, started on their long and venturesome journey.
"We went on skces across the mountains from Rolloug to Tind. and thenee in a direct line over hills and through forests to Stavanger, where we expected to get passage across the sca. We did not worry about the roads for all three of us were experts on skees and our baggage caused us no inconvenience." At Stavan- ger they soon got into trouble. The government officials picked flaws in their passports. The government was bitterly opposed to emigration to America and its arbitrary officials, often by unauthorized aets, attempted to stop the growing unrest. In the evening a friendly stranger told the three mountaineers that he had overheard the officials plan to arrest them the next day and send them baek to their native valley. "Secretly. under cover of night, we left Stavanger and, without attracting any attention, we got to Tananger. Here we found a fisherman's yacht, loaded with herrings, ready to sail for Gothenberg. We made arrange- ments for transportation with the skipper, and felt much relieved when we finally got to sea. No further mishap hindered our journey. We paid $50 each from Gothenberg to Fall River, Mass. The journey was a quick one for a sailing vessel, being accom- plished in thirty-two days. From Fall River we went to New York, where we found a number of Norwegians. These helped us to find our way to Rochester. Here we found a part of the little Quaker colony that twelve years previous had left Stavan- ger in the sloop. Rochester did not meet our expectations. There we heard for the first time the name Chicago, and we were soon on our way to see what we could find."
When they reached Detroit they overtook a party of about eighty Norwegian immigrants on their way to Chicago under the leadership of a university graduate named Ole Rynning. The Natesta party were glad to again meet with countrymen and, finding that they were all bound for Chicago, joined the Ryn- ning company, they having the great advantage of one man (Ryn- ning) that eould speak both English and Norwegian. Arriving at Chicago they were preparing to go with the Rynning party, whose
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destination was the Fox River settlements in La Salle county, when they met a Norwegian by the name of Bjorn Anderson. (This was the father of Prof. Rasmus B. Anderson of Madison, Wis., the well known author and acknowledged authority on Scandinavian history.) Bjorn Anderson had been to the Fox River settlement and appeared very much dissatisfied with the country and colony. His story of Fox River, sickness, death and general poverty, frightened Rynning and his party, and they concluded to seek another locality. Rynning consulted with sev- eral Americans (land sharks) who appeared very anxious to assist the strangers in choosing a good locality for their colony. A committee of four, consisting of Ole Rynning, Ole Natesta, Niels Veste and Ingebrigt Brudvig, were sent ahead to spy out the land at Beaver Creek, Iroquois county, Illinois, which had been highly recommended to Mr. Rynning by his new found American friends.
Natesta claimed he did not like the country, but as the others were pleased with it they arranged that Mr. Natesta and Veste should remain and build a house for the reception of the immi- grants while Rynning and Brudvig returned to Chicago for their company. Thus we find Ole Natesta in the fall of 1837 laying the foundation of a Norwegian colony at Beaver Creek, Iroquois county, Illinois, where before winter set in had a sufficient num- ber of log huts to house a population of about fifty persons. The sad story of the Beaver Creek settlement is fully chronicled in Professor Anderson's book previously referred to. "These peo- ple were well and in a measure happy during the first winter, but the next spring the whole settlement was flooded and the swamp was turned into a veritable lake. Malarial fever followed, in a short time no less than fourteen or fifteen deaths occurred, and among these was Ole Rynning. A Mrs. Davidson related that when Ole died all the people in the settlement were sick but one. This one chopped down an oak, made a sort of box, and with the help of a sick brother, got the body into this rude coffin, dragged it out on the prairie and buried it. In the "Billed Maga- zine" narrative Ansten Natesta speaks of his friend and co- laborer in the following complimentary terms: "When sickness and trouble visited the colonists (at Beaver Creek) he was always ready to comfort the sorrowing and to aid those in distress. Nothing could shake his faith in the idea that America would
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become a place of refuge for the masses of Europe that toiled under the burden of poverty.
"He himself was contented with little and bore his sufferings with patience. I well remember when he returned from a long exploring expedition ; cold weather set in and the ice in the swamp eut holes in his boots ; he reached home with his feet frozen and terribly lacerated; we all thought he would be crippled for life. He had to take to his bed and, thus confined, wrote his book about America, the manuscript of which I took with me to Norway and had printed in Christiania. His feet got well again and he once more took up his benevolent work among the colonists. In the fall he was taken sick and died. His death caused the great- est sorrow to all of us."
The ill-fated Beaver Creek settlement was soon after entirely abandoned and not until many years afterwards was that eoun- try again settled, this time by Germans, who drained the marshes and plowed up the prairie where the Norwegians were buried.
Ole Rynning sleeps in an unmarked and unknown grave, but his name shall not be forgotten. The influence of that modest little book, sent back to his native land in 1838, unquestionably affected the destiny of thousands of his countrymen, and his name must be given a place by the side of Ole and Ansten Natesta on our monument to Scandinavian pioneers. Professor Anderson says, "I would like to translate Rynning's whole little book of forty pages, but it would injure the proportions of this volume (Norw. Imme. p. 211). I only wish that he had so "injured" his book. However, he has given us a translation of chapter seven, in which the author discusses the religion and government of America. From this I quote: "Here (in America) everyone is allowed to have his own faith and worship God in the manner that seems to him right. The government here assumes that a compulsory belief is no belief at all. The Christian religion is the prevailing one in America, but on account of the self-conceit and the obstinacy in opinion of the teachers of religion in little things, there are a multitude of sects, which, however, agree in the essentials. Among the Norwegians, too, there are various sects, but they have no ministers or churches as yet." Then he explains the government, state and national, and coneludes this topic by saying, "As a comfort to the timid I can truthfully assert that here, as in Norway, there are laws, government and author-
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ity. But everything is here calculated to maintain the natural equality and liberty of man. Everybody is free to engage in any kind of honest occupation and go wherever he chooses without a passport or without being examined by custom officers." Then he speaks of the kind treatment of foreigners by the Americans : "It has been my experience that the American as a rule is a bet- ter man to get on with than the Norwegian, more yielding, more accommodating and more reliable in all things." .
"In ugly contrast with the above liberty and equality which justly constitutes the pride of the Americans is the disgraceful slave traffic." Then comes a concise, vigorous, even harsh arraign- ment of this institution, which he closes with the following pro- phetie words, "There will probably soon come either a separation or a bloody civil conflict." These words were written twenty- two years before the breaking out of the Rebellion.
If I have been able to make plain to the reader the prime causes that led up to the sudden influx of the Scandinavian immigrants in the late thirties and early forties, we may now be able to form some idea as to the mental and moral qualifications of these new candidates for American citizenship and understand somewhat the reason of their rapid and complete assimilation into the national life.
The little party of the sloop were much like that of the May flower, men of strong and deep religious convictions. They also were dissenters, and to be dissenters they must be thinkers. They were men of firmness and marked individuality, willing to sac- rifice home, friends and fatherland for freedom of thought. Their letters went back to friends and sympathizers, men who thought and felt as they did, and these became the first additions to the little colonies. Then came the Natesta book and Ole Rynning's. To whom did these messages appeal? Not to the thoughtless, indifferent, shiftless or lazy individual. No, these little pamph- lets, surcharged with the spirit of individualism and breathing defiance to the slightest hints of religious or political intolerance, appealed to the restless, the progressive thinkers, those who were not satisfied with things as they were, but believed in a broader field of activity. These were the followers of Ansten Natesta on board the "Emelia" in the spring of 1839, and such as these and their friends composed the bulk of the immigrants the succeed- ing three or four years. All could read and write their own lan-
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guage and a number of them were teachers and graduates of higher institutions of learning. In thoughts and aspirations, in their ideals of religion and political life they were good Ameri- cans even before they set foot on American soil.
With the foregoing summary of the situation in mind, we are again ready to start out with Ole Natesta in search of his ideal land and location for a Scandinavian settlement. His brother, Ansten Natesta, departed for Norway early in the spring of 1838, going by way of New Orleans to Liverpool and thence to Norway. Ole had now, by the diligent study of his lexicon and the assist- ance of Ole Rynning, who read and spoke the English language, acquired a fair vocabulary of English, as he expressed it years afterwards, he "was now out of the woods as he could talk with anybody." From Beaver Creek he went back to Chicago and there he heard of the Roek River country and soon headed that way. Stopping on the way at several places where he found work, from these home stations he would take long walks and exploring trips when work was not pressing. On July 1st, 1838, he staked his claim of eighty aeres in Section 20, Township 1, north of range 14 east, Clinton township, Rock county, Wisconsin territory. He made his home at first with Stephen Downer while he eut the logs for his cabin. Neighbors came the distance of twenty miles to the "log rolling bee" and long before his brother Ansten returned from Norway with his party of newcomers, Ole's log house was ready for company.
In the "Billed Magazine" narrative he says: "I built a little log hut and in this residence received in September (1839) a number of people from my own parish in Norway. They came as immigrants with my brother Ansten. Most of these settled on Jefferson Prairie and in this way the settlement got a large popu- lation in a comparative short time."
In the fall and winter of '39 and '40, there was a busy time at the new settlement. The Norwegians were expert ax-men; all were handy with the ax, plane and draw-shave; many had brought their kit of blacksmith tools with them. A skeepskin robe, and boards hewn out of a basswood log were soon shaped into a bellows and the smithy was ready for business.
They were prepared for the work at hand, and when winter set in all were provided with some kind of a home. A number of the young people had seeured employment with American fam-
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ilies at and about Beloit; others were "taken in" by Natesta's "Yankee" neighbors, while many had already built log homes of their own, some houses sheltering two and even three families. It was surprising how much room there was in an eighteen by twenty log cabin with a loft to it.
D. B. Egery's place, located in Sec. 26 of the town of Turtle. four miles southwest of the Natesta cabin on the trail to Beloit, became a Norwegian headquarters. All knew Mr. Egery. His many acts of kindness and material aid in those early days was never forgotten by the old pioneers. Very soon after their arrival at the "Prairie," parties of two or three would fill their "Skreppe" (knapsack) with provisions and strike out in various directions to "spy out the land." (3) Among the first to go out was Gullik Olsen Gravdal (4) and Gisle Sebjornson Hallan. (5) After having made arrangements for their people at Egery's. they started west to Beloit. At Beloit they crossed the river, partly by felled trees extending into the river from each side. From these they followed a well worn Indian trail to the north- west, and when night overtook them camped under a large oak tree about seven miles northwest of Beloit. Nearby was a fine spring of sparkling pure water, from which a tiny brook meandered through a rich meadow with grass up to their waists. To the south and southeast was a fine rolling prairie, parked here and there with scattering trees and clusters of wild-plum. To the north, west and east was heavy timber. A ledge of lime- stone cropped out on the hillside. What more could they look for? Good water, stone and timber for buildings, meadow for hay, and the rich prairie ready for the plow. Here Gullik Olsen Gravdal set his claim stake in the early part of October, 1839, on the southeast quarter of Sec. 1, Town 1, north Range 11 East. The next day they explored the country roundabout and, fol- lowing the edge of the woods to the east for about a mile, Gisle Sebjornson Hallan found a place that had all the necessaries for a pioneer's home, water, wood, meadow and prairie, and Gisle's claim stake went down in the northeast quarter of Sec. 6, Town 1, north of Range 12 East. Having "located" they now hurried back to the "settlement," where they provided themselves with the necessary pioneer's kit of tools for building, consisting of an ax, saw, auger and hammer. With a good back-load of pro- visions for each they were soon again at their claims. As it was
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already late in the season they concluded to get Gravdal's home ready for winter's quarters, move their families over and during the winter get material ready for Hallan's house, to be erected in the spring. The large oak under which they slept the first night served as a tent until it became so cold that they had to build a brush hut, which they covered with long grass. This made a good sleeping room until the big house was up and the shake roof on. By the middle of November the first house in the town of Newark was finished and Gravdal and Hallan moved in with their families.
Mr. Hallan married Margit Knudsdatter Nöstrud after they came to Jefferson Prairie late in the fall. Their wedding had to wait until the cold formed ice bridges on which they crossed the streams on their way to Rockford, where they found a parson to perform the ceremony. Game was plentiful, deer browsed on the limbs and tops, from which the logs of the cabin were cut, and venison formed the bulk of the meat supply during that first winter. Along about Christmas time the supply of flour and other necessaries ran short at the Gravdal camp and the two men started on their skees for headquarters at Jefferson Prairie for a new supply. There they made a hand sled and loaded it with a large sack of "middlings" and half a hog. On their way home the weather turned bitter cold and they had to face a northwest snow storm. Even with their compass they missed their course, but fortunately struck the river at Richard Inman's, near the mouth of Bass Creek. Here they rested long enough for Mrs. Inman to get them a warm meal, when they again "harnessed to the sled" and reached home just at dark, tired but thankful. It might have been worse. Among the early land seekers at Beloit was the widow Gunnil Odegarden, (6) in company with Gunnul Stordock and another party. She visited Gravdal and Hallan where they were building their house. After looking at several favorable locations they brought up at a fine spring of good water in the edge of the woods near the center of Sec. 24, about two miles south of Gravdal's claim. Here was good timber and meadow land, and she fixed upon this place as her future home.
Klemet Stabek with several companions took a westerly course from Beloit and brought up in the Sugar river swamps. They were determined to see what was on the other side of Sugar river and got as far as Rock Run, in Stephenson county, Ill.,
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before they were suited with the land, and there formed the nucleus of a new settlement, the second off-shoot from the Natesta colony at Jefferson Prairie.
Prof. R. B. Anderson in his book previously referred to says that Stordock was one of the parties to settle at Rock Run in 1839. This may be so, but early in the spring of '40 he was back in the town of Newark, assisting in building the house for Mrs. Odegarden on Section 24; this was the second house in the Rock Prairie settlement, as also the second building erected in the town of Newark. The house was a good-sized building and ready for occupancy early in the spring of '40. "Widow Gunnel," as she was familiarly called, and her four daughters now had a home of their own and room to spare. Widow Gun- nel's soon became the landing place for all new arrivals, and her hospitality and kindness were often spoken of by old timers.
Early in May. 1840, three young men, Lars Halvorsen Skav- lem (7), his brother Gjermund (8) and Knud Christbinusen (9) arrived at Widow Gunnel's. They were of the "Amelia" party, but had spent the winter near Chicago, where they had work, earning a little more than their board. Lars Skavlem got $3.00 per month and board for three months, but when pay day came there was no money, so he was glad to take two calves for his winter's work. These he managed to turn into $7.00 in cash; with this increased capital he was now looking up a farm, soon found a suitable place and located on the northest quarter of northeast quarter Sec. 11, about a mile southwest of Mr. Gravdal and in the same town.
Three men and three days saw the first house finished. In this they lived during the summer and fall, 1840, when they moved into a more substantial building. Gisle Hallan had also taken possession of his new home in Sec. 6, Town of Beloit. Early in the spring and during the summer Gullick Halvorsen, Blackstad (Skavlem) located on Sec. 28, in the same town; so that by fall, 1840, we have the Rock Prairie settlement well established, con- sisting of five homesteads, viz .: Gravdal, Hallan Odegarden, Lars Skavlem and Gullik Halvorsen Blakstad (Skavlem), and it is safe to say that each place besides sheltering its own, was taxed to its utmost capacity in giving shelter to new comers. Each succeeding year brought rapidly increasing additions to both set- tlements, and by '43 the great wave of Norwegian immigration
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was fairly on. In less than five years more these modest little beginnings had grown into large and prosperous communities. But as yet the most of them were quite distinctly foreigners in language and customs. As the volume of immigration increased a marked change was apparent in the personnel of the new arriv- als.
The Puritanical Hougian (10) and Quaker types of religious dissenters were but a small minority, while political discontents and democratic radicals were the exception. Easy going, satis- fied, somewhat dull and, as compared with the early pioneers, in a measure unthinking, the great bulk of Norwegian peasantry that came over on the high wave of migration during the .forties were not dissatisfied with the political or religious conditions of the fatherland; in fact, religion and politics were subjects that concerned them the least. They came chiefly on the inducement of good wages, cheap or free lands, and a less strenuous struggle for existence. With them came the first installment of Norwegian clergy, representing the intolerant self-styled orthodox Lutheran State church of Norway. These were able and well educated, zealous young men; trained in the religious state institution of Norway, they had imbibed the bitter antagonism of the state and church against all dissenters and non-conformists.
(The Norwegian settlement west of Beloit in the towns of Beloit, Newark, Avon, Spring Valley and Plymouth has always been designated as "Rock Prairie"; this should not be con- founded with the Rock Prairie that lies in Harmony, Johnstown and Bradford and La Prairie.)
The first of these was the Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson (11) who landed at Milwaukee August 5, 1844, and came to the Koshko- nong settlement in Dane county, Wisconsin, on the last days of August, same year. His first sermon preached at Koshkonong shows the conceited self-assumed superiority of the "regularly ordained minister in the Lutheran church." The following quo- tation is taken from his own record. "Friday, the 30th of August, 1844, I, Johannes Wilhelm Christian Dietrichson, from my fatherland, Norway, reglularly ordained minister in the Luth- eran church, held service for the Norwegian settlers living on Koshkonong Prairie. In this first service which I held here, on said day's afternoon, I preached in a barn at Amund Anderson's on the words in Rev. 3-11 : 'Behold I come quickly ; hold that fast
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which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.' I sought accord- ing to the grace God gave me to impress solemnly upon my coun- trymen's hearts the importance of holding fast to the true saving faith and to the edifying ritual of the church of our fathers here in this land divided by so many erroneous sects."
At the very first sound of the state church, as it was called, the old conflict revived. The Hougians, Independents, Quakers and dissenters of all kinds, who had sought a home on the prairies of Illinois and Wisconsin in order to be free from church intol- erance, found themselves face to face with their old tormentor, religious bigotry ; but the situation was changed. Here all were on an equal footing. Eielson could not be thrown in prison, the Quakers could not be forced to baptism or confirmation. nor their dead exhumed from their graves in order that they might be buried according to the Lutheran ritual. Undoubtedly the con- flict would be long and bitter, but the outcome was not doubted. It was but a question of the "survival of the fittest."
One of the first things required of a stranger in any com- munity is to give or be given a name by which he may be known individually and also designated in transactions of business with his associates. The system of names and records of the same, in vogue among the peasantry of Norway, differing radically from the practice in this country caused much confusion of names, so that in the early days of the colonies it was not unusual for one individual to be known by three or four different names in less than that many years. Their signatures to papers and docu- ments of record soon produced apparent flaws in titles, which fact has caused much trouble and considerable expense to correct and will continue to puzzle the title experts for many years to come. The Norwegian peasantry have no family or surname, but every grange, farmstead, habitation has a name, and this name becomes the address, home or family name of those who occupy the same; and whenever they change their home, their address, home or family name is changed, to that of their new home. The name of the farm or grange is never changed, so that those that live at Skavlem will always be Skavlem. Those that live at Nyhus will always be Nyhus, and so on.
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