USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volumr VI > Part 30
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43
"Although the infirmities of age cannot be plead as an excuse for my resignation, yet after passing fifty-four years of my life in the law, as a student in a law office, as a member of the bar, and as a judge for
1634
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
thirty-five years of the time in public service, I hope that the members of the bar and my fellow citizens generally may approve of my retiring from official duty in the evening of my days.
"I love the legal profession and esteem the worthy practitioner as holding the most honorable position in the country; and I shall retire with thankfulness to the bar for the aid they have rendered me by their briefs and arguments in my judicial investigations, and with my best wishes for their prosperity and happiness."
Judge Miller served as district judge until January 1, 1874, and suddenly and utterly without premonition, on September 30, 1874, while in apparent good health, he was stricken down by death. He was a con- sistent Christian gentleman and a member of the Episcopal church; one who carried his religion into all the concerns of his daily life and who loved God and his fellow men. He was a man of domestic tastes and in- clinations and ever enjoyed the sacred precincts of his home circle.
He was married in 1827 to Miss Caroline E. Kurtz, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, whose grandfather assisted in the establishment of the Lutheran church in America. At his death Judge Miller left a widow, two sons and a daughter. His eldest son, Andrew G. Miller, Jr., at one time prominent as an officer in the army, died several years prior to the death of the judge. The remaining two sons were B. K. and J. M. Miller, and the daughter became the wife of James G. Jenkins, now a retired judge of the United States Circuit Court.
Judge Miller was long an honored and esteemed member of the Old Settlers' Club and was prominent in every undertaking that had for its object a tendency to familiarize the people with the history of the state in its earlier days. His papers and addresses on the subject were always masterpieces of their kind and never failed to gain the attention of all, and have been published in permanent and enduring form by order of the Club, of which Judge Miller had been honored with the position of presiding officer at one time.
During his career as a judge he dispensed a justice unexcelled in- its quality by any court, and his whole life was one that left the mark of quality upon the community in which he was best known.
JOHN REINIG. When the late John Reinig came to America in com- pany with an uncle in 1851, he was a boy of fifteen years, and he was a resident of Fond du Lac since April, 1866, up to the time of his passing. He was for years identified here with the malting business of the city, the Fond du Lac Malt and Grain Company, of which he and his son were the leading spirits, being one of the foremost concerns of its kind in the country. A good business man, an excellent citizen and in all
John Pinig
1635
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
things an honest man, he made his presence felt in the commercial and civic life of the city, and his place among his fellow men was one of which he might well have been proud.
John Reinig was born in Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany, on June 12, 1836, and he was sixty-nine years of age when he died as the result of an accident, on Saturday, June 24th, 1905. His mother died when he was a babe of two years, and eight years later his father died, so that he was orphaned at the age of ten. He was cared for thereafter by an uncle, whom he accompanied to America when he was fifteen years old, and his first work on these shores was in a salt plant in Syracuse, New York. Later he went to New York City and there he learned the trade of a tinsmith, after which he took up his residence in Utica, New York. For some years he was engaged in the hardware business in Rochester, New York, and in April, 1866, he left the east, coming to Wisconsin and locating in Fond du Lac. Here he engaged in the hardware business, his first place of business being just north of the Palmer House.
Frugal in his habits of living, energetic and careful in his business, and possessing business ability of no slight quality, he forged ahead in his business, laying up money continually, and finally in 1892 he formed the Buerger-Reinig Company, and engaged in the malting busi- ness. A large plant was built, and the new firm was successful from the start. In 1896 Mr. Buerger retired and the firm became the Fond du Lac Malt and Grain Company, of which Mr. Reinig continued the active head until his death. The business was ever a prosperous one, and when he passed on he was one of the wealthy men of the city.
Mr. Reinig was one who always had time to encourage any enter- prise having for its end the betterment of the city, and he was one of the first to contribute to the securing of the M. D. Wells Company for this city. He had the best interests of the city and county ever at heart, and much good was wrought by him in his labors for the ad- vancement of the civic interests.
Though essentially a busy man, Mr. Reinig found time on at least two occasions to visit his native land, making trips across in 1876 and again in 1899. It was his genuine intent to make another visit to his Homeland in the later years of his life, but ever increasing business cares caused him to postpone the pleasure from year to year, so that the time never came for him to visit his native Germany in his later years.
While a resident of New York state, in 1863, August 25th, Mr. Reinig married Miss Rose Hartman, of Verona, N. Y. She survives him, also a son and daughter. W. C. Reinig, the son, is interested in the Fond du Lac Malt and Grain Company and was his father's assistant for years, before the death of that worthy gentleman. The daughter, Emma, resides with her mother.
1636
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
"Time as an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away ; They fly forgotten as a dream Dies at the opening day."-Watts.
SKAVLEM FAMILY OF WISCONSIN. The author of this sketch has consented to furnish data and material for a short biography of "one of the early pioneer families of the state of Wisconsin." Fully realizing that they are entitled to no distinction, fame or long remembrance- that the record of the individual is but that of one of the soon-to-be- forgotten millions-yet he hopes that the brief record of life and con- ditions in the early formative days of our state may add just a trifle to the permanent history of Wisconsin. "It is a high, solemn, almost awful thought for every individual man that his earthly influence which has had a commencement, will never through all ages have an end, --- what is done is done; has already blended itself with the boundless ever-living, ever-working Universe and will also work there for good or for evil, openly or secretly, throughout all time."-Carlyle. To them this sentiment was an ever present reality.
Faithfully acting their simple parts in the great drama of life, with that rugged Norse fidelity to their code of strict justice and honest dealing, they "builded better than they knew." Their influence has aided in the uplift and betterment of society, even affecting the larger communities of state and nation.
Skavlem Family in America. (Halvor Gullikson Skavlem; Bergit Ols-datter Skavlem.)-The founders of the Skavlem family in America were Halvor Gullikson Skavlem and his wife, Bergit Ols-datter Skavlem. They were thrifty peasants and owned the farmstead of "Nordre- Skavlem" in the sub-parish of Weglie, Nummedal, Norway. The fam- ily consisted of the parents and eight children, seven boys and one girl, named : Ole, Gullik, Halvor, Paul, Kari, Gjermund, Lars and Her- brand.
If a seer had foretold the destiny of this sturdy family of Norse mountaineers it would have been to them a romance surpassing that of the Arabian Nights. Could they have seen their names enrolled on the list of honored pioneers in a foreign land,-to them at that time entirely unknown,-it would have appeared as improbable as a pres- ent-day prediction of a trip to the moon would be to us.
In 1838 Ansten Nattestad returned from his exploring trip to the United States, having penetrated into the then far northern wilderness of that, to his countrymen, entirely unknown country, even as far west as the great Lake Michigan and the frontier town of Chicago. He brought back wonderful stories of opportunities awaiting the enter- prising pioneer, whose brain and brawn were the only requisites neces-
1637
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
sary to transform the wilderness into fertile farms and prosperous homes.
Gullik, the next oldest son, with family of wife and daughter, also the three unmarried sons, Gjermund, Lars and Herbrand, were among the first to sign the list of prospective immigrants to the far-off country. At Drammen they embarked on the immigrant ship "Emelia"-Captain Ankerson-for New York, where they landed on the twenty-third day of August, 1839, having been nine weeks at sea. From New York to Chicago was a long and tedious journey, by way of the Erie canal, and slow boats over the lakes to the then little frontier town of Chicago. From Chicago the journey was mostly afoot with their emigrant baggage transported by slow moving ox-teams over the wet and swampy prai- ries of northern Illinois to their final destination, Jefferson Prairie, Rock county, in the southern part of the territory of Wisconsin. There the first Norwegian settlement in Wisconsin had been located the previ- ous year by Ole Nattestad, a brother of Ansten Nattestad. Ole joyously welcomed the new arrivals and in true Norse hospitality tendered the freedom of every house in the settlement-which consisted of one log cabin. (A very instructive account of the early history of this settle- ment is given by H. L. Skavlem in Chapter XVIII, History of Rock County, Wisconsin. C. F. Cooper & Company, Chicago, 1908.)
In 1841 the balance of the Skavlem family, excepting the son Hal- vor, emigrated and joined the colony in Rock county. The father and mother found a home with their son Gullik, whose farm was located some two miles northwest of the little village of Beloit. Paul and Ole, with their families, found a temporary home with Gjermund and Lars at their home in section 11, town 1, range 11, until they were able to pro- vide one of their own, and the sister Kari (Caroline) soon found employment at Madison as a domestic in the family of James Duane Doty, then governor of the territory of Wisconsin. Thus in the short space of three years the Skavlem family was transplanted from their little mountain home in Norway to the virgin lands of one of the most fertile and beautiful sections of the great northwest.
After fifteen years' residence in Rock county, Gullik for the second time became a pioneer, this time joining the colony established by C. L. Clausen, which left Rock Prairie in the middle of May, 1853. The Clausen party consisted of a train of forty ox teams, drawing the reg- ulation "prairie schooners." This party located in Mitchell county, Iowa, where Mr. Skavlem joined them during the summer of 1854 and there spent the balance of his days in developing his second home in the wilderness. The youngest of the family, Herbrand, (Abram Hol- verson)-(the various changes in Norwegian names is explained by Mr. H. L. Skavlem in the Rock county history previously referred to)-again listened to the "call of the wild" and after more than a quarter of a century's residence in Rock county, resumed the pioneer's life. This Vol. VI-17
1638
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
time in southern Kansas, near Cedar Vale in Chautauqua county, where he still resides, surrounded by a large progeny of well-to-do farmers, a conspicuous character now fast approaching the century mark --- respected and honored as one of the sturdy characters that always "made good." The pioneer history of Chautauqua county will not be complete without the name of Abram Holverson occupying a prom. inent part of that record.
In the little country churchyard at Luther Valley, the balance of the Skavlem immigrants are now located. There rest the old parents, Hal- vor Gullikson and Bergit Ols-datter, Nordre Skavlem. Halvor Gullik- son Skavlem died eight days after arriving at his son's home; his wife died in 1854; Paul Skavlem and the deceased of his family are buried here. Of Paul's family four children are still living, three daughters all residing in Beloit, Wisconsin, one son living at Cedar Vale, Kansas. Ole Skavlem, wife and two children, Gjermund Skavlem, and the sis- ter, Mrs. Kari Skavlem Wagley and her family, excepting two sons, still living, all have found rest in this little country churchyard. Lars Skavlem with his large family of twelve children are also to be found here excepting the two living, H. L. Skavlem of Janesville, Wisconsin, and Mrs. Edmund Thompson of Beloit.
It is quite remarkable that so many of this large pioneer family should find this last resting place together in one little country church- yard, while their living descendants are scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Hudson's Bay to Texas.
Lars H. Skavlem was reared to agricultural pursuits under the par- ental roof, until of suitable years, and he then traveled extensively in his native country selling goods. In 1839 he immigrated to America, spend- ing the first winter in Chicago and in the spring of 1840 he came to Rock county, Wisconsin, where he located on government land in sec- tion 11, town 1, range 11 east, now town of Newark. He occasion- ally added to his holdings and until his farm consisted of two hundred and fifteen acres of well improved land. He built up a com- fortable home and resided there until his death, September 2, 1879. Lars H. Skavlem was a prominent citizen among the pioneers of Rock county, particularly so with his own countrymen. In politics in the early days he was a strong anti-slavery man, siding with the Abolition- ists until the formation of the Republican party, when he joined its ranks and remained a strong adherent to its teachings, during the remainder of his life. Strongly religious but bitterly opposed to church intolerance and ecclesiastical domination, he took an active part in the religious contentions of those early days. He was an active pro- moter of the more liberal Americanized Lutheran church organizations of that day. His home was the accepted headquarters of all religious and missionary activities, and his house was used for church services before there were school houses or church buildings. He inaugurated
1639
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
the first opposition to the Norwegian clergy's parochial interference with our public schools. He constantly and consistently advocated the thorough Americanization of all foreigners, and looked upon the com- mon school system as the most efficient means towards that end. A constant member of the school board he always advocated good teach- ers, good pay and longer school terms.
On the twenty-third day of May, 1844, Lars H. Skavlem was married to Miss Groe Nilssen Aae, born in Nore Parish, Nummedal, Norway, January 13, 1827. She was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Halvor Nilssen Aae, and immigrated with her parents to this country in 1842. They left Drammen in May on the immigrant vessel "Eleida," com- manded by Captain Johnson and landed in New York after four long and weary months at sea. Their food supplies grew scant. The ship leaked. To add to the general misery sickness attacked the passen- gers and out of one hundred and twenty, twelve were buried at sea. Halvor Nilssen Aae was born in the parish of Nore, Nummedal, Norway, August 12, 1781. He was a mechanic by trade, a silversmith and clock maker, and in a small way manufactured needles and wire. He was a natural inventor, contrived and planned many inventions that he never had the means to carry to successful completion. He made several clocks after coming to this country, and his was probably the first clock made in Wisconsin in 1844. The remains of this clock are now in the Historical Museum at Madison. He was looked upon as a man of more than ordinary learning. His neighbors sometimes forgot them- selves so far as to assert that the goldsmith knew more than the parson.
His wife was Guri Fruegne, also from Nore parish, and was born in August, 1795. They had but one child, a daughter, Groe, who became the wife of Lars H. Skavlem. Mr. H. Nilssen Aae purchased a piece of government land in section 11, town of Newark; this he im- proved and occupied until his death, which occurred in August, 1856. His wife survived him and died at Beloit in her ninety-first year, April 14, 1886. They are both buried at the Luther Valley cemetery in the town of Newark, Rock county, Wisconsin. They were strongly relig- ious people and great admirers and followers of Hans Nielsson Hauge, a noted religious reformer of Norway. Mr. Nilssen, or old "Halvor Aae," as he was familiarly called by his countrymen, had the most complete set of Hauge's writings-and they were many-then in the country. This, used as a travelers' library, visited almost every Haugianer's hamlet in the Norwegian settlements, their log house alternated with Mr. Skavlem's in furnishing church room for the itinerant lay preachers before better accommodations could be secured.
Mrs. Groe Skavlem was a woman of model Christian character, a de- voted wife and mother. She bore the hardships and privations of a pio- neer's life with that bravery and unflinching devotion to duty character- istic of her race and people. During her long and active life she was
1640
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
a prominent worker and liberal supporter of the Lutheran church, of which she was an honored member. Twelve children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Skavlem, five of whom grew to mature years, of whom only two are now living: H. L. Skavlem, the oldest of the surviving, now a resident of Janesville, Wisconsin; and Mrs. Caroline Thomp- son, widow, the youngest of the family, now residing at Beloit. Mrs. Skavlem survived her husband twenty-eight years and died at Beloit July 23, 1907.
Halvor Larsen Skavlem. As an integral part of the preceding article the editors insert here a more individual account of the career of Mr. H. L. Skavlem, whose scientific and literary attainments are well known in many quarters of both his home state and the nation.
Halvor Larsen Skavlem was born October 3, 1846, in the town of Newark, Rock county, Wisconsin. He lived the life of the ordinary pioneer farmer's boy. The working hours were from sun-up to sun- down, with plenty of chores before and after. He got all there was to be acquired in the common school education of that day. This he has supplemented by judicious study and investigation for half a century. Although his early opportunities were limited compared with that of the present day, he made good use of them, and like so many self-made men, he became a school teacher, combining farming in the summer and teaching in the winter.
In December, 1873, he was married to Miss Gunnil Ommelstad (Cornelia Olmstead) and they settled down to a farm life on a farm he had previously purchased near his father's old homestead in the town of Newark. There they resided until 1880, when he was elected sheriff of the county. They then removed to Janesville, where they have since resided.
Mrs. Gunnil Ommelstad Skavlem was born in the town of Plym- outh, Rock county, March 30, 1851. Her parents, Hans Haraldson and Gjertrud Odegaarden Ommelstad were married in 1847 and shortly after their marriage they made their home in section thirty, town of Plymouth, Rock county. Hans Haraldson Ommelstad was born in the parish of Land, Norway, September 28, 1820. With his parents he came to America in 1843. They located in the town of Newark. Mr. Hans H. Ommelstad died at his home in Plymouth, July 1, 1860. His father, Harold Ommelstad, was the first chorister and parochial school teacher in the Rock Prairie congregation. Rev. Dietrichson (1844) speaks of him as a "remarkable fine old man that leads in the song service and conducts the religious instruction of the children." Harold Ommel- stad was born in Land Parish, Norway, March 5, 1795, and died in Newark, Wisconsin, September 25, 1891. Mrs. Gjertrud Odegaarden Ommelstad was a daughter of Gunnil Gjermunds-datter Odegaarden, familiarly known as "Widow Gunnil," a name prominent in the earli- est Scandinavian pioneer history of the state.
1641
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
Gunnil Odegaarden was a widow of Torsten Odegaarden, Nore Parish, Nummedal, Norway. Her husband had become lost in the moun- tains of Norway and is believed to have perished there, no trace of him ever being found. She was left with a family of six girls. The two oldest girls being married, remained in Norway. With her four younger girls, who were named Gunnil, Gjertrude, Astrid and Guri, she joined the Nattestad emigrant party in 1839. Her house was the second house erected in the town of Newark, it being completed and ready for occupancy in March, 1840.
She was a remarkably energetic and self-reliant individual, of strong religious convictions, an ardent "Haugeaner" and her home was the meeting place for the religious services until the schoolhouse and church took its place. She was always ready to render substantial aid and advice to those in trouble and distress.
Gunnil Gjermunds-datter Odegaarden was born in Nore Parish, Nummedal, Norway, 1796, and died at the home of her son-in-law, Her- brand Holverson Skavlem (Abram Holverson), Rock county, Wisconsin, July 16, 1854. She was the sixth and last victim of cholera at Mr. Holverson's home. Consecutively for six days, Mr. Holverson made a trip to the cemetery with a cholera victim for burial.
(That cholera epidemic carried many of the first settlers to an untimely end and blotted out whole families. At one time the deaths were so numerous that volunteers were called on to excavate graves and in several instances the digger of the grave was himself the occu- pant thereof the next day.)
Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Ommelstad. Only two are now living. Anne, born January 28, 1848, married K. G. Springen and is now living at Mayville, North Dakota. Gunnil is the wife of Halvar L. Skavlem. After the death of Hans H. Ommelstad Mrs. Ommelstad took up the management of the farm until 1865 when she married Tos- ten R. Lofthus. To him she had one child, Gilbert Reinhart, born Au- gust 20, 1865, died July 7, 1913. Mrs. Gjertrud Ommelstad Lofthus died May 30, 1884, and is buried where so many of her pioneer com- panions are at rest. In the little Luther Valley churchyard the silvered locks and palsied hands of old pioneers performed the last rites for their old companion. They tenderly laid her away, 'neath the prairie flow- ers and wildwood bloom that still lovingly linger round the graves of the old pioneers, who years agone
Oft gathered fresh courage Communing with God, By the soft soothing spirit Of nature's bright sod.
Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Skavlem are the parents of four children : Hannah Luella, born in Newark, October 13, 1875, died in Janesville
1642
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
December 2, 1898; Louis Norman, born October 13, 1875, now residing in Janesville, Wis .; Gertrude Juliana, born in Newark, February 15, 1880, was librarian of the Janesville public library for ten years, and married Herbert Holme November 15, 1910. Mr. Holme was born at Blackburn, England, and is in the mercantile business in Janesville. Henry Gilman, born in Janesville, January 31, 1885, a graduate of Colorado School of Mines, is now located at Timmins, Ontario, Canada, and engaged in mining.
In politics Mr. Skavlem has always affiliated with the Republican party. Lining up with the progressive wing of that organization, he never hesitated to champion progressive ideas that met his approval. In his younger days during the farmers' war on monopolies-gener- ally designated as the Granger movement-of the early seventies, Mr. Skavlem was a consistent and persistent advocate of the leading reform measures that at that time were sneeringly referred to as socialistic propaganda. With voice and pen he contributed to the discussions of the day and some of his addresses are permanently preserved in the state publications. He now looks back across the space of nearly half a century and is pleased to see that nearly every important reform measure that he then espoused has now been written into the laws of the state and nation. He is still on the firing line of progress, and rather likes to be referred to as "unsafe and dangerous" by the moss- backs.
Optimistic in his views, he believes in a slow but sure evolutionary progress of man. The world is better now than it ever was before, and to his view, the time is gradually nearing when the people will, shall and must rule. The good roads movement found in Mr. Skavlem an earnest and able advocate. As a leading member of the county board he did much to line up his associates in favor of the movement, as fast as the state legislated in favor of road improvement, the county was ready to adopt the new system. Mr. Skavlem was urged to accept the new office of county highway commissioner, and at the end of his term of office the county had eighty miles of improved county roads and was conceded the banner good-roads county in the state.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.