In
1821 the Quakers community in the Stavanger
area of Norway sent two members, Cleng
Peerson and Knud
Olsen Eide, over to America to explore the possibility of emigration
in order to avoid religious persecution. Eide died soon after arriving
in America but Peerson was able to return with encouraging news about
the country.
Cleng Peerson went back to organize the
buying of land. On 4th July, 1825, a 52 foot sloop, Restauration,
left Stavanger, with fifty-two Norwegians opposed to the Lutheran
Church. Ninety-eight days later the ship arrived in New
York where Peerson gave them the news that he had acquired land
in Kendall, 35 miles north-west of Rochester. Over the next few years
Kendall became a stopover on the way to the Middle West. Peerson also
helped to organize another Norwegian settlement on the Fox River in
Illinois.
In 1837 Ole Rynning arrived in the United
States. His book, True Account of America
for the Information and Help of Peasant and Commoner, sold
in large numbers and helped increase the numbers of people wishing
to leave Norway.
Norwegians were involved
in the Californian Gold Rush. In 1849
Jon Torsteinson-Rue drove a herd of cattle
to California. He settled in Placerville and after an unsuccessful
spell as a miner purchased a small ranch at Putah Creek in the Sacramento
Valley.
In 1855 Jon
Torsteinson-Rue
read an article about the difficulties of carrying post across the
Sierra Nevada mountains. He remembered as a young child people in
Norway people using skies to travel across the snow. After making
his own 10 foot long, 25 pound oak skies, Torsteinson-Rue
volunteered his services as a mailman.
Torsteinson-Rue
made his first mail run in January, 1856. For the next 20 winters,
regardless of weather, he
took mail between Placerville, California, and Mormon Station, Utah,
four times a month. His treks over snowdrifts up to 50 feet high and
through blizzards in over 80 mile per hour winds, to deliver mail
to those living in isolation became legendary.
News of the Californian
Gold Rush as well as
poor harvests and unemployment in Norway, stimulated emigration. By
1860 there were over 10,000 Norwegians in Illinois, mainly in the
area around Chicago. There were also
large numbers in Wisconsin and in 1847 the first Norwegian newspaper,
Nordlyset, was published in the
state. Over the next ten years another eight Norwegian newspapers
began to be published in the United States.
On the outbreak of the Civil War a Norwegian,
Hans Christian Heg, was mainly responsible
for establishing the Fifteenth Wisconsin Volunteers. Known as the
Scandinavian Regiment, others who joined included Ole
Johnson, Christian Morbeck, Ole
Steensland, Jurgen Wilson and Amund
Olsen.
At Chickamauga
63% of the Scandinavian
Regiment were killed, wounded or captured. This included Colonel Hans
Christian Heg, the highest ranking officer in Wisconsin to die
in the war. Heavy losses were also experienced by the Scandinavian
Regiment at Pickett's Mill (27th May, 1864).
Most settlers from Norway became farmers. Some worked in copper and
iron mines. The United States also attracted engineers and mechanics.
Other Norwegians worked as fishermen in the lake ports such as Buffalo
and Duluth. By 1870 around 90 per cent of the emigrants from Norway
were in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.
In 1896 Ole Rolvaag landed in New
York. He worked on several farms in South Dakota before
entering college in 1899. Rolvaag became professor of Norwegian at
St. Olaf College and in 1912 published Letters
From America. He also wrote several novels dealing with
Norwegian settlers in South Dakota including Giants
in the Earth (1927), Peder
Victorious (1929) and Their Fathers'
God (1931).
American-Norwegians have played an active role in political life.
This is especially true of those living in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Those who have become national figures include Andrew
Volstead, Walter Mondale and Hubert
Humphrey.
Between 1820 and 1920 over 730,000 people emigrated from Norway to
the United States. This amounted to a figure larger than four fifths
of the entire population of Norway at the beginning of the 19th century.
This meant that Norway had lost a larger proportion of her total population
by immigration to America than any other European country except Ireland.
Notable emigrants to the United States include Ole
Evinrude, Ivar Giaever, Hans
Christian Heg, Sonja Henie, Lars
Onsager, Knute Rockne, Finn
Ronne, Marta Sandal, Atle
Selberg and Karsten Solheim.
An investigation
carried out in 1978 revealled that since 1820 over 856,000 people
emigrated to the United States from Norway. This amounted to 1.8 per
cent of the total foreign immigration during this period.
Norwegians who escaped from Indian massacre in Minnesota in 1862.
(1)
Ole Munch Raeder, letter written to relatives in Norway (c. 1848)
What an impression it would make on
a poor highlander's imagination to be told that some day he might
eat wheat bread every day and pork at least three times a week! Here
even a tramp can enjoy a chicken dinner once in a while.
(2)
Earl Johnson, carried out research into his great grandparents who
emigrated to the United States in 1854.
In 1833 here were about 30
families and a number of single men (in Kendall). They were led by
a charismatic religious visionary named Cleng Peerson. They arrived
in midwinter. That proved too harsh even for Norwegians and they refused
to settle there. So Cleng had another vision about verdant farmlands
in Illinois. All but a couple members of the group headed out with
Cleng for the area near Morris. Most of them built houses in the little
settlement which much later became the town of Norway. Evidently
this was not an entirely happy group. Cleng either was ousted or became
dissatisfied. Within a few years he took off for Texas, this time
by himself.
Then in 1997, we did a little sight-seeing and visited the Texas Cultural
Museum. This museum contains displays featuring each of the many ethnic
groups which settled Texas -- including the Norwegian-Americans. So
guess who reappears on the scene. Cleng Peerson. It turns out he did
make it all the way down to Texas and became quite an important figure
in the Norwegian-Texan and later Norwegian-American community.
According to the display about the Norwegian-Americans they didn't
use slaves or like slavery. Most of them lived in their own farming
communities - of which there were only a couple or three, since there
were fewer than 1000 Norwegian-Americans in the entire state at the
time of the Civil War.
(3)
John Haug's father decided to leave Norway and seek his fortune in
the United States.
My father came from a really poor family.
His father and grandfather were both tenant farmers in a little valley
in a remote spot in Norway - Fortun, near Luster, almost at the end
of Sogne Fjord. It's a lovely place but the whole valley was owned
by three people: the rest of the inhabitants of the valley were tenants
and there was no chance whatever of getting ahead.
(4) In 1862
Norwegian settlers in Minnesota suffered from Sioux attacks. One settler
wrote home to his family in Stavanger about his experiences.
The Indians have begun attacking the
farmers. They have already killed a great many people, and many are
mutilated in the cruelest manner. Tomahawks and knives have already
claimed many victims. Children, less able to defend themselves, are
usually burned alive or hanged in the trees, and destruction moves
from house to house. the Indians burn everything on their way - houses,
hay, grains, and so on. Even if I describe the horror in the strongest
possible language, my description would fall short of reality. These
troubles have now lasted for about two weeks, and every day larger
numbers of settlers come into St Peter to protect their lives from
the raging Indians. They crowd themselves together in large stone
houses for protection, and the misery is so great that imagination
could not depict it in darker colours. A few persons with their hands
and feet burned off. May I never again have to see such terrible sights.
(5)
An anonymous letter from a Norwegian immigrant in Dodge County, Minnesota,
appeared in Morgenbladet, a newspaper in Norway on 22nd November,
1862.
At this time life is not very pleasant
in this so-called wonderful America. The country is full of danger,
and at no time do we feel any security for our lives or property.
Next month (October) there is to be a levy of soldiers for military
service, and our county alone is to supply 118 men, in addition to
those who have already enlisted as volunteers.
Last week we, therefore, all had to leave our harvesting work and
our weeping wives and children and appear at the place of enlistment,
downcast and worried. We waited until 6 o'clock in the afternoon.
Then, finally, the commissioner arrived, accompanied by a band, which
continued playing for a long time to encourage us and give us a foretaste
of the joys of war. But we thought only of its sorrows, and despite
our reluctance, had to give our name and age. To tempt people to enlist
as volunteers, everybody who would volunteer was offered $225, out
of which $125 is paid by the county and $100 by the state.
Several men then enlisted, Yankees and Norwegians; and we others,
who preferred to stay at home and work for our wives and children,
were ordered to be ready at the next levy. Then who is to go will
be decided by drawing lots. In the meantime, we were forbidden to
leave the country without special permission, and we were also told
that no one would get a passport to leave the country. Dejected, we
went home, and now we are in a mood of uncertainty and tension, almost
like prisoners of war in the formerly do free country. Our names have
been taken down - perhaps I shall be a soldier next month and have
to leave my home, my wife, child, and everything I have been working
for over so many years.
But this is not the worst of it. We have another and far more cruel
enemy nearby, namely, the Indians. They are raging, especially in
northwestern Minnesota, and perpetrate cruelties which no pen can
describe. Every day, settlers come through here who have had to abandon
everything they owned to escape a most painful death. Several Norwegians
have been killed and many women have been captured.
From this you may see how we live: on the one hand, the prospect of
being carried off as cannon fodder to the South; on the other, the
imminent danger of falling prey to the Indians; add to this the heavy
war tax and everybody has to pay whether he is enlisted as a soldier
or not. You are better off who can live at home in peaceful Norway.
God grant us patience and fortitude to bear these heavy burdens.
(5)
Ole Steensland, description of the
Battle of Chickamuga
(1863)
Then came the gloomy morning of the
20th when the few of us that were left formed into line of battle.
We had orders not to retreat in face of the fact that four strong
columns of rebels were charging our weak and scattered line. These
were nerve straining moments when boyhood chums were dropping dead
or wounded all around me. Ole Milestone was killed on my right, Chris
Thompson on my left. I got a bullet through my hat and that did no
harm, but I was taken prisoner, and that was something that did hurt.
(6)
Stephen O. Himoe, the surgeon who treated Colonel Hans
Christian Heg at the Battle of Chickamuga,
later commented on what had happened.
Friends who called to see him (Hans
Christian Heg), wept like children. Everybody who knew him loved him.
He was not only a noble patriot, but a true Christian and died peacefully
and calmly, fully persuaded of a glorious immortality through Jesus.
(7)
A letter published in the Norwegian newspaper, Aftenbladet
(28th September, 1866)
Minnesota,
which is still a young state, can undoubtedly look ahead to a great
future. By the end of this century it will probably be one of the
richest and mightiest states in the whole Union. Its size is about
85,000 square miles. Its fertility is unmatched by that of any other
country in the world. The climate is healthful and pleasant, though
the summer is terribly hot. Although the winter is short, it is said
to be most as severe as in Norway.
I like American customs and habits, opinions, and views very much,
especially the fact that there is no class distinction here. The principle
of equality has been universally accepted and adopted. The artisan,
the farmer, and the borer enjoy the same degree of respect as the
merchant and the official.
President Johnson has surrendered completely to the 'Copperheads'
and the Rebels in the South allied with them, and is furiously opposing
the party that elevated him to power. Because of this the Rebels have
begun to stir once more. It has almost got to be so that a loyal man
cannot travel, he along stay, in most of the Southern states. During
the absence of Sheridan - he has received military charge of Texas
and Louisiana - the military in New Orleans was placed under the command
of a former Rebel general by telegraphed order from the President.
It is hard to imagine a greater insult either to the Army or the country.
But President Johnson is hardly furthering the cause of the South
by behaving in this manner, as time will show very soon. The Republican
press is breathing smoke and fire. Hundreds of newspapers which supported
the President six months ago have changed their attitude completely.
But the Republican Party is so strong that for a while yet it will
have a majority both in the Senate and in Congress; and the South
will not be allowed to send representatives until the North has received
complete guarantees that the money and the blood expended on the defense
of the Union were not sacrificed in vain.
(8)
Ole Rolvaag, Giants in the Earth (1927)
She
had lain awake in terror, lost in her own imaginings, wrestling
with fearful thoughts that only increased the dread in her soul.
It seemed plain to her now the human life could not endure in
this country. She had lived here for six weeks and more without
seeing another civilized face than those of their own company.
What would happen if something sudden should befall them, attack,
or sickness, or fire. Ah no, this wasn't a place for human beings
to dwell in.
(9)
Carl Wittke, We Who Built America
(1939)
The Norwegians are a strong,
resolute, stubborn people. Practically all are Lutherans, and
combine a Lutheran piety and sense of duty with a strong desire
for material advancement. They are thrifty and eager to acquire
a homestead. They are strong and stubborn individualists, lovers
of freedom, law-abiding, and vigorous defenders of their Church.
Norwegian
settlers on the Great Plains in 1885.
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