Cleg
Peerson was born in Tysavaer, Norway
on 17th May, 1783. Peerson became a Quaker
and as a result experienced religious persecution considered the possibility
of emigration. In 1821 Peerson and Knud Olsen Eide went to America
to carry out some preliminary research. Eide died soon after arriving
in America but Peerson was able to return with encouraging news about
the country.
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. Cleg Peerson, who also helped to organize another Norwegian
settlement on the Fox River in Illinois and in Texas, died in 1865.
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