_The Rock Run Settlement. Other Immigrants of
1839. The Immigration of 1840._
It has been stated that a settlement was also established in Illinois
about twenty miles southwest of Rock Prairie, the same year as the
latter was settled, _i. e._, in 1839. This came to be known as the
Rock Run Settlement, from the name of the town. It lies partly in
Stephenson, partly in Winnebago County. The locality is prairie,
relieved here and there by bits of timber land. The foundation of this
settlement is also to be accredited to an immigrant from Numedal,
who came on the _Amelia_, in 1839. His name was Clemet Torstenson
Stabæk, and he came from Rollaug Parish. With him three others located
there in the fall of 1839, namely, Syvert Tollefson and Ole Anderson,
from Numedal, and a Mr. Knudson, from Drammen. Stabæk was a man of
considerable means. He selected land in Winnebago County, near the
present village of Davis. His son, Torsten K. O. Stabæk (born in
Norway[97]) married Torgen Patterson, and they lived on the farm until
1884, when they moved to Davis.[98] Kristopher Rostad and wife, Kristi,
seem also to have moved to Rock Run before the close of 1839. In the
following summer came Gunnul Stordok, to whom we have referred under
the settling of Newark in Rock County. Stordok lived in Rock Run until
1870; he then moved back to Newark, where the rest of his relatives
who had come to America had settled.[99] Gunnul Stordok was born in
Rollaug, Numedal, in the year 1800; he married Mary Larson (of Rollaug)
before emigrating.
[97] Not on the homestead, as _History of Norwegians of Illinois_,
page 487, has it.
[98] In 1895 he organized the Farmers Bank of Davis, Illinois, of
which his son, C. O. R. Stabeck, is now cashier.
[99] When he returned to Newark in 1870 he bought two hundred acres
of land, for which he paid seven thousand dollars.
Among the earliest arrivals in the settlement subsequently was Halvor
Aasen, born in Numedal in 1823, and who came to America in 1841. For
two years after coming to this country he worked in the lead mines at
Mineral Point, Wisconsin, and at Galena, Illinois. In 1843 he married
Christie Olson, and bought a farm in Laona Township, Winnebago County,
whither he and his wife moved in 1844. Here they lived until their
death. She died in 1902, and he in March, 1905.[100]
[100] Their children are Ole Anderson and Andrew Anderson at Davis,
Illinois, and Mrs. O. H. Lerud at Lyle, Minnesota; four
children are dead.
The Rock Run Settlement was prosperous but did not grow to such
proportions as its sister settlements to the north. In later years many
of its earlier pioneers moved back to Rock County, as Stordok did,
and as Lars Rostad and family also did in the sixties. Among those
who located at Rock Run in the forties were Hovel Paulson (born 1817)
from North Land Parish, Norway, who located near Davis in 1846;[101]
Christian Lunde, also from Land, Norway, came to Rock Run in 1848 and
later moved to Goodhue County, Minnesota; Narve Stabæk, Torsten Knudson
and Nels Nelson, all three from Numedal; Gunder O. Halvorson, from
Kragerö; Svale Nilson, from Bukn Parish, Stavanger; Gunder Halvorson,
from Telemarken, and Lars O. Anderson. There appears a very brief
account of the Rock Run Settlement by Lars O. Anderson in _Nordlyset_,
under date of June second, 1848. According to this there were at that
time twenty families, twelve unmarried men over twenty years of age,
six unmarried women of over twenty years, while there were thirty-two
persons below the age of twenty. The whole settlement, he says, numbers
ninety persons and comprises 4,062 acres of land.
[101] He moved to the Old People's Home in Stoughton in 1903, where
he died in 1907, his wife having died in 1905. His only son
was killed in the Civil War.
We have followed somewhat fully the immigration movement in Numedal
and Telemarken in 1839, and we have also noted the fact that that year
records its contingent of emigrants also from Stavanger Province.
It remains here to note briefly the growth of the movement in Voss
and its spread elsewhere. Nils Lydvo came from Voss in 1839, and
went directly to his brothers, Knud and Ole Lydvo, in Shelby County,
Missouri. At the same time came Anders Finno, Lars Davidson Rekve, Nils
Severson Gilderhus, and Anfin Leidal; their destination was La Salle
County.[102] The party further contained Ole K. Gilderhus, Lars Ygre,
Anders Flage, Lars Dugstad, Knud Gjöstein, Anders Nilson Brække and
wife, Knud Brække and wife, Magne B. Bystölen, Anna Gilderhus, and Anna
Bakketun.
This party seems to have arrived in New York early in July, 1839, and
to have intended to go to Illinois. We shall meet with most of them
later as pioneers in Wisconsin settlements, but for a time many of them
remained in Chicago, so that in the fall of 1839 and the following
winter there was a considerable colony of Norwegian immigrants located
in Chicago. Nils A. Lie, of Deerfield, Wisconsin, writing of this
fact, says there were more Vossings in Chicago about 1840 than all
other Norwegians combined.[103] Among those who remained temporarily
in Chicago were Ole K. Gilderhus, Lars Ygre and Lars Rekve. The last
of these worked for a year on a steamer plying between Chicago and St.
Joseph, Michigan.[104] I shall give a brief sketch of him below, under
_Koshkonong_. Anders Finno went to Koshkonong, Dane County, in 1840,
but later settled in Blue Mounds, in the same county. In 1850 he went
to California with a group of gold seekers and has not since been heard
from by his compatriots.
[102] Where, however, they did not remain, as we shall see.
[103] _Bygdejaevning_, page 43.
[104] Anderson's _First Chapter_, page 330.
Anders Nilson Brække[105] was born at Brække, Voss, Norway, February
twelfth, 1818; he had married Inger Nelson in Norway. Brække located
permanently in Chicago, working at first for Mathew Laflin and John
Wright. He laid the foundation of his future fortune in 1845, when he
purchased some property on Superior Street, on part of which he built
the residence, where he lived until his death in 1887. He held many
offices of public trust in the discharge of which he was able and
unimpeachable in his honesty. Brække's first wife died early leaving
three children.[106] In 1849 he married Mrs. Julia K. Williams; three
children by this marriage are living.[107]
[105] Andrew Nelson Brekke.
[106] They are all dead long ago.
[107] A daughter of theirs is Mrs. J. A. Waite of the Anchor Line
Steamship Company. I am indebted to Strand's _Norwegians
in Illinois_ (page 215) for some of the facts of Brække's
personal history.
In the party of emigrants from Voss in 1839 were also Arne Anderson
Vinje (born 1820) and wife Martha (Gulliksdatter Kindem). From Vinje we
learn that the ship, on which the twenty emigrants from Voss came that
year, left Norway April sixteenth and that they arrived at Chicago in
September. Vinje located first in Chicago; soon after arriving he built
a log house, in which he and his wife lived during the first winter.
Anders Brække, it is said, assisted him in the erection of the log
house. During the winter Vinje worked on a road that was being laid out
on the west side; for this work he received sixteen dollars a month.
The next July however Vinje together with Per Davidson Skjerveim (who
had just arrived from Voss, Norway) each with his team of oxen left for
Hamilton Diggings in La Fayette. Here each took a claim of government
land; of this we shall speak more at length in the chapter on Wiota.
During the year 1840 emigration from Norway was rather limited. There
had been a considerable exodus in 1839 from Numedal and Telemarken. The
lull in 1840 may be explained by the fact that intending emigrants in
those regions were waiting for favorable news from their relatives and
friends who had gone the preceding year. The settlers at Muskego, on
Jefferson and Rock Prairies and at Rock Run had barely gotten located
when the winter set in. Communication was of course very slow, and
spring and early summer was the sailing season of Norwegian emigrants
in those days. The year 1840, however, brought its quota of arrivals
from Voss,[108] namely Kund J. Hylle, Ole S. Gilderhus, Knut Rokne,
Mads Sanve, Baard Nyre, Brynjolf Ronve, Torstein Saue, wife, and son
Gulleik,[109] Klaus Grimestad and wife, Arne Urland and wife, and Lars
T. Röthe; there were twenty in all in the party. All of these it is
said settled in Chicago.[110] They all came in Captain Ankerson's ship
_Emelia_, the same ship which carried Nattestad's party in 1839. They
were five months on this journey, arriving in Chicago in September. We
shall later meet with some of these elsewhere.
[108] As also from Drammen, see below, page 159.
[109] Father of Torger G. Thompson of Cambridge, Dane County,
Wisconsin.
[110] I gather most of these names from Nils A. Lie's account in
_Bygdejaevning_, pages 47-48.
A few other names from different parts of Norway are recorded among
the immigrants of 1839. We have observed above that Johan Nordboe of
Ringebo in Gudbrandsdalen had come to America in 1832. Though he wrote
letters home it does not seem that he succeeded in promoting emigration
from that section of Norway, except individually, and then not until
1839. In that year his friend Lars Johanneson Holo of Ringsaker,
Hedemarken, together with three grown up sons came to America.[111]
Holo did, however, not go to Dallas County, Texas, where Nordboe had
settled the year before, but he first located in Rochester, New York. A
man by the name of Lauman from Faaberg in Gudbrandsdalen also came with
him and went to Rochester. He, however, went west a few years later,
settling in Lee County, Illinois. Holo remained in Rochester two years,
he and his sons being employed there on the canal. In 1841 they went to
Muskego, where we shall find them in our next chapter.
[111] The route led by way of Havre and New York.
Among the immigrants of 1839 we find one man from Sogn, the first to
emigrate from that region to America. His name is Per I. Unde,[112] and
he came from Vik Parish in Outer Sogn. He lived in Chicago it seems,
the two first years he was in America. In 1841 his brother Ole Unde
arrived and the two went to La Fayette County; we shall speak of both
of these men later. Among the immigrants of 1839 who did not go to
Muskego I may here mention Knud Hellikson Roe and wife Anna and four
children who came from Tin, Telemarken. They went to La Salle County,
Illinois, where they lived till 1841; thence they removed to Racine
County and in 1843 went to Dane County, Wisconsin (see below).
[112] H. R. Holand writes of Per Unde in _Skandinaven_ for July
seventeenth, 1908, stating that he came in 1842. Unde's
nephew, Jacob Unde of Sherry, Wisconsin, contributes in a
later issue of _Skandinaven_ some corrections, among them
that Per Unde came in 1839.
Ole H. Hanson and wife also from Tin, Telemarken, came in 1839. They
settled at Indian Creek, near where now stands the village of Leland,
La Salle County, Illinois. The first winter they lived in a dugout on
the same spot on the homestead where the residence now stands. Mrs.
Hanson died in 1842, Mr. Hanson died three years later. The children
were Ole, known as Ole H. Hanson, Alex, Betsey, Helen, and Levina.
Ole Hanson assumed charge of the homestead and lived there and near
Leland till his death in December, 1904. In 1855 he married Isabella
Osmundson, who died in 1873. They had six children, one of whom is C.
F. Hanson,[113] State's Attorney, of Morris, Illinois.
[113] To whom I am indebted chiefly for the family history. Alex
Hanson lives at Ellsworth, Iowa.