_The First Norwegian Settlers in the Townships of
Dunkirk, Dunn, and Cottage Grove, in
Dane County, Wisconsin._
The first Norwegian settler in the Town of Dunkirk was John Nelson
Luraas. Together with Helge Grimsrud he had explored Dunkirk and
surrounding country in the fall of 1842 and selected a site on which
to settle. His father, Nils Johnson Luraas (b. 1789), arrived from
Norway in June, 1843, and came with his son direct from Muskego to
Koshkonong, where the party arrived on June sixteenth. An American by
the name of John Wheeler had settled in the town two weeks earlier,
being the only white man there.[252] Luraas settled on section three,
about two miles east of the present city of Stoughton, and three miles
south of where his companion, Knut Roe, located in the Town of Pleasant
Spring. Only about a week after Luraas's arrival, two more families,
who also came from Muskego, arrived and settled there, namely, Helge
Sivertson Grimsrud, wife Birgitte, son Sigurd, and Hans P. Tverberg and
wife Ingeborg, and John P. Tverberg. The former had emigrated from
Norway (via Drammen and Gothenburg) the year before, while Tverberg had
come in 1841. They were all from Tin, in Telemarken. Helge Grimsrud
possessed considerable means in Norway and owned a fine estate, which
he sold upon emigrating. Grimsrud bought land in section two, directly
east of Luraas, while Tverberg settled a mile south of Luraas in
section ten.[253] The next settler was Gaute Ingbrigtson Gulliksrud
(b. 1815), from Tin, Telemarken, who arrived there five weeks later,
that is, in August.[254] He came in a party of about one hundred and
twenty persons, mostly from Telemarken, embarking at Skien, and sailed
via Havre de Grace to New York. Most of the party went temporarily to
Muskego. Gulliksrud did not like Muskego, and soon after set out for
Koshkonong. Having selected a location for his home, he bought, for
$200, a hundred and sixty acres of land, near his countrymen, chiefly
in section ten, and erected his log cabin a short distance north of
Hans Tverberg's home.
[252] Herein I accept the authority of _Billed-Magazin_. _The
History of Dane County_, however, says that John Luraas was
the first white settler in the town, Chauncey Isham and John
Wheeler coming soon after.
[253] Helge Grimsrud's wife's parents and a sister had emigrated
in 1841 and located in Muskego. Upon returning to Muskego
from Koshkonong in the fall of 1842, Grimsrud went direct to
Milwaukee and bought 240 acres of land, being the first to
purchase land in Dunkirk. He died in 1856.
[254] Two of his maternal uncles and a brother had emigrated in
1839 and located in Muskego; letters from these induced them
to emigrate.
There were then in the fall of 1843 four Norwegian families settled in
the Town of Dunkirk. In the following year a considerable number of
immigrants came from Norway (Telemarken, Voss, and Sogn) but Dunkirk
did not receive many of those who came that year; they settled mostly
in Christiana or Pleasant Spring, while some now began to find homes in
Cottage Grove and Dunn, immediately north and west of Pleasant Spring.
The first Norwegian settlers in the Town of Dunn were Nils Ellefson
Mastre and Lars Mastre, who had come to America in 1845; they located
in Dunn, just across the Pleasant Spring line soon after arriving;
American families had settled in the township before them. Ingebrigt
Johnson Helle, from Kragerö, was the next settler there, but he didn't
enter Dunn until 1849; he emigrated in 1845 but had worked in Buffalo
four years.
John O. Hougen, from Solör, Norway, was the first Norwegian to settle
in Cottage Grove, where he came in the summer of 1842, consequently a
year before Roe and others came to Pleasant Spring. Hougen had been
a baker in Christiana and usually went by the name of John Baker (or
Bager). Some years later he removed to Coon Prairie, in Vernon County,
Wisconsin. Björn Tovsen Vasberg, from Laurdal, Telemarken, also located
in Cottage Grove in the summer of 1842. Nothing seems to be known of
his antecedents, and little that is favorable seems to be known of him
during his brief career in the township. He later moved to Minnesota,
where he lived, it seems, a roving life, being at last found dead on
the public highway. He was a notorious, and as far as I know, the only
instance of the vagabond and ne'er-do-well among the Norwegian pioneers
of those days. The next Norwegian settler in the Town of Cottage Grove
was Halvor Kostvedt,[255] from Vinje Parish, who emigrated in the
spring of 1842; he lived for a year in Christiana Township, and came
to Cottage Grove in the summer of 1843 and made a dugout on section
twenty-four, in which he lived the first year. Others who came on the
same ship were Alexander O. Bækhus (or Norman), Ole A. Haatvedt and
Osmund Lunde. The first of these located in Christiana, but later moved
to Minnesota; Ole Haatvedt settled on Jefferson Prairie, whence some
years later he went to Iowa, while Asmund Lunde, after remaining a year
in Muskego, came to Pleasant Spring, as we have seen, in the summer of
1843. Ole Trovatten, whom we have already met, both in Muskego and in
Pleasant Spring, came to Cottage Grove in the fall of 1843. Trovatten
is reputed to have been a man of unusual natural gifts and considerable
eloquence. He served as deacon in West Koshkonong and Liberty Prairie
churches for many years, a capacity in which he had officiated also
in Norway. He later affiliated with the East Koshkonong Church, which
congregation he, with O. P. Selseng, represented on the occasion of the
founding of the Norwegian Synod in East Koshkonong Church, on February
5th, 1853.[256]
[255] Called also Halvor i Vinje.
[256] Page 15 of _Kort Uddrag of den norske Synodes Historie_, by
Rev. Jacob Aal Ottesen, Decorah, 1893.
Asmund Aslakson Næstestu, with wife and family, came to Muskego in
the fall of 1843, where he worked as a blacksmith for six months. He
removed to Koshkonong early the next spring, going direct to Halvor
Kostvedt, with whom he lived in the dugout the first summer. In 1847 he
bought land in the same locality. Næstestu[257] is said to have been
famed in Norway as a mechanical genius of rare talent. On one occasion
King Carl Johan was shown a gun made by the farmer's son in Vinje; the
King afterwards sent Asmund Næstestu a silver cup as a token of his
pleasure over the excellent workmanship of the gun. Asmund Næstestu
bought a farm a mile and a half northwest of Nora Post Office in 1854,
where he, in the course of time, became the owner of two hundred acres.
Among others who came to America with Asmund Næstestu in 1843 and later
settled in Cottage Grove, were Næstestu's nephews, Aslak and Halvor
Olson Bækhus (or Gjergjord as they called themselves in this country),
Björn O. Hustvedt, Halvor Donstad and Knut Teisberg.[258]
[257] Asmund Næstestu was the son of Aslak Næstestu, a man of much
native ability and influence in Vinje. Anna Næstestu, a
daughter of Aslak, married Ole Bækhus; they were the parents
of the Bækhus (Gjergjord) brothers of whom we shall speak in
the next chapter.
Finally I shall add the names of Björn A. Stondall and Björn
Stevens Hustvedt, two of Cottage Grove's well known early pioneers,
who emigrated in 1843 and stopped through the winter in Muskego;
thence they came to Koshkonong, locating in Cottage Grove in the
spring of 1844.[259] Björn Stondal was from Vinje, in Telemarken,
being born on the farm Næstestu in Bögrænd in 1823. He sailed on
the ship _Vinterflid_ from Porsgrund in the spring of 1843, as he
relates.[260] They were eleven weeks on the ocean before reaching New
York. The objective point was Milwaukee and the Muskego settlement;
here they stopped during the winter with an American by the name of
Putnam,--seven persons in a hut that was fourteen feet long and ten
feet wide. In the spring of 1844 he walked west to Koshkonong, where he
decided to buy eighty acres of land in section thirty-two in southern
Cottage Grove, and begin the occupation of a farmer. Four years later
he married Gunhild Bergland. Björn Stondal died in April, 1906, at the
age of eighty-three, survived by his wife and nine children.
[258] They came in the same ship as Knut Jöitil and Anund Drotning,
who, as we have seen, located in Pleasant Spring. Knut
Teisberg moved from Cottage Grove to Pleasant Spring in 1846.
[259] Hustvedt wrote his name Ben Stevens.
[260] According to interview printed in _Amerika_.