_The Heart Prairie Settlement in Walworth County,
Wisconsin. Skoponong. Pine Lake._
Walworth County forms one of the southern tier of counties in
Wisconsin, being situated between Rock on the west and Kenosha and
Racine on the east; to the north lies Jefferson County. There are four
Norwegian settlements in the county, as follows: (1) in the southern
part of the Town of Whitewater and the northern part of the Town of
Richmond lies the Heart Prairie Settlement, taking its name from the
beautiful little prairie directly east of it; (2) about four miles east
of the city of Whitewater lies Skoponong, partly in Whitewater Township
and extending north into Jefferson County as far as Palmyra; (3) in
the city of Whitewater there is a considerable Norwegian colony, and
(4) about six miles southeast of Heart Prairie lies the Sugar Creek
Settlement, extending from about five miles north of Delavan to about
three miles northeast of Elk Horn, the county seat of Walworth County.
It is the first of these settlements that we shall discuss in this
chapter.
The first Norwegian settlers at Heart Prairie were Ole A. Sögal and
wife Kari, who, with their four children Anne, Andrea, Karen, and
Johanne, came in 1842 and located four miles and a half southeast of
the city of Whitewater. They lived there only a few years, however,
then moved to Wautoma, Waushara County, in Central Wisconsin. The next
settler was Ole's brother, Hans A. Milebon, who with his wife Kari came
in 1843, and settled about a mile north of his brother's place; they
had one daughter, Mary Ann, who was about three years old when they
came, and who is still living near Whitewater.
During the year 1844 a number of families arrived from Norway and
settled at Heart Prairie. They were as follows: Hans Arveson Vale and
wife Aaste (Esther), with children Arve (or Harvey) and Isak. Mr.
Arveson bought his first eighty acres at government price of $1.25
per acre, and built his log house in the fall of 1844. In this log
cabin many a Norwegian immigrant found a temporary home upon his
first arrival in Wisconsin in the early days of the settlement. Here
Mr. Arveson lived, cultivating his own farm, until his death in 1873
at the age of sixty-one; the widow died in June, 1900, at the age
of eighty-six. Hans Thompson and wife Marie also came in 1844; they
had three children, Thomas, Karen and Ann. He bought land adjoining
Arveson's farm, lived the first winter in a dug-out. But the next
spring "when the snakes began to come in," writes my informant, they
moved to the Arveson's where they lived till they got their log-house
built.
Andres J. Skipnes and his wife Aaste also came at the time; they
settled near Ole Arveson, but lived there only a short time, then
moved to a farm near Stoughton, Wisconsin. Ole J. Vale and wife Anne
likewise came in the same party, but they went to Sugar Creek, where
a son, John, and a daughter, Annie Torine, had located the year
before.[306] Another arrival at this time was Peder H. Swerge, and Ole
Tölvson Grönsteen and wife Kari and three children, Tosten Olson, a
carpenter, and wife Aaste, Karine, a daughter of Halvor Anderson, came
in 1844. Tosten built most of the log-cabins that were erected in the
settlement for a number of years. His wife died soon after coming to
America, and Tosten died in the Civil War. Finally the accessions of
1844 included also the following persons: Gunder H. Lunde, Anne Kosa,
Ole O. Huset and family, John C. Opsal, and Halvor Huset. The latter
two remained only a short time, then went west; Ole O. Huset located on
Koshkonong.[307]
[306] The rest of their children who came with them were Aaste, a
widow, Andrea, Anders, and Anne Christine.
Thomas Thompson married Mary Ann, daughter of Christen Mason. They
lived on the Thompson homestead till their death; Thomas died in 1869,
his wife in 1871. They had six children, of whom Hans, the oldest,
lives at Forest City, Iowa. Karen Thompson, oldest daughter of Hans
Thompson, married Jens Skipnes (better known as John A. Johnson of
the firm, Fuller and Johnson, Madison, Wisconsin), and with him lived
near Stoughton, Wisconsin, where she died about four years after their
marriage.
[307] See Koshkonong Church Register, page 324 below.
All the above thirty-one persons who emigrated in 1844 were from the
vicinity of Skien in Holden, and all came on the same ship, namely,
_Salvator_, Captain Johan Gasman. They were nine weeks on the ocean,
landing in New York July 4th; they came by the regular route to
Milwaukee, thence they drove in lumber wagons to Heart Prairie.
For the year 1845 the following accessions are to be noted: The
brothers Nils and Gunder C. Opsal; Halvor A. Lunde and wife Ann and
six children, most of them grown up, and another son Gulleik and wife
Dorothea; Anders J. Björndokken; Johans Grönsteen with wife Maria and
three children. For 1846 we note the following: Anders Gunderson, John
Arveson and wife Kjersti and four children;[308] Lukas Ingebretson;
Anders G. Bjerva, wife Anne and four children:[309] Anne, Börte Maria,
Karen, and Jens, who many years ago moved to Crookston, Minnesota; and
John Grönsteen and wife Asberg. All those who came during the years
1845-46 were from near Skien.
[308] The mother and one child died that same fall.
[309] She was a widow when he married her. The children of the
second marriage were: Gunder, Christen (Whitewater), Esther
(who was Mrs. Chas. Sobye, Stoughton, Wisconsin, but now
dead). Anders Bjerva and wife died many years ago.
In 1847 Christen M. Bö, wife Inger and four children from Gjerpen came
to Heart Prairie; and in 1848 came Ole Nilsen from Christiansand.
In either 1848 or 1849 came Nils, Steen and Ole Haatvedt; Nils moved
to Wautoma, and Ole settled in Waupaca after living a few years at
Heart Prairie. In 1850 Hans Hanson, a blacksmith, came from Holdon and
located there; he worked for a time with the George Esterly Harvesting
Machine Co., then bought a farm, which he occupied till his death
in 1893. Another blacksmith by the name of Claus Hanson came at the
same time; worked at his trade for a while in Whitewater then went to
Michigan, married and came back and settled in Milwaukee, where he is
still living. In 1851 Arve Gunderson Vale emigrated; his son Hans Vale
had come in 1844; Arve Vale lived only a week after arriving. With him
came Gunder H. Vala and wife Kersti and seven children; they moved to
Vermillion, South Dakota, a few years later, all except the oldest
son Halvor, who is living at Rio, Wisconsin. In that year (1851) came
also Christopher Steenson Haatvedt and his two brothers-in-law, Peter
Kystelson Haatvedt and Christen J. Tveit, while in 1852 came Jörgen A.
Nilson Vibito and wife Karen Kristine, née Hanson, and six children.
Jörgen Nilson had taught parochial school in Norway for twenty-nine
years and continued to do so here for many years.
The above is a complete account of all arrivals to the settlement from
Norway down to the year 1852; the roster of settlers here given has
been patiently gathered during several months of research by Mr. Harvey
Arveson[310] of Whitewater, himself the oldest son of the third settler
in the community, namely Hans Arveson Vale, of whom we have spoken
above. I have followed his manuscript closely, omitting only certain
facts of family and personal history. Mr. Arveson speaks briefly of
the trying summer and fall of 1846 when for a time sickness and death
seemed to threaten to exterminate the settlers of Heart Prairie. I
will quote from his own account of the condition; speaking of John
Grönsteen, who came in 1846 and died that same fall, he continues:
There was so much sickness here at that time that there was hardly
any one well enough to bury those that died; and well can I
remember that the men had to come down to our house and rest before
they could finish the grave, and well can I remember that the cow
stood outside bellowing to be milked and no one able to milk her;
everybody was thirsty as all had fever and ague and had to go a
mile for water before we got to the well, and sometimes no one able
to go after it. I am sure a great many died for want of care, as
there was none that understood the English language and did not
understand how to take their medicine. Those were hard times, and
to many this account may sound incredible; nevertheless, it is true
and I could write volumes and tell true incidents of the trials and
hardships that the old pioneers had to endure.
[310] I acknowledge here with gratitude Mr. Arveson's valuable aid.
It is only through such intelligent interest and patient effort
on the part of the sons of the pioneers themselves, who have
continued to live in the community, that such reliable facts
can be secured.
Whitewater city received no Norwegian settlers until in the fifties,
therefore an account of their coming falls outside the scope of our
discussion. Of the old Skoponong Settlement I am able to give only
a few general facts. The first settlers came in 1843-44; they were:
Kittil Jordgrev, Hans Bukaasa, and Björn Lien from Upper Telemarken,
Hans and Harald Nordbö from Flaa, Hallingdal, Ole Lia from Hiterdal,
Halvor Valkaasa from Sauland, Lars Johnson Lee, Sjur Hydle, Knut T.
Rio, and Tollef Grane from Voss, and Anon Dalos; several of these
had families. Lars Lee and wife Britha came to Muskego in the summer
of 1843 and to Skoponong early in the fall, and were therefore among
the very earliest in that locality. They lived there until 1861, when
they located at Spring Prairie, Town of Leeds, Columbia County.[311]
In his history of the Skoponong Congregation (founded in 1844), C. M.
Mason, Secretary of the congregation, names also the following among
the earliest members of the church: Halvor Mathison (in whose house the
church was organized in 1844), Styrk Erikson, Knud Dokstad, Nils Herre,
Ole Sjurson, Simon Sakrison, Jacob Kaasne, Halvor Glenna, Mathias
Baura, Björn Hefte, Sjur Flittre, Lars Klove, Mathias Lia and Even
Gulseth.
[311] Lars Lee died in 1883, his wife in 1905. Dr. Lewis Johnson Lee
of De Forest, Wisconsin, is their son.
In 1846 Syver O. Haaland, wife and nine children, Hadle Evenson
and wife Anne J. Fjösne, and Tostein H. and Osmond O. Högstul came
to Skoponong, the latter two from Tuddal in Telemarken; the former
were from Etne Parish in Söndhordland. Björn Holland of Hollandale,
Wisconsin, who is a son of Syver Haaland,[312] writes me that they came
on the ship _Kong Sverre_ from Bergen.[313] In Ulvestad's _Nordmaendene
i Amerika_, page 56, appears an account of their first few weeks in
the settlement and of S. Haaland's sickness and death. The Högstul
party came in a brig by the name of _Washington_, which carried iron
from Tvedestrand, commanded by a Norwegian captain by the name of Simon
Cook. He says:
"In Milwaukee, there were only a few stores at the time. We drove
with oxen and a wagon to the so-called Skoponong Settlement near
Whitewater. When we came there nearly all the settlers lay ill with
ague, the condition was wretched. We immediately began to rid and
break some land and after a while we got so far that we could raise
some wheat. But we had to haul it fifty miles to Milwaukee with
oxen; there we got 25 cents per bushel.... wages was usually 25
cents a day in the spring and fall; in the haying it was 50 cents.
But there was little work to get. Like other settlers my parents
were poor. My mother made baskets from withes; these she then
carried on her back about the prairie and sold them to Americans,
getting in return for them flour, pork and garments, in order that
we should not suffer distress."
[312] The family changed the name to Holland in this country.
[313] Letter of May 5, 1905.
Hadle Evenson moved to Perry, Wisconsin, in 1854, where Mrs. Evenson
died in 1861. The oldest son Edwin Hadley, enlisting in Co. E, 15th
Wisconsin, was killed at the Battle of New Hope Church, Georgia, in
May, 1864. In 1875 Mr. Evenson settled at Slater, Story County, Iowa.
Peter Hadley, Treasurer of Webster County, is the only surviving son.
Among the early settlers at Skoponong was Mrs. Ingeborg Nelson who came
from Evanger, Voss, in 1849. She left Skoponong a few years later,
settling permanently at Deerfield, Dane County, in 1853, where she
is still living at the age of ninety-five. Mrs. Nelson is the mother
of Senator Knute Nelson of Minnesota, who was born in Norway in 1843.
Knute Nelson was educated at Albion Academy, Albion, Wisconsin, and
removed to Alexandria, Minnesota in 1871. He was Governor of Minnesota
during 1892-1895. In the latter year he was elected U. S. Senator and
has been reëlected twice since, serving now his third term.
I shall mention one more settler, namely Torstein Rio,[314] born at
Vossevangen in 1835, who, with his wife Ingeborg (Bershaugen) and
family came to America in 1849 on the ship _Henrik Wergeland_ and
located at Skoponong. A brother whose name also was Torstein came at
the same time, and the family included a son Nels (Thompson), who is
living at Madison, Wisconsin, having moved there in 1860.[315] Torstein
Rio died at Skoponong in 1869, his wife died in Madison in 1876.
[314] Father of Knut Rio.
[315] In 1880 Nels Thompson became a member of the well known firm of
clothiers, Boley, Hinrichs and Thompson, later Hinrichs and
Thompson.
At Pine Lake and Nashota in northwestern Waukesha County a considerable
number of Norwegians lived among the forties and fifties, since which
the settlement has dwindled very much.[316] At Pine Lake the first
Swedish settlement founded in America in the last century had been
established in 1841 by Gustav Unonius.[317] In 1843 about fifty
Norwegian families located at Pine Lake, according to Unonius _Minnen_,
1862, page 3. Unonius mentions especially a Captain Hans Gasman as
the principal figure there. Gasman had a large family of sons and
daughters, and the name is a well known one among the early pioneers
of Racine, Waukesha, and Dodge Counties.[318] Other members of the
family were Charles, Peter and Captain Johan Gasman, who commanded the
_Salvator_, plying between Skien and New York. This very ship brought
a number who located at Pine Lake, among them Halvor Salveson from
Gjerpen.[319]
[316] Or rather also in part Americanized.
[317] I have discussed this in my _Chapters on Scandinavian
Immigration_ (1906), pages 83-85.
[318] Into this county the settlement extended to and about Ashippun
and Toland.
[319] Many of those who came with Capt. Gasman this time went to
Heart Prairie.
Among the fifty families who came to Pine Lake in 1843 I may name
Engelbret Salveson from Gjerpen, Erik Helgeson, Hans Roe, Christen
Puttekaasa, Halvor Rosholt, Jacob Rosholt, Peter Næs from near
Skien and Gjerpen, Ellef Björnson and Halvor Halvorson from Saude,
Telemarken, and Tollef Waller from Eidanger in Lower Telemarken,
Christopher Aamodt and Hans Uhlen from Modum, Tolleiv Röisland and Ole
Nummeland from Vallö in Sætersdalen and Ole Lia from Gausdal.[320]
Some of these, as e. g. Halvor Halvorson[321] located in the extreme
northern part of the settlement at Toland, and John Lia settled across
the Jefferson County line,[322] but most located in Waukesha County at
Hartland or Nashota.
[320] Holand _De norske Settlementers Historie_, page 170, to which
I am indebted chiefly for this roll of immigrants to Nashota,
etc., in 1843.
[321] Halvorson died in the spring of 1908 as the last of the
original Norwegian settlers at Toland; he was born in 1818,
married in 1848 Kirsten Aandrud, who survives him.
In subsequent years there arrived constantly new settlers from Skien,
Sætersdal and Gudbrandsdalen, but even in the later forties many began
to go to the counties immediately northwest to Waupaca and Portage
counties and elsewhere. In 1850-54 these counties, as also Waushara and
Winnebago counties on the south, received hosts of Norwegian settlers,
some coming direct from Norway, a large number however from Racine and
Dane Counties, and the Pine Lake region.[323] The period of growth
in this settlement was therefore relatively short, and the removals
relatively large. The result was that the Norwegians came to live more
scattered and the community soon began to lose its distinctive national
character. Thus it is significant, that of the ninety services held
during 1907 in _Vor Frelsers Kirke_ at Oconomowoc sixty-three were in
the English language.[324] But we are here touching upon questions
which it is not our purpose to discuss in connection with the survey of
settlement.
[322] Through John Lia's influence this then came to be the
destination of the earliest emigrants from Gudbrandsdalen
between 1846-49.
[323] Walworth County contributed some of the number; thus Ole
Sögal, the first Norwegian settler at Heart Prairie, was one
of those who went to Waushara County.
[324] By way of comparison the number of English services to
Norwegian as far as statistics are available were in the
following localities: Morris, Ill., 13 of 67, Blue Mounds,
Dane Co., Wis., 0 of 22; Leland, Ill., 14 of 28; Stoughton,
Wis., 35 of 80; Long Prairie, 7 of 25; Koshkonong, 0 of 75;
"Muskego," 41 of 112.