THE GREAT IMMIGRATION OF 1880--CAUSE OF
If a man had stood by the king's highway leading from Opdal, Norway,
to the seaport town of Trondhjem, in the month of April, 1880, he
could have witnessed a strange and significant scene. Here comes a
procession of twenty or more sleds, each drawn by a single small
horse. The sleds were heavily loaded with large, blue-tinted chests,
as also trunks, satchels and numerous smaller articles of household
and family use. Riding on top of these loads are mothers with little
children as also a number of grandmothers, the latter upwards of
seventy years of age. A number of lighter sleds, or cutters, are also
in the procession. These belong to friends of this pilgrim procession,
who are accompanying them part way and are now about to say, or have
already said, their final farewell and Godspeed to these
pilgrims--their friends and relations. This may explain in part the
fact that the men walk by the side of their loads in silence, with
downcast eyes and a lump in their throats, while the women show clear
traces of recent tears. Nor can we blame them for succumbing for the
moment to their emotions when we come to understand the meaning of
this strange scene.
These people, about sixty in number, this day were leaving that spot
on God's earth most dear to them; leaving the birthplace and the
resting-place of a hundred generations of their ancestors, they were
looking for the last time on their former homes and on the dear
familiar spots so well known from their childhood. They had just
looked for the last time upon the faces of their friends and near
relatives and spoken the last words, and soon they were to see the
receding outlines of the mountain peaks of their beloved fatherland,
nevermore to see them again. For they were on the way to America, and
America was very far off in those days, and to most people going there
the way back was forever closed. So to these people these last
glimpses and handshakes and words were the final, as far as this world
went, and they were all too well aware of it.
But let us pause in the journey at this point, while still under the
influence of the nearby majestic mountains, robed in evergreen and
crowned with the snows of generations, so as to get acquainted with
the individuals of this company and also to learn the causes which
could lead these people to an undertaking so fraught with momentous
destiny for all of them and for their descendants to the end of time.
As we have already surmised, these people were not light-minded
adventurers or people who had nothing to risk or lose. On the
contrary, they were deeply rooted where they were and they did not
pluck up their life by the roots to be transplanted in a far-off,
unknown soil without careful consideration and a great motive.
First we meet Berhaug Rise (later written Reese) who seems to be a
leader in this particular group we have before us. He is a man of
about forty-five, of spare build and medium height. He has a family
consisting of wife and five children--four boys and one girl; also his
mother who is nearly seventy years of age. The children's names were
Ole, eleven years; Halvor, nine; John, coming seven; Sivert, five; and
Mary, three years, and named after the grandmother.
Next we get acquainted with Halvor Hevle, a man also of about
forty-five, but because of a terrible affliction of rheumatism, was
bent over so that his face is toward the ground. He is accompanied by
his wife, Marit, but they have no children.
Then there is Thore Fossem with his wife, his mother and one little
girl, Marie, named after the grandmother. It should be explained here
that while this last named family was not present in the above group
just at this point of the story but came a little later, yet because
Mr. Fossem belongs by every other circumstance to this group, and in
spiritual kinship and motive particularly with the above two, we
include him here. With Thore Fossem came Ingebricht Satrum with one of
his boys, I believe, but most of his family came over a year or two
later.
The above three men had all been owners of small or medium sized farms
and had advanced money for transportation to most of the others in the
party from the recent sale of their properties. The remainder of the
party, as we shall see, was largely composed of middle aged tradesmen,
young unattached men and girls, practically all of them without means
of their own to make the long journey. Most of these middle aged men
of trades had left large families behind and expected to earn enough
money in the new land to repay their own passage and also to send for
their families as soon as possible. But more of this later, for the
when and the how of the repayment of some of these transportations
would be out of place here, tho not without some very interesting
features.
One of these men who was master of a trade and who also belongs, in
the sense of an absolutely kindred spirit, to the above three, was
Iver Sneve. He left wife and five children, taking with him his two
older boys, Ingebricht and Ole.
In much the same economic relation was Anders Ellingson Loe, a
shoemaker by trade. Also Arne Loe, who was a mason and left wife and
three children behind until he could send for them.
To this class should also be added Ingebricht Brenden, having left his
wife and five children--Ingebricht, Knut, Elli, Sigrid and Kjerstine.
Among the younger married men were John Lien with wife and one boy,
Esten, as also his mother, who was another member of the considerable
group of grandmas in the party.
Here should be mentioned also Lars Hansen Almen with wife and two
boys--Hans and Olaus as also Mrs. Almen's mother, who makes the fourth
member of the remarkable grandmother class in this group of pilgrims
to a faraway country.
Then there were the following young and middle aged unmarried men and
women: Ildri Loe, now Mrs. Sneve of Inwood, Iowa; Kari Rathe; Marit
Myren; Haakon Mellemsether or Haagenson; Sivert Aalbu; John Riskaasen;
and Jens Rise.
In all there were fifty-two passages bought on the same boat for the
same place in America; viz., Yankton, South Dakota. One or two of the
group, I believe, went to Brookings, South Dakota, including Mr.
Haagenson.
We left these people, while making this digression, on the king's
highway severing forever the strong ties that bound them to the land
and the people of their birth. As we now resume our journey with them,
especially if we have not made the trip before, we are irresistibly
attracted by the wild and rugged manifestations of nature along our
route. Both the way and its surroundings were prophetic of the much
further stretching way to be traversed, often with weary feet, by
these people, could they have foreseen it.
The road, tho well built, winds endlessly and often in sharp turns
thru the narrow valley between the mountains which in places almost
form a gorge. In many places the road is cut out of the solid rock of
the mountain side so that on one side is the high and nearly
perpendicular cliff; on the other, and only a few feet away, the
almost perpendicular descent to the raging, roaring river hundreds of
feet below. The sun is only now (April) beginning to reduce the eight
months' snow on the mountains. This turns the river in the main
valleys, as well as the hundreds of smaller streams coming down the
mountain sides, into whitefoamed, tumultuous torrents rolling great
stones before them and resounding thru the adjacent valleys and
mountain sides with a deep and deafening roar--beware! beware!
Looking up the mountain sides we see pine and evergreen creeping up
well toward the top. But while the sides are thus robed in beautiful
green, the tops are crowned with the pure white of the "eternal"
snows. So here was both music and raiment fit for kings and the sons
of Vikings, and these sounds and sights those people never forgot nor
could forget.
After a two-day tramp thru the snow and slush we reach the railway
station, Storen, fifty miles from our starting point. Here the drivers
return and more sad partings and some tears. Fortunately the new
sights and experiences now begin to crowd upon the consciousness of
these people and help them forget for the time being, just what they
most need to forget, what lies behind, if they are to successfully
march forward. Most of these people had never before been out of the
parish in which they were born or seen a railway or locomotive, not to
speak of riding behind one. And being naturally intelligent and
forward looking men and women, they took a deep interest in the new
world which continually unfolded to them as they journeyed on toward
their faroff destination, covering nearly a month of time.
We must now turn to the causes or motives which led these people to
undertake this long journey, so full of perils and uncertainties, and
also of hardships which can better be imagined than described in
detail. Transatlantic travel, forty years ago, was about as different
from what it is now as the ox team was different from the automobile.
The causes of this emigration, as one might almost surmise, were both
economic and religious. The religious motive was especially apparent
as far as the leaders were concerned.
Some years before this migration, a traveling evangelist had come thru
Opdal and had held meetings from house to house in the neighborhood
where these people lived, the state church building not being open for
that sort of religious exercises. His name was Hans Remen, or as he
was often called, Hans Romsdalen. He was a giant in physical
proportions and also had a moral courage and religious ardor to match
his body. He denounced the dead forms of religion current in the
Lutheran State Church as of no avail, and worse than nothing, in that
they caused people to rest their salvation on a false foundation. He
testified by reference to the Bible, and to personal experience, that
the only basis of salvation for man was a personal, vital relation to
Jesus Christ, entered into by faith; and that in Him alone could man
find forgiveness of sin, peace with God, and a good conscience.
The ground was somewhat ready for this sort of seed in that there was
a considerable number of people who had come to feel about the State
Church, much as the evangelist expressed it. Among them were the
leaders of these emigrants, Berhaug Rise (or as the name came to be
spelled, Reese), Halvor Hevle, Iver Sneve and Thore Fossem. A revival
of religion resulted and there came to be a considerable group of
people who sought a more vital religion than what was manifested in
the State Church. Thru worship and preaching in private houses,
however, they could find an open door and they continued this
movement. This religious movement thus gained more and more adherents,
so that not only had most of the members of this exodus been touched
by it but also many more who were left behind at this time.
It was a foregone conclusion that these lay preachers, especially the
above mentioned leaders, would soon find themselves marked for
persecution by the representatives of the established church and also
by petty government officials who of course stood back of that church
organization. Then, too, while looking upon the State Church not only
as dead religiously but also as a positive menace to true religion, in
that it led people astray, and persecuted those who were trying to
lead the way back to the teachings of the lowly Nazarene, yet they
were compelled to give a tithe of their principal farm produce toward
the upkeep of this institution.
There was much discussion and many clashes between the adherents of
the old and the new. But as the chasm seemed to widen, and the hope of
vitalizing the State Church from within to lessen, being backed as it
was financially and otherwise by the whole machinery of the
government, this religious situation and persecution became a strong
motive for seeking a freer atmosphere.
Then strongly re-enforcing the religious motive were both the general
as also some special economic conditions at this time, which pressed
upon these people. As aforesaid, the leaders of this movement had been
owners of small and medium sized farms, but with debts on them. Yet
under ordinary conditions they could have managed to take care of
these obligations, as they were long-time loans and at low rates of
interest. But worse than these larger obligations was the fact that
some of them had somehow fallen into the hands of the professional
loan sharks and usurers of the place. The method of procedure of these
parasites was to make short time loans, generally becoming due in the
fall of the year, and taking security in the milch cows or grain crop
of the small farmers. On the very day of maturity they would demand
immediate payment or threaten foreclosure with its attendant expense
and annoyance to the borrower. Having bullied and scared their victims
into the suitable state of mind they would, with hypocritical pretense
of graciousness, offer to compromise by buying the mortgaged
property, usually milch cows and seed grain, themselves, thus saving
the expense and disgrace of going to law. This was generally accepted
and the sale made, but of course at the lender's price. Then in the
spring the farmers had to have cows and seed grain to do any business
and usually had to buy both back again from these sharks, thus getting
into their hands again, and thus the vicious circle continued until
the poor borrower was finally worn out and had to give up the
struggle.
However, the final blow, economically, which brought the leaders of
our party to the great decision of emigrating, was a certain
cooperative mercantile enterprise which they had helped to form
supposedly for the economic benefit of the community. This was in the
early dawn of the cooperative movement in Norway, and these people
were quick to see its economic possibilities, but had not yet learned
to know and to guard against the many pitfalls which such enterprises
have to face and avoid if they are to succeed. And dearly did they pay
for their first lesson.
The shares of the company were assessable with unlimited liabilities
on the part of the share holder. Thus, of course the business had
almost unlimited credit with wholesalers. For a time the organization
seemed to prosper. After a while, however, suspicion began to form in
the minds of some that things were not just right. An investigation
was eventually made. The manager immediately disappeared. The
government now stepped in and declared a bankruptcy. The manager,
having gotten away beyond recall, the wholesale houses presented bills
of all kinds and large amounts for goods which the directors felt
certain had never been received. But with the manager absconded the
company could not disprove these claims, and the court, belonging
socially and politically to the big business class, naturally held the
scales of justice, socalled, in favor of the wholesale creditors. The
result was that these poor pioneers in the field of economic
cooperation found themselves liable and their property attached for
as much as 6000% of the face value of their shares. It goes without
saying that the government officials saw to it that they themselves
got their utmost limit out of the general slaughter. Berhaug Rise and
a couple of other victims appealed to the courts against the high
handed work of the big business concerns, and the petty government
officials involved, but lost the case, and all that they had was
attached and ordered sold.
Finding revealed thru all this procedure the persecution both of the
civil and the ecclesiastical authorities, and seeing no chance at that
point of either religious or economic betterment for themselves and
their children, they came to the great decision to try their fortunes
in the far-away land of which they had heard many and strange tales.
For them, as for so many others of every race and tongue, this
far-away land was the land of their dreams; the land of the true where
they could live anew; where the song birds dwell; the land of promise,
and also of fulfillment, of hitherto crushed hopes and thwarted
aspirations.
Returning now to follow our party from Trondhjem, where we left them,
to Yankton, South Dakota, we find that the journey was mostly the
uneventful, uncomfortable one which was the lot of immigrants of forty
years ago, or early '80's. There was much sea sickness and much
loathing and disgust with the food and accommodations, both of such a
quality as they had never experienced before. Fortunately most of them
had food of their own.
The nearest to any mishap to any of the party fell to the lot of the
writer of this chronicle, who was a boy of six years. It happened in
the awful throng and confusion of Castle Garden, the old landing place
of immigrants at New York City. I was committed to the care of a
certain servant girl of the family, there being four other children to
be kept track of by father and mother. But in the noise and confusion
of embarking on certain transports taking us to the railway on the
main land, she seems to have lost her head as well as her charge, and
I recall that I found myself wandering alone among the vast spaces of
Castle Garden and the docks. I was crying because of the loss of
father, mother, and all my friends, and searching for them in vain. At
length some sort of official discovered me and after some questioning
he joined me in the search. We went out on some boats, I recall, where
people were embarking, and he inquired everywhere if anyone had lost a
boy. I recall very vividly how a woman at one place claimed me as her
very own and how I protested with more vehemence than politeness. The
official took my view of the case. We continued our search and at last
we met Father, who by this time had discovered my absence and started
out to search. Needless to say, there was more joy over my return than
over the four other children who had not strayed away.
Thus the transportation company at length was enabled to carry out its
contract of delivering the same number of heads at Yankton as it took
on at Trondhjem. And they did it much in the same matter-of-fact and
impersonal way as a railroad company undertakes to deliver so many
head of cattle at the stockyards of Chicago.--All the honor to them
that they deserved!