THE RISING STREAM OF NORWEGIAN IMMIGRATION.
The second period of Norwegian immigration, extending from 1836 to 1850,
is marked by the strengthening and deepening of the emigration impulse
in Norway and by its spread to new districts, and also by the deflection
of the course of the rising stream in the United States. Not merely in
the vicinity of Stavanger, from which a second party, made up of 93
persons from Egersund, followed the wake of the first and reached
Illinois in 1837, but from Bergen and in the districts near it, the
"America fever" was spreading. The letters of Hovland circulated there,
and at least three men journeyed to interview Slogvig. Knud Langeland,
whose little book on the Northmen in America is frequently quoted in
these pages, relates how, as a young man of sixteen, his imagination was
fired by reading a small volume written by a German and entitled
_Journey in America_, which he discovered in the library of a friend in
Bergen in 1829; how he read eagerly for several years everything which
he could lay hands on relating to America; and how he gathered all
possible information about the emigration from England, during a visit
to that country in 1834--and then became himself an immigrant.[60]
[60] Langeland, _Nordmændene i Amerika_, 20-21. See Cobbett, _The
Emigrant's Guide_ (London, 1829), a typical English guide book
of the period.
By 1837 a goodly number were determined to emigrate, and had disposed of
their holdings of land. A way opened for them to make the long voyage
under especially favorable circumstances. Captain Behrens, owner and
commander of the ship _Ægir_, on his return to Bergen in the autumn of
1836, learned that a large party wanted transportation to America. In
New York he had seen vessels fitted up for the English and German
immigrant traffic; he had learned the requirement, of the laws of the
United States on the subject; two German ministers who returned to
Europe in his ship, gave him further information. He therefore fitted up
his vessel for passengers, and carried out his contract to transport to
New York the party which finally numbered 84, being mainly made up of
married men each with "numerous family," at least one of which counted
eight persons.[61] From New York the company proceeded to Detroit, where
they were joined by the two Nattestad brothers from Numedal, and from
thence they went by water to Chicago.
[61] Langeland, _Nordmændene i Amerika_, 25 ff.
Their original intention was to go to the La Salle County settlement,
but in Chicago they met some of the Fox River people, Björn Anderson
among others, who gave such an unfavorable account of conditions in that
colony that the majority determined to seek another location. At the
instigation of certain Americans, presumably land speculators, a
prospecting party of four, including Ole Rynning, one of the leading
spirits of the company, went into the region directly south of Chicago
and finally chose a site on Beaver Creek. Thither about fifty immigrants
went, and began the third Norwegian settlement, which proved to be the
most unfortunate one in the history of Norwegian immigration. Log huts
were built and the winter passed without unusual hardships, tho it was
soon evident that a mistake was made in settling so far from neighbors
and from a base of supplies at that time of the year when the soil
produced nothing. Serious troubles, however, developed with the spring,
and grew with the summer. The land which appeared so dry and so
well-covered with good grass when it was selected and purchased in
August or September, proved to be so swampy that cultivation was
impossible before June. Malaria attacked the settlers, and as they were
beyond the reach of medical aid, nearly two-thirds of them died before
the end of the summer. The remnant of the colony fled as for their
lives, regardless of houses and lands, and scarcely one of them
remained on the ground by the end of 1838.[62]
[62] Langeland, _Nordmændene i Amerika_, 30 ff; Anderson, _Norwegian
Immigration_, 195 ff.
One of the victims of these hard experiences was Ole Rynning, who
succumbed to fever in the autumn of 1838. Tho in America scarcely a year
and a half, he is one of the uniquely important figures in the history
of Norwegian immigration. The son of a curate in Ringsaker in central
Norway, and himself dedicated by his parents to the church, he passed
the examinations for entrance to the University of Christiania, but
turned aside to teaching in a private school near Throndhjem for four
years before his emigration.[63] He is invariably spoken of as a man of
generous, philanthropic spirit, genuinely devoted to the human needs of
his fellow immigrants.
[63] Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, 203-205; Langeland,
_Nordmændene i Amerika_, 31. Much information regarding
Rynning was derived from the Rev. B. J. Muus, of Minnesota,
a nephew of Rynning.
Having learned by personal observation in America the answers to many of
the questions which he, as a man of education, had asked himself in
Norway, he took advantage of the confinement following the freezing of
his feet during a long exploring tour in Illinois, to write a little
book of some forty pages, to which he gave the title (in translation):
"A true Account of America, for the Instruction and Use of the Peasants
and Common people, written by a Norwegian who arrived there in the Month
of June, 1837."[64] The manuscript of this first of many guidebooks for
Norwegian emigrants was taken back to Norway by Ansten Nattestad and
printed in Christiania in 1838.[65] It plays so large a part in a great
movement, that a detailed analysis is worth presenting.
[64] Sandfærdig Beretning om Amerika til Veiledning og Hjælp for
Bonde og Menigmand, skrevet af en Norsk som kom der i Juni
Maaned, 1837.
[65] _Billed Magazin_, I, 94.
The preface, bearing the author's signature and the date, "Illinois,
February 13, 1838," is translated as follows:
"Dear Countrymen,--Peasants and Artisans! I have now been in America
eight months, and in that time I have had an opportunity of finding out
much in regard to which I in vain sought information before I left
Norway. I then felt how disagreeable it is for those who wish to
emigrate to America to be in want of a reliable and tolerably complete
account of the country. I also learned how great is the ignorance of the
people, and what false and ridiculous reports were accepted as the full
truth. In this little book it has, therefore, been my aim to answer
every question which I asked myself, and to clear up every point in
regard to which I observed that people were ignorant, and to disprove
false reports which have come to my ears, partly before I left Norway,
and partly after my arrival here."[66]
[66] Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, 207-208. In making this and
the following translations, Mr. Anderson used the copy of
Rynning's book belonging to the Rev. B. J. Muus, the only copy
known to be in America. This copy is now in the library of the
University of Illinois.
The body of the book is made up of thirteen chapters devoted to these
questions and their answers:
1-3. The location of America, the distance from Norway, the nature
of the country, and the reason why so many people go there.
4. "Is it not to be feared that the land will soon be
overpopulated? Is it true that the government there is going to
prohibit immigration?"
5-6. What part of the land is settled by Norwegians, and how is it
reached? What is the price of land, of cattle, of the necessaries
of life? How high are wages?
7. "What kind of religion is there in America? Is there any sort of
order and government, or can every man do what he pleases?"
8-9. Education, care of the poor, the language spoken in America,
and the difficulties of learning it.
10. Is there danger of disease in America? Is there reason to fear
wild animals and the Indians?
11. Advice as to the kind of people to emigrate, and warning
against unreasonable expectations.
12. "What dangers may be expected on the ocean? Is it true that
those who are taken to America are sold as slaves?"
13. Advice as to vessels, routes, seasons, exchange of money, etc.
Rynning assured his readers, in the seventh chapter, that America is not
a purely heathen country, but that the Christian religion prevails with
liberty of conscience, and that "here as in Norway, there are laws,
government, and authority, and that the common man can go where he
pleases without passport, and may engage in such occupation as he
likes."[67] Then follows this strong, significant paragraph,
intelligently describing the slavery system, which undoubtedly had a
powerful influence on the future location, and hence on the politics, of
the immigrants from Scandinavia:
"In the Southern States these poor people (Negroes) are bought and sold
like other property, and are driven to their work with a whip like
horses and oxen. If a master whips his slave to death or in his rage
shoots him dead, he is not looked upon as a murderer.... In Missouri the
slave trade is still permitted, but in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin
Territory it is strictly forbidden, and the institution is strictly
despised.... There will probably soon come a separation between the
Northern and Southern States or a bloody conflict."
[67] Rynning, _Sandfærdig Beretning_, 23, 24. Translated in Anderson,
_Norwegian Immigration_, 214-215.
From the account given thirty years afterwards by Ansten Nattestad, it
appears that a chapter on the religious condition of Norway was omitted
by the Rev. Mr. Kragh of Eidsvold, who read the proofs, because of its
criticisms of the clergy for their intolerance, and for their inactivity
in social and educational reforms.[68] This has led some writers like R.
B. Anderson to attribute large weight to religious persecution as a
cause of emigration. While religious repression was a real grievance
and affected many of the early emigrants, the cases where it was the
moving or dominant cause of emigration after 1835 are so few as to be
almost negligible.[69] At best, it re-enforced and completed a
determination based on other motives. For most Norwegian dissenters, the
Haugians for example, lack of toleration was rather an annoyance than a
distress, save, perhaps, for the more persistent and turbulent
leaders.[70] It is hardly fair, therefore, to compare them, as a whole,
with the Huguenots of France.[71]
[68] _Billed Magazin_, I, 94.
[69] Letters of R. B. Anderson and J. A. Johnson, _Daily Skandinaven_,
Feb. 7, 1896.
[70] Brohough, _Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed_, 10-11, 20-21,
30-36.
[71] Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, 50.
In the years immediately following 1838, the "America Book," distributed
from Christiania, went on its missionary journeys and reached many
parishes where the disaster at Beaver Creek and the untimely death of
Ole Rynning had never been heard of. By its compact information and its
intelligent advice, it converted many to the new movement. The diary of
Ole Nattestad, printed in Drammen in the same year, seems to have
exerted very little influence, but the visit of his brother Ansten to
his home in Numedal, in east-central Norway, a hitherto unstirred
region, awakened keen and active interest in America, and again men
travelled as far as 125 English miles to meet one who had returned from
the vast land beyond the Atlantic.[72]
[72] _Billed Magazin_, I, 94.
The first party from Numedal left Drammen in the spring of 1839, under
the leadership of Nattestad, and went directly to New York. It numbered
about one hundred able-bodied farmers with their families, some of them
being men with considerable capital. From New York they went to Chicago,
expecting to join Ole Nattestad at the Fox River. At the latter city
they learned that he had gone into Wisconsin after his brother left for
Norway in 1838, and that he had there purchased land in the township of
Clinton in Rock County, thus being probably the first Norwegian settler
in Wisconsin. Accordingly the larger part of the Numedal party followed
him to the newer region, where better land could be had than any
remaining in La Salle County, Illinois, at the minimum price, and took
up sections near Jefferson Prairie. Thus the current of Scandinavian
settlement was deflected from Illinois to Wisconsin, and later comers
from Numedal, in 1840 and afterwards, steered straight for southeastern
Wisconsin. In 1839 and later other recruits for the growing and
prosperous settlement of Norwegians in Rock County and adjoining
counties came from Voss and the vicinity of Bergen. Possibly the
difference of dialects had something to do with drawing people from the
same province or district into one settlement, but in a general way the
same reasons and processes operated among the Norwegian emigrants as
among those from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia who settled
in various States in sectional groups, sometimes dividing a county by a
well-defined line.
Closely connected with this settlement, begun under the leadership of
the Nattestad brothers, were other settlements in adjacent townships,--at
Rock Prairie or Luther Valley, comprising the present towns of Plymouth,
Newark, Avon, and Spring Valley in Rock County, Wisconsin, and Rock Run
in Illinois. Through these settlements many new comers filtered and
spread out rapidly toward the West and Northwest, reaching in a few
years as far as Mineral Point, more than fifty miles from Jefferson
Prairie.
Other sections of Norway than those already mentioned began to feel the
effects of the emigration bacillus after 1837, and the processes
illustrated by the movements from Stavanger, Bergen, and Numedal were
repeated--the emigration of two or three, letters sent home, the return
of a man here and there, the organization of the party, the long
journey, and the selection of the new home. Thelemark, the rugged
mountainous district in south central Norway, was in a condition to be
strongly moved by stories of freer and larger opportunities. Long before
1837, great tracts of land in Upper Thelemark became the property of two
wealthy lumber men, and the tenant-farmers were drawn more and more into
work in the lumber mills, to the neglect of farming and grazing.
Consequently, when logging was suspended in the hard times, and the
wages, already low, were stopped altogether, great distress resulted,
and emigration seemed about the only means of escape. "With lack of
employment and with impoverishment, debt and discontent appeared as the
visible evidences of the bad condition. That was the golden age of the
money-lenders and sheriffs. So the America fever raged, and many crossed
the ocean in the hope of finding a bit of ground where they could live
and enjoy the fruits of their labors without daily anxiety about
paydays, rents, and executions."[73]
[73] Translated from _Billed Magazin_, I, 18 ff.
A company of about forty, representing eleven families from Thelemark,
failing to get accommodations with the Nattestad party at Drammen, went
on to Skien and thence to Gothenburg, where they secured passage in an
American vessel loaded with iron, and made the voyage to Boston in two
months.[74] Three weeks more were consumed in the circuitous journey to
Milwaukee by way of New York, Albany, the Erie Canal and the Great
Lakes. Like several other parties of that year they originally aimed at
Illinois.[75] But their boat "leaked like a sieve," and the stop at
Milwaukee was probably precautionary. Instead of proceeding further,
they were persuaded to send a committee, under the guidance of an
American, into the present county of Waukesha, where they selected a
tract about fourteen miles southwest of Milwaukee, on the shore of Lake
Muskego.[76] Here each adult man took up forty acres at the usual
minimum price of $1.25 per acre, and so began the Muskego colony
proper, the name, Muskego, however, being later applied to the group of
settlements in Waukesha County and to several towns in Racine
County.[77] Like the colony in Rock County, the Muskego group grew
rapidly in spite of malarial troubles, and for ten years it was an
objective point for immigrants from Thelemark, and a halting place for
those bound for the frontier farther west in Wisconsin or in Iowa.
[74] _Ibid._, 6-7.
[75] A shipping notice in the _Boston Daily Advertiser_, Aug. 1,
1839 reads: "Passengers,--in the "Venice" from Gothenburg, 67
Norwegians on their way to Illinois."
[76] An oft-repeated story tells how the company was persuaded to
remain in Wisconsin by some enterprising Milwaukee men who
pointed out to the immigrants a fat, healthy-looking man as
a specimen of what Wisconsin would do for a man, and a lean,
sickly-looking man as a warning of what the scorching heats
and fever of Illinois would quickly do to a man who settled
there. See _Billed Magazin_, I, 7.
[77] _Billed Magazin_, I, 10.
As the emigration movement from Norway increased, the planning of
settlements and the organization of parties took on a more definite and
business-like air. The process is well illustrated in the case of the
town of Norway in Racine County, Wisconsin, which was one of the most
successfully managed settlements in the Northwest. In the fall of 1839,
two intelligent men of affairs, Sören Bakke, the son of a rich merchant
of Drammen, and John Johnson (Johannes Johannesson), came to America on
a prospecting tour, for the purpose of finding a place where they might
invest money in land as a foundation for a colony, which they may
possibly have intended to serve as a new home for a sect of dissenters
known as Haugians.[78] After visiting Fox River in Illinois, and various
locations in Wisconsin, they found a tract that suited them--good land,
clear water, and abundance of game and fish, enough to satisfy the most
fastidious. This they purchased, building a cabin on it and awaiting the
coming of their friends to whom they sent a favorable report.[79] The
party arrived in the autumn of 1840, under the leadership of Even Heg,
an innkeeper of Leir, who brought still more money, which was also
invested in land. Altogether, the money which Bakke brought with him, or
received later, amounted to $6000.[80] It was all used for purchasing
land, which was either sold to well-to-do immigrants, or leased to new
comers. This business was supplemented by a store kept in the first
cabin. Upon the death of Johnson in 1845, Bakke went home and settled
upon an estate owned by his father in Leir, one of the first of the very
small number of men who have returned to permanent residence in Norway
after some years spent in America.[81] Even Heg became the real head of
the colony at Norway, Wisconsin, after the departure of Bakke, whose
interests he continued to look after, and under his management a steady
development followed. This settlement became the Mecca of hundreds of
immigrants arriving in Milwaukee in the late forties, and "Heg's barn
was for some months every summer crowded with newcomers en route for
some place farther west."[82]
[78] _Ibid._, I, 12.
[79] _Ibid._, I, 18.
[80] _Ibid._, I, 12.
[81] _Ibid._; Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, 280 ff.
[82] Langeland, _Nordmændene i Amerika_, 44; _Billed Magazin_, I, 13.
Another important and highly prosperous group of settlements, called
Koshkonong after the lake and creek of that name, sprang up in 1840 and
1841, in the southwestern corner of Jefferson County, Wisconsin, and the
adjacent parts of Dane and Rock Counties. The beginning was made by men
who removed thither from the Fox River and Beaver Creek localities after
investigating the lands in Wisconsin. In 1840 there were nine entries of
land by Norwegians in the present townships of Albion, Christiana, and
Deerfield, the usual purchase being eighty acres; the next few years saw
the spread of the colony to the townships of Pleasant Valley and
Dunkirk, from the influx of immigrants from Illinois and from
Norway.[83] After the stress and hardship of the first pioneer years,
the fortunate choice of location in one of the best agricultural
sections of Wisconsin told very promptly, and Koshkonong became "the
best known, richest, and most interesting Norwegian settlement in
America, the destination of thousands of pilgrims from the fatherland
since 1840."[84] Many of the farms are still in possession of the
families of the original settlers, whose children are prominent in
business, professional and political circles.
[83] Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, 326 ff. Anderson quotes in
full a letter from the United States Commissioner of Land Office
giving date and extent of each entry by Norwegians.
[84] M. W. Odland, _Amerika_, Jan. 15, 1904.
The movement of the stream of Norwegian immigrants after 1845 was
distinctly in a direction westward from the Wisconsin settlements; the
land farther out on the prairies was better, tho it did not have the
combination of timber and stream or lake which the early settlers
insisted on having, often to their detriment, since land chosen with
reference to these requirements was apt to be marshy. The fresh
arrivals, after a few weeks or months in the friendly and helpful
communities of early immigrants, were better prepared by a partial
acclimatization, by knowledge of the steps necessary for acquiring
citizenship and land-ownership, and by the formation of definite plans
of procedure, for the next stage in the western course of their empire.
Occasionally a shrewd farmer of the older companies took advantage of
the rise in the value of his farm, sold out, and bought another tract
farther out on the frontier, perhaps repeating the process two or three
times.[85] John Nelson Luraas, for example, was one of those men who
first spent some time in Muskego, then bought land in Norway, Racine
County; after improving it for three years, he sold it in 1843 and moved
into Dane County.[86] Here he lived for twenty-five years, and then
moved into Webster County, Iowa, taking up new land. After a few years
he went back to his Dane County property, where he spent another
thirteen years; finally, as an aged, retired, wealthy farmer, he died in
the village of Stoughton in 1890.[87]
[85] Langeland, _Nordmændene i Amerika_, 44-45; _Billed Magazin_,
I, 13.
[86] It may be well to note that the name of Dane county has no
relation to Scandinavian settlement, but was given in honor
of Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, author of the Northwest
Ordinance of 1787.
[87] Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, 276.
Provision for religious instruction and ministration was one of the
early concerns of the Norwegian immigrants, as would be expected from a
people essentially religious, who moved by whole families. Nor was there
much distinction between the more orthodox and the dissenters. After
their magnetic center shifted to the west in 1835 and the settlements
and population multiplied, a good deal of lay preaching of one sort and
another went on,--Lutheran, Methodist, Haugian, Baptist, Episcopalian,
and Mormon. Lay services, in fact, were the rule all along the westward
moving frontier, and services conducted by regular clergymen the
exception. One of the Norwegians wrote: "We conducted our religious
meetings in our own democratic way. We appointed our leader and
requested some one to read from a book of sermons.... We prayed,
exhorted, and sang among ourselves, and even baptised our babies
ourselves."[88]
[88] A letter of John E. Molee, February, 1895, quoted by Anderson,
_Norwegian Immigration_, 320. (See also, _ibid._, 396-399.)
Cut off by language from much participation in English worship--a man
must know an alien tongue long and thoroly to make it serviceable for
religious purposes--the men from Numedal, Vos, and Drammen, felt keenly a
great need for some one to instruct their children in the Norwegian
language and in the Lutheran religion after the Old World customs. In
1843, two hundred men and women in the flourishing group of settlements
around Jefferson Prairie, Wisconsin, signed a petition addressed to
Bishop Sörenson in Norway asking him to send them a capable and pious
young pastor, to whom they promised to give a parsonage, 80 acres of
land, $300 in money, and fees for baptisms, marriages, and the like.[89]
Tho this petition itself seems not to have been answered, it was not
long before a properly ordained clergyman arrived.
[89] Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, 255.
Claus Lauritz Clausen, a Danish student of theology seeking employment
as a tutor in Norway, was persuaded, probably by the father of Sören
Bakke in Drammen, to heed the call from America.[90] On his arrival in
the West in 1843, he found the need for a pastor and preacher more
urgent than for a teacher, and accordingly he sought and received
ordination at the hands of a German Lutheran minister, October,
1843.[91] He proceeded to organize, in Heg's barn at Norway, the
first congregation of Norwegian Lutherans in the United States, and so
began a career of useful ministration which lasted nearly half a
century. Not long after his ordination, its validity was called in
question by strict Lutherans. The question was finally submitted to the
theological faculty of the University of Christiania, which decided that
"the circumstance that an ordination is performed by a minister and not
by a bishop, cannot in itself destroy the validity of the ministerial
ordination."[92] At any rate, Clausen's activity, general helpfulness,
staunchness of convictions, and length of service, if not his
ordination, make him one of the typical pioneer preachers.[93]
[90] Nelson, _Scandinavians in the United States_, (2d ed.) 387 ff.
[91] Bothne, _Kort Udsigt_, 835 ff.
[92] Jacobs, _Evangelical Lutheran Church_, 411.
[93] Bothne, _Kort Udsigt_, 835; Jensson, _American Lutheran
Biographies_, "Clausen."
Another clergyman of the same class as Clausen, was Elling Eielsen, a
Haugian lay-preacher who went from place to place in the Northwest from
1839 to 1843, holding services with his countrymen. He was ordained in
the same month as Clausen, and, like him, in a semi-valid fashion, by a
Lutheran clergyman, not a bishop.[94] Like Clausen, also, his term of
labors as a Haugian apostle, passed forty years.[95]
[94] Brohough, _Elling Eielsens Liv og Virksomhed_, ch. II, and App.
[95] Nelson, in his _Scandinavians in the United States_, 388, is
probably mistaken in stating that Eielsen built the first
Norwegian church and organized the first congregation in 1842
at Fox River, confusing the fact that Eielsen had built a log
house on his own land, and held religious services in the loft,
with the possibility of the formation of a congregation.
Eielsen's biographer makes no mention of his organization of
a regular congregation. Brohough, _Elling Eielsens Liv og
Virksomhed_, 61.
Whatever irregularities in the ordination of Clausen or of Eielsen may
have disturbed the consciences of the stricter of the Lutheran sect,
nothing of the sort attached to the Rev. Johannes Wilhelm Christian
Dietrichson, who arrived in 1844, fresh from the University of
Christiania and from the ordaining hands of the Bishop of Christiania.
He was a diligent, aggressive, zealous young man of about thirty, sent
out as a kind of home missionary in foreign parts at the expense of a
wealthy dyer of Christiania. For two years, summer and winter, he went
back and forth in southern Wisconsin ministering to the Norwegians of
all ages and beliefs,--and all for the stipend of $300 yearly.[96] One of
the results of these labors, was a little book, _Reise blandt de norske
Emigranter i "de forenede nordamerikanske Fristater,"_ in which
Dietrichson gives the earliest detailed account of the settlements in
Wisconsin and Illinois before 1846. He described the origin, numbers,
conditions, and prospects of each community in his wide parish. At Fox
River, he says he found about 500, who were of all creeds, mostly
dissenters, including 150 Mormons.
[96] _Minde fra Jubelfesterne paa Koshkonong_ (1894), 54 ff; Bothne,
_Kort Udsigt_, 839-842.
Three church edifices were erected in 1844-5, and dedicated within a
short time of each other. Dietrichson dedicated one at Christiana, Dane
County, Wisconsin, December 19, 1844, and another at Pleasant Valley a
little further west; Clausen dedicated his church at Muskego on March
13, 1845.[97] All were simple structures, as would be expected; a plain
table was the altar, and the baptismal font was hewn out of an oak log.
But they served none the less as effective and inspiring centers of the
religious life of the settlements. For the Muskego church, Even Heg gave
the land, and Mr. Bakke of Drammen, whose protégé Clausen was, gave $400
towards construction. Dietrichson left his two churches in Koshkonong in
1845, and returned to Norway where he remained about a year. Aided by
benevolent friends and by the Norwegian government, he came back to his
prairie parishes in 1846 for a final stay of four years.[98] But his
ways were not altogether ways of pleasantness, nor entirely in the paths
of peace. The records of the church, and his own story, show that he had
more than one stormy time with his people.[99] He departed for Norway
in 1850, and never again was in America.[100]
[97] Dietrichson, _Reise blandt de norske Emigranter_, 45 ff; _Minde
fra Jubelfesterne paa Koshkonong_.
[98] _Nordlyset_, Sept. 9, 1847.
[99] Dietrichson, _Reise blandt de norske Emigranter_, 57-67. Some
of the church records are printed in _The Milwaukee Sentinel_,
July 21, 1895.
[100] The following year he published a second book, _Nogle Ord fra
Prædikestolen i Amerika_.
The preceding account of the beginnings and progress of the earliest
Norwegian settlements in Illinois and Wisconsin has been given in some
detail, for the reason that the course of these settlements, in a very
broad sense, is typical of all the Norwegian colonization in the
Northwest, and of the Swedish and Danish as well. In the later chapter
on economic conditions, the causes which led these people to settle upon
the land rather than in the cities will be discussed at length. Suffice
it here to say that the average immigrant brought only a small amount of
cash, along with his strong desire for land, and he consequently went
where good land was cheap, in order the more speedily to get what he
wanted. This meant that he would push out on the newly accessible
government land in Iowa, Minnesota, and the Dakotas in turn. So the
transformation of the frontier has witnessed the continual repetition of
the experiences of the early Norwegian immigrants in Illinois and
Wisconsin in the years from 1835 to 1850, as they are described in this
and the preceding chapters. At the present time, in the remoter parts of
the Dakotas, Montana, Washington, Oregon, and Utah, the same story is
being retold in the same terms of patience, hardship, thrift, and final
success.