SWEDISH IMMIGRATION BEFORE 1850.
When the Swedish emigration of the nineteenth century began, it is
doubtful if many persons in Sweden knew of the existence of the
descendants of their compatriots of the seventeenth. The last Swedish
pastor of Gloria Dei Church in Philadelphia died in 1831, and there is
no evidence that any immigrant after 1800 turned his steps toward
Philadelphia or the valley of the Delaware expecting to join the third
or fourth generation of Swedes there.[101] Before 1840, in New York,
Philadelphia, and a few other places, a Swede might now and then be
found. One of these adventure-seeking young fellows was Erick Ålund, who
reached Philadelphia in 1823; another was O. C. Lange who arrived in
Boston in 1824, and by 1838 found himself in Chicago, probably the first
of that mighty company of Swedes which has made Chicago the third
Swedish city in the world.[102] Olof Gustaf Hedström, who left Sweden in
1825, and his brother Jonas, were influential early arrivals.[103] But
the number of such men could not have been large, for ignorance as to
America was quite as dense in Sweden as in Norway, the name being all
but unheard of in parts of the kingdom.[104]
[101] Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History of America_, IV, 488.
[102] Interview with Capt. O. C. Lange in Chicago, March, 1890. He
stated that he was the only Swede in Chicago in 1838, but that
there were thirty or forty Norwegians "who were doing anything
for a living, even begging,"--but Capt. Lange was an ardent Swede
and despised Norwegians!
[103] Norelius, _Svenskarnes Historia_, 23-26.
[104] Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_, 26.
Sixteen years elapsed after the "Sloop Folk" landed in New York, and
five years after they located in their second American home, in
Illinois, before the Swedish immigration really began. The first party,
or regular company, of Swedes, consisting of about twelve families,
arrived in 1841 under the leadership of Gustav Unonius, a young man who
had been a student at the University of Upsala.[105] It was made up of
the "better folk", and included some, like Baron Thott, who were
entitled to be called "Herr."[106] The immigration does not appear to
have been induced by any religious persecution or discontent, but was
purely a business venture of a somewhat idealistic sort, into which the
immigrants put their all, in the hope that they could get a more
satisfactory return than they could from a like investment in Sweden.
[105] Norelius, _Svenskarnes Historia_, 2 ff. The early history of the
Swedish immigration is treated in a much more complete and
scholarly fashion than is the Norwegian, in the works of
Unonius, Norelius, and Peterson and Johnson. For this reason,
and because of the similarity of the early Swedish and Norwegian
movements, the Swedish settlements are not followed up in this
study with the same detail as the Norwegian.
[106] Unonius, _Minnen_, I, 5 ff; _History of Waukesha County, Wis._,
748.
From New York the party went by the water route to Milwaukee, following
in the wake of parties of Norwegians. There they met Captain Lange, who
seems to have persuaded them to select a location near Pine Lake--a name
that would certainly attract a Swede--in the neighborhood of the present
town of Nashotah, about thirty miles west of Milwaukee. Here they were
later joined by a variegated assortment of characters attracted by
letters which Unonius wrote to newspapers in Sweden,--noblemen, ex-army
officers, merchants, and adventurers,[107] so that the colony took on
almost as motley an air as that at Jamestown in the first years after
1607. While they hardly could have succeeded under more favorable
circumstances, they were particularly unfitted by their previous manner
of living to become farmers or to undergo the deprivations and hardships
of pioneering. The winter of 1841-2 was severe, and their poorly-built
houses gave inadequate protection against the cold of January and
February in Wisconsin; their land was badly tilled, tho they labored
earnestly; and their first crop fell short of their necessities. Their
hope of leading an Arcadian life in America was rudely shattered.
Captain von Schneidau, late of the staff of King Oscar, was a farm
laborer, and Baron Thott became a cook for one of the settlers in order
to get a bare living.[108] Sickness, misfortune, want of labor, and lack
of money led to almost incredible suffering at the first, and some of
the settlers, like Unonius and von Schneidau, went to Chicago, where the
former became pastor of a Swedish congregation, and the latter prospered
as "the most skilful daguerreo-typist, probably, in the whole
state."[109]
[107] "and a large proportion of criminals," Nelson, _Scandinavians in
the United States_, II, 117.
[108] _History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin_, 749.
[109] Bremer, _Homes of the New World_, II, 214-217. Miss Bremer
relates how Mrs. von Schneidau "had seen her first-born little
one frozen to death in its bed," and how Mrs. Unonius "that gay,
high-spirited girl, of whom I heard when she was married at
Upsala to accompany her husband to the New World ... had laid
four children to rest in foreign soil."
Frederika Bremer, the famous Swedish traveller, visited both the
Norwegian and the Swedish settlements in Wisconsin in 1850, and has left
a very graphic and sympathetic account of the Pine Lake colony where she
spent a few days.[110] She found about a half dozen families of Swedes.
"Nearly all live in log-houses, and seem to be in somewhat low
circumstances. The most prosperous seemed to be that of the smith; he, I
fancy, had been a smith in Sweden ...; he was a really good fellow, and
had a nice young Norwegian for his wife; also a Mr. Bergman who had been
a gentleman in Sweden, but who was here a clever, hard-working peasant
farmer."[111] At one of the houses she met twenty-one Swedish settlers.
The failure of the colony, to Miss Bremer's mind, was not altogether due
to circumstances; the settlers at first "had taken with them the Swedish
inclination for hospitality and a merry life, without sufficiently
considering how long it could last. Each family built for itself a
necessary abode, and then invited their neighbors to a feast. They had
Christmas festivities and Midsummer dances."[112]
[110] _Ibid._, 225-235.
[111] _Ibid._, 225; Unonius, _Minnen_, II, 6 ff.
[112] Bremer, _Homes of the New World_, II, 214.
Notwithstanding the hard life of the first years at Pine Lake, the
letters from well-educated and well-known men like Unonius, especially
those published in the Swedish newspapers, helped to stimulate a desire
for emigration in Sweden. A company of fifty, from Haurida in Smaaland,
left in the autumn of 1844, part of them going to Wisconsin, and at
least one family going to Brockton, Massachusetts, and beginning the
considerable Swedish settlement in that city.[113] In the following
year, five families were influenced by letters from a Pine Lake settler,
to leave their homes in Östergötland, and to set out for Wisconsin. At
New York, however, they were persuaded, probably by Pehr Dahlberg, to go
to Iowa, then just admitted to the Union, where land was supposed to be
better than at Pine Lake, and could be had at the same price. The route
followed was an unusual one for Scandinavian immigrants,--from New York
to Pittsburg, down the Ohio River, and up the Mississippi. The location
finally chosen was in Jefferson County, Iowa, about forty-two miles west
of Burlington; and the settlement was christened New Sweden. To it many
immigrants from the parishes of Östergötland found their way in later
years. The second rural settlement of the Swedes thus established was,
quite in contrast to the first one, distinctly successful from the
start.[114]
[113] Norelius, _Svenskarnes Historia_, 27.
[114] G. T. Flom, "Early Swedish Immigration to Iowa," _Iowa Journal
of History and Politics_, III, 601 ff. (Oct., 1905); Norelius,
_Svenskarnes Historia_, 27.
The first Swedish settlements in Illinois, may be traced to the efforts
of the brothers Hedström already mentioned. Olof visited his old home in
1833, after an absence of eight years, and on his return to New York he
was accompanied by his brother Jonas.[115] These two men influenced the
course which Swedish immigrants were to take in America down to 1854,
in much the same way as the Nattestad brothers had earlier affected the
Norwegians. After several years, spent presumably in New York, Jonas
moved into Illinois and settled in the township of Victoria, in Knox
County.[116] Olof Hedström was converted to Methodism in America, and
became a zealous minister of that church; in the history of Methodism in
New York City and in the chronicles of Scandinavian immigration, his is
a unique figure. The needs of the multiplying hosts of immigrants of all
sorts, who were flocking to New York, were thoroughly understood by the
Methodist authorities of that city, and Hedström was put in charge of
the North River Mission for Seamen. His "Bethel Ship" work began about
1845, a time when there was great need for a helping hand to be extended
to the Scandinavians, among other immigrants, for whom agents,
"runners," and "sharks" were lying in wait. The Rev. E. Norelius, the
cultivated and scholarly pastor and historian, who had personal
experience of the kindly offices of Hedström, declares that the
missionary was a father to the Scandinavian people who came to America
by way of New York.[117]
[115] Norelius, _Svenskarnes Historia_, 21.
[116] _Ibid._, 24-26; Johnson and Peterson, _Svenskarne i Illinois_,
286.
[117] Norelius, _Svenskarnes Historia_, 21, 23-26.
With Olof Hedström offering friendly greeting, help, and advice in New
York, and working in connection with his brother Jonas in Illinois, no
prophetic instinct was needed to foretell the goal which would be
ultimately sought by those who came under the benevolent ministrations
of this Swedish Methodist preacher. The path to Illinois became a
highway for multitudes of Swedes, and that State was to the Swedish
immigration what Wisconsin was to the Norwegian.
Swedish settlement on a large scale began in 1846, with the founding at
Bishop Hill, in Henry County, Illinois, of the famous Jansonist colony,
whose history is exceedingly interesting and, at times, highly pathetic.
Not only were there many hundreds of Swedes and some Norwegians grouped
together in a single county, but the colony was also an experiment in
communism, based on peculiar religious tenets.[118]
[118] The history of this Swedish settlement, with its numerous
peculiarities, its prosperity and its misfortunes, has been
so often written up with considerable detail, that only the
outlines of it are given here. See Bibliography.
The Jansonist movement in Sweden, which must not be confused with the
Jansenist school or system of doctrine of another time and place in
Western Europe, began about 1842 in Helsingland, in the prosperous
agricultural province of Norrland.[119] For fifteen years there had been
an undercurrent of dissent in the Established Church in that province,
led by Jonas Olson, who called his followers "Devotionalists." The
agitation was carried on primarily against the general ignorance of the
people and the sloth of the clergy, but not until Eric Janson appeared
on the scene did any organization of the dissenters take definite form.
When he moved from Wermland to Helsingland in 1844 and published the
high claim that he represented the second coming of Christ and was sent
to restore the purity and glory of Christianity, he was received with
great enthusiasm by the restless peasants, and accepted as a divinely
appointed leader who should gather the righteous into a new theocratic
community.[120]
[119] Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_, 19 ff.
[120] _Ibid._, 25. "The glory of the work which is to be accomplished
by Eric Janson, standing in Christ's stead, shall far exceed
that of the work accomplished by Jesus and his Apostles,"--quoted
in translation by Mikkelsen from _Cateches, of Eric Janson_
(Söderhamn, 1846), 80.
The progress of the dissenting sect was so rapid that the Established
Church, backed by the civil authorities, took stern measures to suppress
the heresy. It must be confessed that the dissenters continued to show a
fanatical spirit, and gave the ecclesiastical officers special cause for
alarm. In June, 1844, for example, the Jansonists made an immense
bonfire near Tranberg, and burned as useless and dangerous, all the
religious books which they could lay their hands on, with the exception
of the Bibles, hymn-books, and catechisms. As if one offense of this
kind were not enough to shock the pious Lutherans and everywhere stir
up the zeal of the Lutheran clergy, a second burning of books followed
in October, in which the Bible alone was spared.[121]
[121] Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_, 22; Norelius, _Svenskarnes
Historia_, 63.
Janson was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned; his followers were
subjected to the same treatment; and finally, a price was put upon the
head of the pestilent arch-heretic. It was these persecutions,
supplemented by letters from a Swedish immigrant in America, which
turned the thoughts of the Jansonists towards the United States. So it
happened that when Janson was rescued by his friends from the crown
officer who had him in custody, he was spirited off over the mountains
to Norway, and thence to Copenhagen, where he embarked for America. In
New York he met Olof Olson, the "advance agent," who was sent out by the
new sect in 1845 to spy out the better country where there was no
established church, no persecution for conscience's sake, and no
aristocracy.[122] Olson met Olof Hedström on landing in New York, and by
him was directed to his brother Jonas in Illinois, who gave the
new-comer a hospitable reception, and assistance in a prospecting tour
of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Olson decided on Illinois as the State
in which to plant the proposed colony. On the arrival of Eric Janson in
1846, the exact site in Henry County was selected, and the name Bishop
Hill given it after Biskopskulla, Janson's birthplace in Sweden.[123]
[122] Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_, 24.
[123] Johnson and Peterson, _Svenskarne i Illinois_, 26; _History of
Henry County, Illinois_.
Janson appointed leaders for the would-be emigrants,--captains of tens
and of hundreds--before he left Sweden, and under their guidance several
parties made their way to Henry County in 1846, usually going by way of
New York, the Erie Canal, and the Great Lakes. Nearly 1100 persons were
ready to emigrate, but, like the early Norwegians, they experienced
great difficulty in securing passage, being compelled to go in companies
of fifty or one hundred in freight vessels, usually loaded with
iron.[124] The greater number sailed from Gefle, though some went from
Gothenburg and some from Stockholm.[125]
[124] Swainson in _Scandinavia_, Jan., 1885.
[125] Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_, 28.
The greater part of these emigrating Jansonists were poor peasants,
unable from their own means to bear for themselves and their families
the great expense of the long journey from Helsingland to Illinois. In
addition to other difficulties some of them had to purchase release from
military service. It was to solve these problems of poverty and expense,
that Janson followed the example of other leaders of religious sects,
even of the early Christian leaders, and instituted community of goods
for the whole sect. The pretext seems to have been religious, but from
this distance it is clear that the motive of the leader was essentially
economic and philanthropic. Nothing could better attest the tremendous
earnestness of these uneducated enthusiasts than their implicit
obedience to the commands of Eric Janson, for they gave all they had
into his care and discretion--their property, their families, and
themselves. The amounts contributed to the common treasury after the
sale of individual property varied greatly, of course. Some turned in
almost nothing, while others gave sums reaching as high as 24,000
kroner, or about $6,500.[126]
[126] Johnson and Peterson, _Svenskarne i Illinois_, 28.
The methods and practices of the sect are revealed, in unsympathetic and
perhaps exaggerated fashion, in a printed letter, dated at New York, May
23, 1847, written by one who found himself unequal to the high demands
of the new faith and its self-appointed apostle.[127] This backslider,
who emigrated with the rest, tells a story that sounds strangely like
accounts of the action of more recent sects and their "divinely
ordained" prophets and priestesses. Janson and all his works are
denounced in very bitter terms. After a five-months voyage not more
than fifty out of three hundred, says the writer of the letter, were
well, and many were suffering from scurvy; but Janson's "prophets" came
aboard and "tried to work miracles and heal the sick," even damning
those who did not believe they were well when they were raised up. He
further says that the Jansonists were warned in Illinois to use medicine
or the government would take a hand in their affairs. The letter closes
with a statement that more than a hundred had already left the society.
[127] This account is contained in a small pamphlet, signed O. S.,
which was unearthed in the Royal Library in Stockholm while the
author was searching there in 1890 for material on Swedish
emigration.
The colony had a homestead at the outset, for Janson and his co-workers
purchased for $2000 a tract of 750 acres, part of which was under
cultivation. By the end of 1846, new recruits brought the number in the
settlement up to about 400 souls, who were accommodated in log-houses,
sod-houses, dug-outs, and tents. A church was improvised out of logs and
canvas, and services were held daily at half past five in the morning
and in the evening. In spite of the community of goods, the first year
with its crowding brought much suffering; the funds of the society were
depleted by the expenses of the great journey for so many people, and by
the expenditures for land.
With the coming of spring in 1847, the settlement became a hive of
industry. Adobe bricks were made, a new saw-mill was erected, better
houses were built, and more land was bought to accommodate the new
arrivals. By 1850 the community owned fourteen hundred acres of land,
nearly free from debt. The religious or economic attractiveness of the
colony is evidenced by the fact that its population in 1851 reached the
considerable figure of about eleven hundred,[128] nearly one-third of
the total population of Henry County, notwithstanding a schism in 1848
whose centrifugal force drove upwards of 200 from the fold, and
notwithstanding the epidemic of cholera in 1849 which claimed 150
victims. Among these hundreds were representatives of almost every
province in Sweden.
[128] Swainson puts the number of seceders at 250, and asserts
that they were drawn off by Jonas Hedström, the Methodist.
_Scandinavia_, Jan. 1885. Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_,
33, 35, 37.
The communistic principle worked well, at least in the first years, in
spite of the severity of the religious discipline. The land was
thoroughly cultivated. The growing of flax became a prominent factor in
the prosperity of the colony, and from this crop were made linen and
carpeting which found a ready market, the product of the looms reaching
30,579 yards in 1851.[129]
[129] Johnson and Peterson, _Svenskarne i Illinois_, 335.
The death of Eric Janson by the hands of a Swedish adventurer, John Root
(or Rooth), with whom he had a quarrel of long standing, removed the
prophet and builder of this New Jerusalem, but did not seriously
interrupt its development. In fact it might be said to have been a
benefit to the colony, for Janson was not a careful and skilful man of
business, and he had involved the community in debt. To relieve this
pressure of obligation, Jonas Olson, Janson's right-hand man, was sent
out with eight others, in March, 1851, to seek a fortune in the
California gold fields.[130]
[130] _Ibid._, 39.
The period of which this chapter treats ends with 1850; but inasmuch as
that year marks no break in the history of Bishop Hill, it will be well
here to finish the sketch of the development of that colony. On learning
of the death of Janson, Olson returned at once from California and
became the head of the colony after February, 1851. Improvements
immediately followed; the government, which had been autocratic or
theoretically theocratic, became more and more democratic under Olson.
Finally, as a completion of this broadening evolution, an act of the
Illinois legislature of 1853 incorporated the Bishop Hill Colony, and
vested the government in a board of seven trustees who were to hold for
life or during good behavior, their successors to be elected by the
community.[131]
[131] Act of January 17, 1853. The Charter and Bylaws are reprinted in
Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_, 73 ff. (App.).
The trustees were from the first afflicted with a speculative mania, and
invested in all sorts of enterprises--in grain, in lumber, in Galva town
lots, in railroad and bank stock, and in a porkpacking establishment.
Disaster after disaster followed between 1854 and 1857, when a general
panic prostrated the industries of the country. The climax of the
reckless mismanagement of the Colony came in 1860, and the corporation
went into the hands of a receiver, only to get deeper and deeper into
financial and legal troubles. Individualization of property took place
in 1861, when $592,798 was distributed among 415 shareholders, and other
property to the value of $248,861 was set aside to pay an indebtedness
of about $118,000.[132] The last traces of communism were gone, and with
the disappearance of communism went also the old religious tenets
peculiar to the faith. The majority of the Jansonists joined the
Methodist communion; even Jonas Olson deserted and became "an
independent Second [Seventh?] Day Adventist."[133]
[132] Johnson and Peterson, _Svenskarne i Illinois_, 44 ff.
[133] Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_, 71.
Difficulties continued, however, for Olof Johnson, the chief offending
trustee, secured his appointment as one of the receivers. Assessment
followed assessment, and when the totals were footed up the chicanery of
trustees and receivers was made clear: to pay an original debt of
$118,403, these ill-fated people of the Bishop Hill Colony actually
expended in cash $413,124, and in property $259,786, or an aggregate of
$672,910.[134] Of course a lawsuit was begun, and the "Colony Case"
dragged along in the courts for twelve years, to be finally settled by
compromise in 1879, nine years after the death of Olof Johnson.[135]
[134] Johnson and Peterson, _Svenskarne i Illinois_, 49-52.
[135] The special master in chancery found in 1868 that Olof Johnson
was indebted to the Colony in the sum of $109,613.29. Mikkelsen,
_The Bishop Hill Colony_, 68.
Besides the numerous companies which went to Bishop Hill, many others
between 1846 and 1850 sought different localities in the United
States.[136] Some remained in Chicago; some built homes in Andover,
Illinois; others began the large Swedish settlement in Jamestown, New
York; while still others were persuaded to go to Texas, thus beginning
the only considerable permanent settlement of Scandinavians in the
Southern States before 1880, with the exception of settlements in
Missouri. During these years, knowledge of the prosperous condition of
the immigrants was spreading, in the usual fashion, into every province
of Sweden; Småland, Helsingland, Dalarne, and Östergötland, were
especially affected. Not merely were Jansonists and dissenters moved to
emigrate, but men of the Established Church as well; a Jansonist's word
in matters of faith, Scriptural interpretation, and religious practice
was worse than worthless to staunch Lutherans, but there was no reason
to doubt the accuracy of his statements regarding land, wages, prices,
and opportunities in Illinois or Iowa. Even Lutheran clergymen began to
lead little companies of their adherents to the "States," and no one
considered it a mortal sin or eternal danger to follow in the footsteps
of worldly-wise heretics.[137]
[136] Norelius, _Svenskarnes Historia_, 30-38.
[137] Norelius, _Svenskarnes Historia_, 34.