CHAPTER XX

_New Accessions to the Koshkonong Settlement in 1840-1841. The Growth of the Settlement in 1842._

As the first explorers of Koshkonong from La Salle County, Illinois, in 1839, attracted others in their train from the same region the following year, so Jefferson Prairie and Chicago sent new recruits following Gunnul Vindeig in the summer of 1840. The first of these were the two we have mentioned at the end of the preceding chapter, namely, Lars Kvendalen and Knud Vindeig, a brother of Gunnul; both were single men. They came there early in the summer of 1840, and met in Albion Township Björn Kvelve and Lars Dugstad before these had left for Milwaukee and Illinois in June, 1840. Knud Vindeig and Lars Kvendalen (the latter also from Numedal) came to America in the fall of 1839. Another brother of Gunnul, namely Hellik Vindeig, and two sisters, Berit and Anna, came to America in the fall of 1840. As said, Kvelve met Knud Vindeig and Kvendalen in Albion Township in the summer of 1840, and he engaged them to split rails during the winter of 1840-41, so as to have them ready at hand when he should come there to locate with his family in 1841.[144] These two men did not take land, but worked for a time for others in the settlement.

[144] See above, page 179.

In the autumn of the same year came Hellik Vindeig and Nils Kvendalen (generally called Nils Halling), but the latter did not remain there long. The sister, Anna, married Nils Bolstad in 1841 (see above, page 171). About a year later Berit married John G. Smith, a man who played a role as both doctor and preacher among the pioneers in the forties. There were no further additions to the southern part of the settlement in the fall of 1840, so far as I know.

Late in the fall of that year Lars Davidson Rekve[145] came to Koshkonong and selected land in the Town of Deerfield. Entry of this was made at Milwaukee on December eighth, 1840; the land was the south half of the southwest quarter of section twenty-eight, about a mile south of Deerfield, and two miles northwest of the eighty acres selected by Gilderhus in the spring. Together with Rekve came also Ole K. Gilderhus, who had immigrated from Voss, Norway, in 1839. When they reached Albion they stopped over night at the house of Thorsten Bjaaland, who had not yet returned to Illinois for the winter. Then they travelled north until they came to the place where the four settlers from Voss had erected a log cabin the spring before. Not having the means wherewith to make improvements on his land, Rekve soon after (summer 1841) went to Muskegon, Michigan, where he secured employment in a sawmill. He did not settle in Dane County before 1842.

[145] L. D. Reque is still living in Deerfield, Dane County, Wisconsin.

If now we pass on to the year 1841, we shall find that there were several accessions to the Koshkonong settlement in that year. It is to be observed, first, that a small group of immigrants came from Voss in 1841. They were: Anders Nilson Lie, with wife, Gunvor Sjursdatter (Gilderhus), and two children, Rasmus Grane, Ole Grane, Kolbein Vestreim, Nils Vikje, Lars J. Mön, Knut Larson Böe, and Anna Solheim. These had emigrated with a small brig that carried iron to Boston; thence they went to Racine County, Wisconsin, and Koshkonong, by the usual route. John Haldorson Björgo, who had emigrated from Voss in 1838, as we have seen, also came to Koshkonong in the spring of 1841, and Ole Severson Gilderhus[146] came a short time after. The latter had emigrated in 1840, having remained in Chicago during the winter. Björgo settled in the Town of Christiana in section nine, Ole Gilderhus a little farther north in Deerfield Township. "None but Norwegians were then living in these regions," writes Björgo twenty-seven years later.[147] Björgo and Ole Gilderhus had, of course, arrived before Anders Nilson Lie.

[146] A brother of Nils Gilderhus.

[147] Interview printed in _Billed-Magazin_, 1869, page 387. Late in the summer of 1841 a few Americans came and settled there.

During the first winter John Björgo lived in a small log-house; his nearest white neighbor lived about three miles away. As he was unmarried he was obliged to cook and do all his own housework. Near by an Indian tribe had erected a camp, where they remained from that fall until the next spring. Björgo says of them that they were friendly and neighborly, and he never suffered inconvenience because of them; "they were often my guests, as I also visited them, and it never occurred to me to have any fear of the son of the desert. Nor did they ever give me cause for that; for they were peaceful and gladly shared their meagre supplies with those who needed their help."[148]

[148] John Björgo died in October, 1868; his wife, Martha, died in May, 1898. They are both buried in West Koshkonong Cemetery, as Rev. G. G. Krostu of Utica, Wisconsin, informs me.

Let us now return to the party of eleven persons who came with Anders Lie. The son, Nils A. Lie, Deerfield, Wisconsin, writes that after a long and trying voyage they arrived in Boston whence they went to Racine, arriving there in December. There they hired two Swedes to take them to Muskego, where the Lie family and one other family stopped with Even Heg. Lie's destination was the home of his brother-in-law, Nils Gilderhus, in Dane County. Leaving his family, he soon after set out on foot for Koshkonong, not meeting anyone he could speak with before he reached Fort Atkinson. Here an American took him across the Rock River in a canoe, and by waiting there a day he was joined by two immigrants from Numedal,[149] who walked with him as far as Koshkonong. Thence he continued north to his brother-in-law's place in Deerfield Township. We have seen that Nils Gilderhus made a dugout early in the winter of 1840-41, having found the cabin they had built in the spring too cold. In this dugout Anders Lie and family[150] also lived during the winters of 1841-42 and 1842-43. In the meantime Anders Lie worked for others, saving up all he could with a view to buying a home for himself.

[149] These may have been Hellik Vindeig and Nils Kvendalen.

[150] The family being sent for soon after; his wife, Gunvor Sjursdatter, was born in 1805; the children were Martha (born 1838) and Nils (born 1841).

In 1843 he bought forty acres farther west in the northeast corner of the town of Pleasant Spring, becoming the first Norwegian to settle in that township; selling this out in the fall of 1844 to Peder Gjerde, he located on section thirty-two in Deerfield Township, where he lived most of the time till his death in 1907.[151]

[151] After his wife's death he lived some years in North and South Dakota. Anders Lee was born in 1814, and attained therefore to the good old age of ninety-two. His wife died in 1876; they were married three years before leaving Norway. Anders Lee left three sons, Nils A. in Deerfield, Sever Lee in Grafton, N. D., and Andrew Lee of Washington County, N. D.

Just how long the rest of Anders Lee's party remained in Muskego I am not able to say at this moment. Nils Lie writes in 1902 that they all came to Koshkonong, and I accept that as authoritative; but I may add that the names of Grane, Vikje, Vestreim, Mön, or Böe, do not appear in the roll of members of Reverend J. W. C. Dietrichson's church in Koshkonong for the years 1844 to 1850, which is elsewhere published in this volume. Nor have I been able to trace them in the towns of Christiana or Deerfield in the years 1842 to 1844. They do not appear as purchasers of land, and probably left for other regions soon after coming to Koshkonong. One member of the group who came from Voss in 1839, with Ole K. Gilderhus and others, did soon after come to Koshkonong, however, namely, Knut Brække. He and his wife located in Deerfield Township in 1843; it was he who, in 1844, bought the large log-cabin built by Nils Gilderhus in 1840. He then removed it farther southeast (in the same town), where later it became the property of Erik Lee, the father of Andrew E. Lee, of South Dakota.[152]

[152] Andrew E. Lee was governor of South Dakota from 1896-1900.

There were also several accessions from Numedal in 1842. The first of these, I believe, were Jens Pederson Vehus, from Nore Annex of Rollaug Parish, Numedal, and Thore Knudson Nore and sons, Knut, Lars, Ole and Sæbjörn, also from Nore.[153] With them came also Halvor Funkelien, a native of Kongsberg. Jens Vehus was a brother of Gunnul Vindeig's wife. All three of these came directly from Norway. Jens Vehus settled about three-quarters of a mile southeast of Gunnul Vindeig, on the north half of the northeast quarter of section thirty-five. Later in the summer, and in the fall, this locality received new recruits from Numedal, who came for the most part directly from Norway via New York, Milwaukee, and Muskego, to Koshkonong. Others came from Chicago, La Salle County, and Jefferson Prairie, principally to the towns of Christiana and Deerfield.

[153] There Nore located across the Jefferson County line.

Among the immigrants from Numedal who located there later in the year of 1842 were: Ole Helgeson Lien, wife Turi,[154] and children, Barbro and Ole, from Nore; Niels Olson Smetbak, wife Barbro Olsdatter, and family, from Nore; Mrs. Ole Bakli (Bagley), widow, and her son, Ole, from Flesberg; Björn Guldbrandsen Mörkvold, wife Asbjör and son, Guldbrand; Hellik Gunderson Hvashovd and wife, Marit, from Flesberg; Hellik's parents, Gunder Gunderson Hvashovd and wife, Kirsti; Mari Guldbrandsen (cousin of Gunnar Hvashovd) and her daughter, Kristi (born Kristoffersen 1826); Herbrand Tollefson Mörkvold and son, Ole, and daughter, Ragnild; Torstein Levorsen Bergrud, wife Kirsti Gundersdatter (born Hvashovd) and son, Levor, from Flesberg; Thore Olson Kaasa, wife Anne Torsteinsdatter, and daughter Aslau, from Rollaug; Ole Amundson Buind, wife Helene (Brandt), and daughter Anne, from Flesberg; Gjertrud Olsdatter Sælabakka (born 1822), from Rollaug; Juul Gisleson Hamre (born 1805), with wife Anne Gundersdatter, and children, Gisle, Kjersti, and Gunder, and his sister, Anne Gislesdatter, from Flesberg (born 1797); Hellik Helliksen Foslieiet (born 1812), his wife Sigrid, and children, Hellik (born 1833), Anders (born 1835), Marit (born 1838), Christoffer (born 1841).[155]

[154] Turi Lien, whose maiden name was Smetbak, was born in 1811; she died in 1899; Ole Lien died in 1850; the widow then married Lars T. Nore.

[155] The daughters Christine and Sigrid were born in 1842 and 1844.

Of those mentioned here the Hvashovd, Hamre, and Bergrud families, Mari Gulbrandsen and her daughter, Christi, and one or two more, nineteen in all, left Flesberg, Numedal, in May and arrived in Muskego in October. Here they stopped two or three weeks with Even Hegg, whose wife was a relative of Mari Gulbrandsen. Some early settlers on Liberty Prairie (Koshkonong) took their baggage to Koshkonong while the immigrants walked. These facts are told me by Reverend K. A. Kasberg of Spring Grove, Minnesota, as related by his mother-in-law, Mrs. Halvor Kravik, who was in the party (she was Kristi Kristoffersen). She relates also that "in the spring (hence 1843) she and her mother walked to Madison to get work. There was only one house on the whole road, that of an American family; but their friendly 'come in, come in' (Norwegian _kom ind, kom ind_, but pronounced alike) was easily understood. Here we were well entertained over night."

From Telemarken the following came:[156] Richard Björnson Rotkjön (born 1816), and brother Aslak (born 1826), from Vinje; Torstein Torsteinson Gaarden, from Tin; Ole Höljeson Yttreböe, with wife, Margit, and children, Johanne and Anne, and Halvor Hansen Dalstiel (Dalastöl), from Hvideseid; Ole Torsteinson Aasnes, wife, Ingeborg, and daughter, Hæge, from Vinje; Ole Gulliksen Barstad (born 1791), wife, Ingeborg Jonsdatter (born 1799), and children, Vetle, Eivind, and Halvor, from Siljord; Ole Olson Haugan, from Siljord; Torbjörn Havredalen, wife, Lisa, and family, from Vinje;[157] and Gunhild Saamundsdatter (born 1798), from Laurdal. Furthermore Guro Olsdatter (born 1821), from Nissedal, and Thomas Johnson Landeman (born 1804), from Sandsværd; and Torbjörn Havredalen with wife, Lisa, and family, also came to Koshkonong that year.

[156] Many of these located in the eastern and northern part of the settlement a year or two later.

[157] Who located in Town of Deerfield. Some of these, as Dalstiel, left Koshkonong a few years later.

The great majority of these made the town of Christiana their first stopping place. So that, by the end of 1842, there were perhaps more immigrants found together within the area of that township than in any of the other settlements founded during the preceding years, 1839-1840.

It was at this time that the question of a name for the new town was being mooted. Gunnul Vindeig was given the privilege of naming it, and he decided for Christiania, adopting the name of the capital of Norway. The form as it came to stand, however, would seem to be a typical instance of that slovenly habit of slurring syllables in foreign names, which so often appears in the records of American officials or clerks in land offices in those days. Yet the _Billed-Magazin_ is authority for the statement that Gunnul Vindeig himself was the cause of the error, he, by mistake, writing Christiana instead of the correct Christiania.

In the meantime new colonies are springing up elsewhere and the settlements previously established are growing and thriving. Before, therefore, tracing the further development on Koshkonong Prairie, it will be in order to note the advance in other localities.