CHAPTER XXXIV

_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.