CHAPTER XXXV

_The Earliest Norwegian Settlers at Sugar Creek, Walworth County, Wisconsin. The influx from Land, Norway, to Wiota and Vicinity, 1844-1852_

We have briefly referred to Sugar Creek, Walworth County, Wisconsin, in chapter XXXIII above. This little settlement received its first Norwegian settlers in 1844 when Ole Vale and wife Anne from Holden Parish, Skien, located there; with them came the sons John and Anders and the daughters Aasta, Anne, Turine, Andrea and Maria. Vale and his wife lived in Sugar Creek till their death, and the daughters all married and settled there. In the same year Ole Kittelson and Nils T. Kvamodden, both unmarried and both also from Holden, came to the settlement. Ole Kittelson located permanently in Sugar Creek, but Nils Kvamodden and wife moved to Norway Township, Goodhue County, Minnesota, in 1857. There they died years ago, the homestead being now occupied by the son Ole.

Christian L. Vestremo and wife Ingeborg and three children, and Gunder K. Næseth emigrated from Gjerpen near Skien, in 1844. Næseth moved to Norway, Minnesota, in 1856 and Vestremo in 1857. According to Ole Jacobson of Elk Horn, to whom I am indebted for these facts, there were no further accessions to the colony before 1847. In that year his parents came from Gjerpen, as also Jacob Torstenson and wife Maren Margrete and three sons Ole, Torsten and Jacob, and a daughter, Maria with her husband Lars Jensen Teigen and family. With them came also Teigen's mother. Jacob Torstenson died in 1861; the widow is still living at the old home.

Ole Jacobson writes me that his father and family left Skien in April by the ship _Axel (og) Valborg_, Captain Bloom, going first as far as Havre, France. There they waited three weeks, then secured passage with an American ship, the journey being very slow. Landing in Boston, they went by train to Albany, thence by canal boat to Buffalo, and by steamboat via the lakes to Milwaukee, where they arrived sometime in August. From Milwaukee they thereupon proceeded to Sugar Creek, where they located permanently. Ole Jacobson is at present living on the farm purchased in 1847. In 1849 Aslak Rasmusson Slettene with wife Gunild and eight children came from Gjerpen, Norway.[325] Grindemelum, with wife, son, and daughter, also came in 1849, as did Peter J. Gromstulen, wife Svanang and five children, and Nils J. Overholt, wife and two children.

[325] Some of the children have moved away, to Minnesota and Washington.

There do not seem to have been any further accessions of Norwegian immigrants during the pioneer days of the Sugar Creek settlement. In the sixties quite a number came and located at and about Elk Horn but these do not fall within the scope of our survey.

The original home of immigrants from Land, Norway, was Rock Prairie, as we saw above, chapter XXIV. From this as their distribution point they migrated west and north, aiding in the founding of other settlements. As early as 1844 we find one pioneer at Wiota from Land, Norway, namely Syver Johnson Smed (see above page 213). But the influx from Land did not begin until 1847.[326] In that year two families, numbering in all fourteen persons, arrived via Rock Prairie; they were those of Svend Nörstelien (wife Karen, and five children) and of the widow Kari Lillebæk, who had six children.[327] In 1848 Hovel Tollefsrude, wife Bertha and children: Christopher, Hans, Jahannes, Siri, and Lovise arrived. Further immigrants of that year were: Johannes Brenom, wife Ingeborg and three children; Hans Halvorson (Brenna), wife Eli, and children, Berte, Halvor and Johannes; Johannes E. Smedsrud, with wife Anne and two sons Engebret and Mathias; and Johannes Smehögen (or Smed) with wife Engeborg, and two children.

[326] Matthew J. Ingebretson of Gratiot, Wis., who came to Wiota with his parents in 1848, has kindly aided me with many of the facts on immigration to Wiota in 1847-50.

[327] John Larsen Lillebæk was one of her sons.

In 1849 came Torkild Husværet, with wife and three sons, Gulbrand, Lars and Frederik; Ole Monson Tollefsrude, wife Karen and three children, and Nils Aason, Ovre Hasle and wife Ingeborg, who had come to Rock Prairie in 1848 (removed to Wiota in 1848). Hans Lillebæk came in 1850 and about twenty in all in 1851-52.

Ole Monson, whom we have mentioned as coming in 1849, was the builder of the old Norwegian church at Wiota, which is still standing; the present larger and more commodious structure stands on the wall built by Ole Monson.

There were not very many from other provinces in Norway among those who emigrated to Wiota in the late forties. We have spoken of Ingebrigt Fuglegjærdet's coming in 1846 from Long Prairie, where he had lived two years; he was from Vik, Sogn.[328]

[328] Ingebrigt Johnson removed to Town of Dane, Dane County, Wisconsin, in 1851; there he lived till his death in 1893, his wife having died in 1890. John J. Johnson, retired farmer, of Lodi, Columbia County, Wisconsin, is their son, as is also Joseph Johnson of Dane Township in Dane County.

From Vik came Erik I. Haave and wife in 1847, while Harald Melland and wife Anne came from Telemarken. From Sigdal there came one family in 1848; Ellef (Alef) Johnson and wife Anne. The latter served in the Civil War, in Company G of the Twenty-Second Wisconsin Regiment.[329] In 1872 he married Mary Larson,[330] of Blanchardville, La Fayette County, where they are now living.

[329] He was only sixteen when he enlisted.

[330] She was a daughter of Ole Larson, who served in the Third Regiment, Wisconsin Infantry, in the Civil War.

I may conclude this chapter by saying that Arne Vinje, whose name is so intimately interlinked with the history of the community, died in 1903, having lived on the old homestead for sixty-two years. Of his eight children, three are living: Peter S. Anderson, Newell, Iowa, Daniel K. Anderson and Mrs. Martha Brunkow of Woodford, Wisconsin.