CHAPTER XL

_The Hardanger Settlement in Lee and De Kalb Counties, Illinois. Big Grove in Kendall County and Nettle Creek in Grundy County, Illinois._

Although Hardanger has contributed a relatively small proportion of the American immigrant population from Norway, several of the earliest arrivals were from that province and its sons occupy today a prominent place in Norwegian American history. It has been shown above, chapters IX and X, that several members of the party who came in 1836, as also of that of 1837, were natives of Hardanger; and in the Chicago colony in 1839 we met with several natives of that province. In 1839 a considerable number left Hardanger, especially from Ulvik Parish, as we learn from _Nordmandsforbundet_, 1909, page 175. Among these were the brothers Anders and Johan Vik from Eidfjord in Hardanger. The two brothers first went to Wiota, where they secured work in the lead mines. In 1844 John Vik (Week) went to Dodgeville, where he established himself as a shoemaker, entering into partnership with Johan Lee from Numedal. Later he went to Portage County, Wisconsin, where he prospered and was for over a decade a dominant power in the lumber trade of northern Wisconsin.[388]

[388] These facts gathered from an article by L. J. Erdall in _Amerika_ for September 18, 1901. The brother, Anders Vik (Andrew Week), went to California in 1849.

Among the immigrants who had come from Hardanger, Parish of Ullensvang, in 1836, we mentioned Ammund Helgeson Maakestad above, page 95. Maakestad dropped the family name in this country and called himself Ommon Hilleson. For a little over a year he was a coast sailor; then he decided to go west and secure land where his countrymen had settled. This he did, but not in the usual way, for Hilleson walked the whole distance from New York to Chicago. This was in 1837.[389]

[389] As Reverend J. Nordby, Lee, Illinois, informs me.

From Chicago he directed his steps farther west; he did not, however, go to the settlement founded several years before, but pushed on as far as Lee Center in the County of Lee.[390] Here he secured work, saved some money, and bought a homestead in Bradford Township, and erected thereon a sod house. Soon after he married Catherine Reinhart, daughter of a German pioneer, recently moved in.

[390] Strand relates an experience which Hilleson had between Chicago and Lee Center and which would seem to indicate that he had intended to go to La Salle County.

For ten years Hilleson was the only Norwegian settler in the county, but in 1847 there arrived in response to letters from Hilleson, a considerable party from Hardanger. These left Sörfjorden in Hardanger, and embarked in May at Bergen in the sailing vessel _Juno_, which brought them to New York in a little over four weeks, a remarkable record for that time.[391] Mr. T. M. Newton (Torgels Knutson) says, when we came to Buffalo we met an old man who was returning to Norway. He advised us to go back at once, saying America was not a fit place for respectable people to live in, it was a place for thieves and robbers. The party consisted of the following persons: Lars Larsen Röisetter (Risetter), Lars Olson Espe, Lars Helgeson Maakestad, Gjertrud H. Lönning, Helge H. Maaketad (who died in 1854), Ingeborg H. Maakestad, Torgels Knudson Maakestad, Sjur Sjurson Bleie (Bly) and Lars Larson Bly. They were met at Chicago by Ommon Hilleson; Lars Bly remained in Chicago, the rest started for Lee County, stopping a short time at Norway, La Salle County, thereupon all but Ingeborg Maakestad drove to Hilleson's home in Lee County.[392] Most of them settled in Bradford Township, but Lars Risetter (born 1827 in Ullensvang) bought eighty acres of land in Sublette Township, whither other subsequent immigrants from Hardanger also soon moved. Soon after arriving, Risetter and Gjertrud Lönning were married in the first house built by a Norwegian in Lee County, at the home of Ommon Hilleson. Lars Espe and Lars Risetter were the first two of the party to build a log cabin.

[391] T. M. Newton says the journey took only three weeks; others say, four. Newton was from Kinservig.

[392] The journey was made with oxen and lumber wagon. Inger Maakestad remained at Norway for a time; she married Lars Espe soon after.

Mr. Newton tells that two young men came from La Salle County about the same time and bought a piece of land in Franklin Grove about two miles and a half from where he lived. "They lived in a log cabin on their place," he says. "One night about two months after we arrived, they were both murdered. The same day I had tried to persuade one of them to stay with me, but he felt it necessary to be at home. Their heads had been split open with an ax. I then thought of what the old gentleman had tried to tell us and heartily wished myself back in Norway."

During the years 1848 no immigrants left Hardanger for America, and Lee County received no settlers directly from Norway. In 1849, however, thirty-two emigrated from Ulvik, but none of these seem to have come to the settlement. In 1850 there was one accession, namely, Amund Lönning, who came directly to his brother-in-law, Lars Risetter, in Sublette Township. He worked in the harvest the first season for Thomas Fessenden for $11.00 a month, bought a quarter section in Willow Creek Township in 1852, being the first Norwegian to settle there. In 1857 Lars Risetter also moved into Willow Creek Township, where he has since lived.[393]

[393] Mrs. Risetter died in 1897; Mr. Risetter is still living. His two sons, Lewis and Holden, occupy the homestead with him.

Of the rest Torgels Maakestad, who adopted the name T. M. Newton (Knutson), is still living, his home being at Grinnell, Iowa. Sjur Bleien lives at the Old People's Home, Stoughton, Wisconsin.

In 1851 the following arrived from Ullensvang, Hardanger, and located in the settlement: Jacob O. Rogde (b. 1828), Haaken L. Risetter and wife Maria (Hildal), Haldor Nilsen Hovland, and Agatha Espe, a sister of Lars Espe. Rogde purchased eighty acres of land in Bradford Township in 1854 and in 1855 he married Else Bly from Hardanger, who had come to America in 1854.[394] Haakon Risetter settled in Ogle County immediately north of Lee County. Of those who arrived in subsequent years many settled across the county line in De Kalb County, and in a few years there had sprung up a thriving and prosperous community. At present the Bradford Norwegian Evangelical Congregation of Lee numbers 300 adult members. The center of the settlement is about four miles south of Franklin Grove.

[394] C. Christopher of Gruver, Iowa, who has kindly given me many of the facts relative to the immigration from Hardanger, names the following as arriving in Lee County in 1854; Lars N. Rogde and wife Angar W. Sandvæn, Wigleik W. Risetter, Helle P. Bly and wife Torbjör (Skare), Samson S. Sandvæn and wife Bægga H. Maakestad. The last three and Lars Rogde died the same year.

Immediately east of De Kalb and the northern part of La Salle County lies Kendall County, into which extends a northeastern branch of the original Fox River Settlement, located chiefly in Big Grove Township; the village of Newark lies within its boundaries. The first Norwegian to settle in the village of Newark was Ole Olson Hetletvedt, as we have observed above. Ole Hetletvedt, or Medlepeint as he was called, was born in August, 1797, and was, as we know, one of the members of the sloop party. Of his first years in this country we have already spoken. He came to Newark in 1839; there he lived till his death in 1854. The next settlers in Newark were Herman Osmonson and Knut W. Tysland, both of whom also located there in 1838.

The first Norwegian settler at Lisbon was John Hill (Hidle) from Fjeldberg in Söndhordland, Norway. He came to America in 1836,[395] going direct to La Salle County. Among the immigrants of that year were also Anders Anderson Aasen and wife Olena and family from Tysvær Parish, a little south of Haugesund. The family included a daughter Susanna, (born 1822), who was married to John Hill in 1844. The Aasen family lived in Kendall, New York, for two years, then in 1838 moved to La Salle County, Illinois. In 1839 John Hill located at Lisbon, and he was thus the first Norwegian to settle here, whither a considerable number later moved.[396] About 1846 Sjur Larson came there from Skaanevik, Norway; Lars Chelley (Kjelle) came in 1847.

[395] Lars Bö and Michael Bö came at the same time.

[396] John Hill died in 1892, but Mrs. Susanne Hill is still living with her daughter, Mrs. Austin Osmond (b. 1845), in Morris, Grundy County, Illinois.

The Norwegians did not begin to come in extensively to Lisbon before 1850. Mrs. Austin Osmond, oldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Hill, who is now living in Morris, Grundy County, tells me that she was the only Norwegian child in school at Lisbon when she first began to attend, but later there gradually came more. At Newark several Norwegians had already begun to move on. Goodman Halvorson (b. 1821) and wife Martha Grindheim from Etne Parish in Söndhordland, came to America in 1847 and purchased land in Fox Township, Kendall County; he erected his log cabin there in the spring of 1848. Halvorson is still living on the old homestead which, however, he leases to other parties. Osmund Tutland from Hjelmeland in Ryfylke, and wife Malinda from Aardal in Ryfylle and two children had come to Mission Township, La Salle County, in 1836; a daughter, Mrs. Anna Hegglund (b. 1842) is at present living in Newark. Tutland became, in 1854, the founder of the Norwegian colony at Norway, Benton County, Iowa.[397]

[397] Lars Fruland of Newark is a son of Nils Fröland, who emigrated from Samnanger, near Bergen, in 1837, settling in La Salle County.

Among the old pioneers of Lisbon was also Henry Munson from Voss, but I am not able to give the year of his arrival. Munson died in 1907, being over ninety years old. Wier Sjurson Weeks (born in Skaanevik in 1812), and wife Synneva and two children emigrated in 1846; after much hardship, and sickness in the family, through which they lost the two daughters, they arrived at Lisbon late in 1846. Here Weeks worked at first at the trade of a carpenter. In 1848 he bought eighty acres of land on North Prairie, five miles north of Lisbon.[398] Here he settled permanently, prospered, and became an influential citizen and active member of the Lutheran Church of North Prairie. Mr. Weeks died in February, 1900, at the age of eighty-seven; his wife lived till 1904, reaching the age of ninety-four. A name most closely associated with the early annals of Newark is that of Torris Johnson (b. in Skaanevik 1837), who came to America with his grandfather Torris Torison in 1848.[399] Having arrived at Chicago, they went to Calumet, twenty miles south of Chicago, to Halstein Torison, who was an uncle of Torris Johnson. There Johnson remained till 1851, when he located in Kendall County. Mr. Johnson served in the war, being promoted to sergeant; after the war he returned to Newark. In 1865 he married Elizabeth Ryerson, born in Stavanger, Norway; they have had six children. Mr. Johnson is still living, his home being in Newark.

[398] Mr. Strand has given a very complete sketch of W. S. Weeks to which I am indebted for these facts.

[399] His parents died in Norway when he was a child; a brother and sister also came to America at the same time.

Although E. S. Holland (b. 1834) of Big Grove Township, did not settle in Kendall County before 1866, he belongs to the earlier pioneers now resident there, having come to this country with his parents in 1846. In 1854 he settled in York Township, Green County, Wisconsin, where he married Johanne Chantland the following year. In 1866 they removed to Kendall County, Illinois.[400] Mr. Holland has been especially active in the work of the church, and has been trustee and treasurer of Pleasant View Luther College since its organization.

[400] Mrs. Holland died in 1884 and Mr. Holland married Christina Peterson of Skien, Norway, in 1885.

The name of Nels O. Cassem occupies a prominent place in the history of the settlement as of that of Kendall County in general. Born in 1829 about seven miles east of the city of Stavanger, Norway, he emigrated in 1849. Coming to Illinois he settled in Fox Township, Kendall County, in July of that year. Here he purchased land and began farming, an occupation which he prospered in to an unusual degree, his estate being estimated at a little over one million dollars upon his death in 1904.[401] "When he came to Illinois," writes his son, "he found work on the tow-path of the old Illinois and Michigan Canal, at fifty cents per day. During this time he formed the habit of saving, that was the unerring guide of all his future life." Randall Cassem defines the principal causes of his father's success as:

"Health; industrious habits formed in youth; the fact that money came hard earned at first, thus teaching him the value of the dollar; courage and self-reliance; knowing the value of little things; the practice of self-denial and rigid economy; never striving after extravagant profits in any of his undertakings. To all of this we may add, his high sense of honor, his unimpeachable integrity that, as those who knew him testify, never permitted him to be other than absolutely fair and just in all his dealings and financial transactions with others."[402]

Among those who immigrated in 1844 and located in Chicago was also Anders K. Vetti from Vettigjæld, Norway. He lived in Chicago until about 1849,[403] when he bought a farm at Yorkville Prairie in Kendall County. He married Anna Martha Ortzland in 1850 and lived there till his death in 1875. Mr. Vetti was a man of strong character and unusual intellectual endowments. He wielded much influence politically in his community, and enjoyed in a high degree the confidence of those who knew him. An obituary notice says of him: his truest and most enduring monument will be the good resulting from his labor in the cause of universal education, in untiring opposition to the superstitious observance of ceremonies incompatible with the spirit and the progress of the age, and in his hatred of all forms of political oppression.[404]

[401] Cassem married Margaret Fritz in 1851; she died in 1872. There are five children: Randall Cassem, attorney at Aurora, Ill.; Mrs. Olive J. Osmondson of Seward Township, Kendall County; Oscar E. Cassem, Mitchell, South Dakota; Mrs. Margaret Olson, Aurora, Illinois; and Mrs. Anna O. Rood, Chicago, Illinois.

[402] Kari Melhus of Newark, Illinois, who came to America about 1852, is said to be the oldest Norwegian woman in America. She was born in Hjelmeland Parish, Ryfylke, in 1804.

[403] A. K. Vetti's oldest daughter, Mrs. Samuel Mather (b. 1853) of Springdale, Linn County, Iowa, says that it was in 1849, or 1850 perhaps, but she is not certain which.

[404] The words "universal education" contain a reference to his fight for the common schools.

A few miles south of Lisbon, across the Grundy County line, a settlement was founded in 1846. The county had been completely settled by Americans already, but Norwegians bought these out and gradually supplanted them, exactly as they began doing a decade later at Saratoga in Grundy County, and have done still later in the city of Morris in the same county. The settlement is located in Nettle Creek Township. The first arrivals were Rasmus Scheldal, Ole Torstal, Paul Thompson, Michael Erickson, Simon Frye, John Wing, Lars Scheldal, Ben Hall, Ben Thornton, John Peterson, G. E. Grundstad, William and Samuel Hage. Several of these men had families; they came mostly from Skaanevik; all came between 1846 and 1848. In 1849 Halvord Rygh, Sr., and family of seven, and Sjur Nelson, wife, Jennie, and family, came from Norway and located there. Several of these men later moved away, as Paul Thompson, Michael Erickson, Rasmus Scheldal, and Ole Tvistal, who went to Story County, Iowa, while some members of the Rygh and Wing families went to Goodhue County, Minnesota, 1856. Sjur Haugen and family moved up to Helmar, Kendall County, in 1855.[405]

[405] The latter family included a son Nels (b. 1840), who is Nels S. Nelson of Helmar, well known as a successful farmer and a Republican leader in Kendall County.

With this brief survey of the founding of these eastern extensions of the Fox River Settlement, we shall leave Kendall and Grundy Counties. The history of these settlements takes its beginnings at the very close of the period we are here considering. Their fuller discussion belongs to the history of the immigration of the following decade.[406]

[406] Individual settlers and single families had located in various towns in northern Illinois during the later thirties and forties. I shall name here Severt S. Helland and wife Ingeborg who immigrated in 1836 and settled at Woodstock, Illinois. Helland (b. 1828) came from Gjerdevig in Fjeldbjerg Parish; his wife was born 1825 at Helland in Etne Parish. They moved to Chicago in 1855 and in 1857 settled near Slater, Iowa.