Kleng Peerson has been accredited with being the founder also of the Sugar Creek Settlement, but there is no proof that he previously selected the site or even that he located there in 1840. Indeed the evidence goes rather to show that he never actually settled at Sugar Creek. His home in the following years was probably chiefly in Shelby County, Missouri; in 1847 he sold his land there and joined the Swedish colony in Henry County, Illinois, which had been founded in 1846. Nor does it seem to me that Hans Barlien was a member of the Missouri colony, as Professor Anderson suggests. No mention of Barlien can be found in connection with the Shelby County colony or any other settlement. It seems more probable that he went to the Fox River Settlement when he came from Norway in 1837, but with a few others left in 1840, coming to Lee County somewhat before the party that came with Andrew Simonsen from Shelby County. They may originally have received their knowledge of this locality from Peerson. Barlien himself may have been in La Salle County when Peerson in 1837 returned from his journey to Missouri. It was, then, Barlien and a few immigrants with him whom Andrew Simonsen and others from Shelby County found already settled at Sugar Creek in the spring of 1840. If this is correct then the first Norwegian settler in Iowa and the real founder of the first Norwegian colony in the state is Hans Barlien, who was born at Overhalden in the province of Trondhjem about 1870. In 1838 Kleng Peerson went to Norway to gather recruits for the Shelby County colony; the following year he brought back with him from Stavanger County the three brothers, Peter, William, and Hans Tesman, Nils Olson, Ole Reierson and family, and six or seven women, all of whom came to Missouri; but several of these went to Lee County, Iowa, the following year. As far as known, the first settlers who came with Andrew Simonsen from Missouri were: Omund Olson, Knud Slogvig,[160] Jacob O. Hetletvedt, Mrs. Thorstein T. Rue and her sons, Thorstein and John, Peter Omundson Gjilje, Erik Öie, Ole Öiesöen, and the three Tesman brothers; some of the rest seem to have followed later. Lars Tallakson settled there about the same time, but he came from Clark County, Missouri, where he had located in 1838. Gjermund Helgeson[161] was also among the earliest settlers, and Jacob Slogvig, who had gone back to La Salle County in 1838, likewise later located at Sugar Creek. Among the subsequent arrivals were Ole Soppeland, Hans William, C. Person, and Nils and Christ Nelson; these located there before 1846. [160] Jacob Slogvig was also among the first settlers; he had returned from Shelby County, Missouri, to La Salle County, in 1838, as also had Andrew Askeland. [161] Helgeson may have come with Barlien from Illinois.