[177] Reverend J. W. C. Dietrichson, speaking of the Wiota Settlement in 1844 says, that there had been organized a congregation that year, which numbered about one hundred members, of whom the larger part were from Voss; these, he says, had settled there for the most part in 1843. He mentions Per Davidson as deacon and a leading member of the church, and Knud Knudson as one who by great energy had acquired considerable wealth. CHAPTER XXIII _Growth of the Jefferson Prairie Settlement from 1841 to 1845. The First Norwegian Land Owners in Rock County._ In an earlier chapter I have given an account of the coming of Norwegians to Jefferson Prairie in 1838-39. We found that a considerable number of persons had located there by 1840, principally immigrants from Numedal. These first settlers located in the southern half of Clinton Township, but others soon came who settled still farther south, so that the settlement soon came to include a portion of the Township of Manchester in Boone County, Illinois. The first settlers here were Tönnes Tolleivson (or Tollefson) from Jæderen, and Svend Larson, both of whom settled in Boone County in 1840; Tollefson had come to America in the fall of 1839, presumably spending the winter of 1839-40 on Jefferson Prairie. The settlement thus came to be divided into a northern and a southern part, the immigrant settlers in the two representing different provinces in Norway. The Numedalians settled as we have seen, nearer Clinton and in general in the northern end of Jefferson Prairie; in fact they occupied most of the prairie proper. The southern portion, the timber land, come to be settled principally by immigrants from Voss. Very few of these located in the Town of Clinton; they selected homes in the early days, for the most part, just where their descendants now live, on the south side of the state line, in Illinois. The whole settlement extends from about a mile and a half south of Clinton across the prairie and into the timber which began about three miles south of Clinton and extends about four miles down into Illinois. We have observed above that Ole Nattestad's house became the stopping place of the earliest immigrants to Jefferson Prairie. In a similar way D. B. Egery's place,[178] located four miles southwest of the Nattestad cabin on the trail to Beloit, became the headquarters for many a Norwegian immigrant in that early day. Speaking of him, H. L. Skavlem gives testimony to his kindness and the readiness with which he lent a helping hand to the incoming settlers in his vicinity, who were seeking a place to establish a home in the wilderness. As soon as the immigrants arrived, parties of two or three would fill their knapsacks (skræppe) with provisions and strike out in various directions to "spy out the land."[179]