[206] Syver Gaarder's daughter, Barbro, married Martin Johnson (Nederhaugen) in 1855. Dr. J. S. Johnson, of Minneapolis, is their oldest son; other children are: Ben Johnson, Orfordville, Wisconsin; Mrs. Rev. Langseth, Glendorado, Minn.; Mrs. Rev. L. Njus, McIntosh, Minn.; Mrs. Strömseth, living on the homestead; Mandy Johnson. CHAPTER XXVI _Economic Conditions of Immigrants. Cost of Passage. Course of the Journey. Duration of the Journey._ In discussing the causes of emigration, we have found that economic factors entered extensively into operation. It was the desire for material betterment that prompted a very large proportion of Norwegian emigrants to leave the land of their fathers. The first five decades of Norwegian emigration was a period in which the battle for existence among the Norwegian peasant and the common man was none too easy. Unfavorable economic conditions, the oppressive methods of the larger land owners, frequent crop failure, often reduced the lesser farmers into a condition of impoverishment. Even wealthy families found themselves burdened by debts from which the future seemed to offer little hope of relief. By the law of primogeniture the oldest son inherited the estate. The sons of men of means, therefore, were financially often no better situated than the cotter's son, and were often forced to seek their fortune beyond the native village or district. These considerations will make clear first that the great majority of Norwegian emigrants to the United States were at the time of emigration of small means; they were often very poor indeed. Their wealth lay in the ability and the will to carve their way in a land of greater promise. Their wealth lay also in their thrift, in their ideals, and the moral fiber of their race. Many of those who have succeeded best in their adopted country came here well-nigh penniless. To them poverty was no longer a curse when the path of opportunity lay before them. But the above considerations will also have indicated that Norwegian immigrants of that early period were not always of the poor classes even though they came here with little or nothing. Later Norwegian immigration has, it is true, generally been from among the impecunious. But in that early period, especially 1835 to 1865, a very large number of the immigrants came from families which general or special conditions had suddenly so reduced to conditions which became to them intolerable. And it was the hope which America held out which inspired them with the will to seek there the independence now no longer theirs. We have already met with the evidence of this in such families as Hovland (1835), Nattestad (1837), Aadland (1837), Aasland (1838), Gravdal (1839), Stabæk (1839), Gitle Danielson (1839), Luraas (1839), Unde (1839), Heg (1840), Gaarder (1843-49), Nils Haugen (1846), and many others.