A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States: From the Earliest Beginning down to the Year 1848Flom, George T. (George Tobias)
History
A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States: From the Earliest Beginning down to the Year 1848
Flom, George T. (George Tobias)
Norwegians -- United States
_The Expansion of the Koshkonong Settlement into
Sumner and Oakland Townships in Jefferson
County. Increased Immigration from Telemarken.
New Settlers from Kragerö,
Drammen and Numedal._
In our discussion of the settling of Koshkonong by immigrants from
Numedal in 1840-42, mention was made of Tore Knudson Nore and wife
Gjertud among those who arrived in 1842. Tore Nore did not, however,
locate in Christiana or Albion townships, where his compatriots had
settled. He selected land about three miles southeast of where Gunnul
Vindeig had located, across the Jefferson County line in what later was
named Sumner Township. Tore Nore, who was then a man of about forty
years of age and had a large family, had emigrated in the spring of
1842, but had not, as the immigrants from Numedal so far had generally
done, gone to Jefferson Prairie or Rock Prairie, but had stopped in
Muskego. Being dissatisfied here, he decided to go to Koshkonong.
Taking his family with him, he arrived there about October first
of that year. Soon after he erected his log cabin in Sumner,[261]
being, therefore, the first Norwegian to settle in that part of
Jefferson County, his being the second family to enter the township
of Sumner.[262] Here he lived till his death in 1868, at the age of
seventy-six. Gjertrud Nore died in 1884. Three sons are prosperous
farmers living in the neighborhood of the father's original homestead.
A daughter, Gro, married Peder Larsen Svartskuren (or Svartskor) in
Norway, in June, 1842. They became the second Norwegian family to
settle in the township. Peder Svartskuren was a native of Konigsberg,
Norway, being, as it appears, the third emigrant to America from that
locality.[263]
[261] This log-cabin was still standing not many years ago.
[262] An American family had come there before him.
[263] The first emigrants from Kongsberg were Thomas Braaten, and
Halvor Funkelien.
In an interview with Svein Nilson printed in 1870, Peder Svartskuren
mentions Björn Anderson (Kvelve), Amund Hornefjeld, Gunnul Vindeig and
Thorsten Olson as being the only Norwegians living in the neighboring
towns of Albion and Christiana when he came there. He speaks of Sumner
Township as being a heavy primeval forest, with only here and there a
stretch of open country. "There was an abundance of game, deers and
prairie chickens, and the lake (Koshkonong) and creek were full of
fish. The Indians were roving about the country, but they did no one
any harm and were kindly and ever ready to help."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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