Christian L. Vestremo and wife Ingeborg and three children, and Gunder K. Næseth emigrated from Gjerpen near Skien, in 1844. Næseth moved to Norway, Minnesota, in 1856 and Vestremo in 1857. According to Ole Jacobson of Elk Horn, to whom I am indebted for these facts, there were no further accessions to the colony before 1847. In that year his parents came from Gjerpen, as also Jacob Torstenson and wife Maren Margrete and three sons Ole, Torsten and Jacob, and a daughter, Maria with her husband Lars Jensen Teigen and family. With them came also Teigen's mother. Jacob Torstenson died in 1861; the widow is still living at the old home. Ole Jacobson writes me that his father and family left Skien in April by the ship _Axel (og) Valborg_, Captain Bloom, going first as far as Havre, France. There they waited three weeks, then secured passage with an American ship, the journey being very slow. Landing in Boston, they went by train to Albany, thence by canal boat to Buffalo, and by steamboat via the lakes to Milwaukee, where they arrived sometime in August. From Milwaukee they thereupon proceeded to Sugar Creek, where they located permanently. Ole Jacobson is at present living on the farm purchased in 1847. In 1849 Aslak Rasmusson Slettene with wife Gunild and eight children came from Gjerpen, Norway.[325] Grindemelum, with wife, son, and daughter, also came in 1849, as did Peter J. Gromstulen, wife Svanang and five children, and Nils J. Overholt, wife and two children. [325] Some of the children have moved away, to Minnesota and Washington. There do not seem to have been any further accessions of Norwegian immigrants during the pioneer days of the Sugar Creek settlement. In the sixties quite a number came and located at and about Elk Horn but these do not fall within the scope of our survey. The original home of immigrants from Land, Norway, was Rock Prairie, as we saw above, chapter XXIV. From this as their distribution point they migrated west and north, aiding in the founding of other settlements. As early as 1844 we find one pioneer at Wiota from Land, Norway, namely Syver Johnson Smed (see above page 213). But the influx from Land did not begin until 1847.[326] In that year two families, numbering in all fourteen persons, arrived via Rock Prairie; they were those of Svend Nörstelien (wife Karen, and five children) and of the widow Kari Lillebæk, who had six children.[327] In 1848 Hovel Tollefsrude, wife Bertha and children: Christopher, Hans, Jahannes, Siri, and Lovise arrived. Further immigrants of that year were: Johannes Brenom, wife Ingeborg and three children; Hans Halvorson (Brenna), wife Eli, and children, Berte, Halvor and Johannes; Johannes E. Smedsrud, with wife Anne and two sons Engebret and Mathias; and Johannes Smehögen (or Smed) with wife Engeborg, and two children.