The story of the Sloopers from Stavanger, Norway, who came to America in 1825, has often been told; I shall therefore be very brief in my account of that expedition. Under causes of emigration I shall have occasion below to note briefly some of the circumstances that seem to have led to their departure for America in that year. The director of the expedition and the chief owner of the boat was Lars Larson i Jeilane; the captain was Lars Olsen. The company consisted of fifty-two persons, all but one being natives of Stavanger and vicinity; the one exception was the mate, Nels Erikson, who came from Bergen. Relative to the leading spirit in this first group of emigrants, Lars Larson, I shall say here: He was born near Stavanger, September twenty-fourth, 1787. He became a sailor, was captured in the Napoleonic wars and kept a prisoner in London for seven years. Being released in 1814, he remained in London, however, till 1815, when he and several other prisoners returned to Norway. In London they had been converted to the Quaker faith by Mrs. Margaret Allen, and upon returning to Stavanger, Lars Larson, Elias Tastad, Thomas Helle and Metta Helle became the founders of the first Quaker society in that city, a society which is still in existence. In 1821 the Stavanger Quakers began to form plans for emigrating to America. It seems that Kleng Peerson and Knud Eide, whom we have mentioned above, were deputed to go to America for the purpose of learning something of the country with a view to planting there a Quaker colony. Kleng Peerson returned to Stavanger in 1824 with a favorable report and many of the members of the Quaker colony began to make preparations for emigrating to the locality selected by Peerson, namely, Orleans County, New York State. A sloop of only forty-five tons capacity which they called _Restaurationen_, built in Hardanger, was purchased and loaded with a cargo of iron and made ready for the journey. Larson himself had married in December, 1824, Georgiana Person, who was born October 19, 1803, on Fogn, a small island near Stavanger. Besides him there were five other heads of families. On the fourth of July, 1825, they set sail from Stavanger. The following fifty-two persons made up the party: Lars Larson and wife Martha Georgiana; Lars Olson, who was captain of the boat, Cornelius Nelson Hersdal, wife and four children;[27] Daniel Stenson Rossadal, wife and five children;[28] Thomas Madland, wife and three children,[29] Nels Nelson Hersdal and wife Bertha, Knud Anderson Slogvig, Jacob Anderson Slogvig, Gudmund Haugaas, Johannes Stene, wife and two children, Öien Thorson (Thompson) wife and three children,[30] Simon Lima, wife and three children, Henrik Christopherson Hervig, and wife, Ole Johnson, George Johnson, Thorsten Olson Bjaaland, Nels Thorson, Ole Olson Hetletvedt, Sara Larson (sister of Lars Larson), Halvor Iverson, Andrew Stangeland, the mate, Nels Erikson, and the cook, Endre Dahl.