The colony was in many respects unfortunate; it cannot be said to have prospered and has never played any important part as a colony in Norwegian-American history. But it is important as being the first, and also as being the parent of a very large and progressive Norwegian settlement founded in 1834-35 in La Salle County, Illinois, of which more below. And yet the economic conditions of the Quaker immigrants gradually became better and the future looked more promising. They felt now that America offered many advantages to the able and the capable, and they began writing encouraging letters to relatives and friends in the old country, urging them to seek their fortune here. As a result there was, if not a large, at any rate a fairly constant emigration of individuals and families from Stavanger and adjacent region during the following eight or nine years, although few seem to have come before 1829. In this year, e. g., came Gudmund Sandsberg (b. 1787) from Hjelmeland, in Ryfylke, Norway, and his wife Marie and three children, Bertha, Anna, and Torbjör. Passage was secured in the beginning for the most part with American sailships carrying Swedish iron from Gothenburg. But as this was attended by much uncertainty, often necessitating several weeks of waiting, the intending emigrants began to go to Hamburg, where German emigration by means of regular going American packet ships had already begun. Here, however, another difficulty met them. The already somewhat heavy emigration at this port made it necessary to order passage several weeks ahead in order to insure accommodations, and failing in this, the emigrant was forced to wait there until the next packet boat should sail. And so it came about that many of the early Norwegian immigrants to America came by way of Havre, France, where passage was always certain, emigration from this point being as yet very limited. Among those who came via Gothenburg was Gjert Hovland, a farmer from Hardanger, who left Norway with his family on the twenty-fourth of June, 1831, sailed from Gothenburg June thirtieth and arrived in New York September eighteenth. He does not seem to have gone directly to Kendall, for we find him soon after the owner of fifty acres of forest land in Morris County, New Jersey. Gjert Hovland seems to be the first one from the province of Hardanger to emigrate to America. Other emigrants during these years are: Christian Olson, who came in 1829, settling in Kendall; Knut Evenson, wife and daughter Katherine, who emigrated in 1831 in the same ship by which Hovland came; and Ingebret Larson Narvig from Tysvær Parish, Ryfylke, who came in 1831 and two years later located in Michigan. It seems probable that also Johan Nordboe and wife from Ringebo, in Gudbrandsdalen, Norway, came to Orleans County in 1832. Nordboe was the first to emigrate from Gudbrandsdalen, a province from which actual immigration did not begin until sixteen years later.