Norwegian immigrants who came during these years generally located in Orleans County, but rarely remained there permanently. The northwestern states were just then beginning to be opened up to settlers. At this time migration from the eastern states was directed particularly to Illinois. Good government land could be had here for $1.25 an acre. The very heavily wooded land that the Norwegian immigrants in Orleans County had purchased proved very difficult of improvement, and many began to think of moving to a more favorable locality. In 1833 Kleng Peerson, who seems to have lived in Kendall at this time, made a journey to the West, evidently for the purpose of finding a suitable site for a new settlement. He was accompanied by Ingebret Larson Narvig as far as Erie, Monroe County, Michigan, where the latter remained, Peerson continuing the journey farther west. After several months of wandering across Michigan, and down into Ohio and Indiana, he at last arrived at Chicago, then a village of about twenty huts. The marshes of Chicago did not appeal to Peerson and he went to Milwaukee, but the reports he received of the endless forests of Wisconsin soon drove him back again into Illinois. After several days' journey on foot again west of Chicago he at last found a spot which seemed to him as if providentially designated as the proper locality for his western colony. The place was immediately south of the present village of Norway in La Salle County. His choice made, Peerson returned to Orleans County, having covered over 2,000 miles on foot since he left. Peerson's selection was universally approved and a considerable number of the Kendall settlers decided to move west. Among those of the sloopers who remained in New York I shall here name: Ole Johnson, Henrik C. Hervig and Andrew Stangeland, who, however, some years later bought a tract of land in Noble County, Indiana; Lars Olson located in New York City, and, as we have seen, Lars Larson settled in Rochester; Nels Erikson went back to Norway, while Öien Thompson and Thomas Madland died in Kendall in 1826, and Cornelius Hersdal died there in 1833. CHAPTER V _The Founding of the Fox River Settlement. Personal Notes on Some of the Founders._