I was my father's oldest son, and consequently heir to the Luraas farm. It was regarded as one of the best in that neighborhood, but there was a $1,400 mortgage on it. I had worked for my father until I was twenty-five years old, and had had no opportunity of getting money. It was plain to me that I would have a hard time of it, if I should take the farm with the debt resting on it, pay a reasonable amount to my brothers and sisters, and assume the care of my aged father. I saw to my horror how one farm after the other fell into the hands of the lendsman and other money-lenders, and this increased my dread of attempting farming. But I got married and had to do something. Then it occurred to me that the best thing might be to emigrate to America. I was encouraged in this purpose by letters written by Norwegian settlers in Illinois who had lived two years in America. Such were the causes that led me to emigrate and I presume the rest of our company were actuated by similar motives.[43] [41] _Billed-Magazin_, 1869, pp. 82-83. [42] _Billed-Magazin_, 1869, pp. 6-7. [43] In 1868, Mr. Luraas moved to Webster County, Iowa, returning to Dane County, Wisconsin, in 1873. I knew him in the early nineties as a well-to-do retired farmer living in Stoughton, Wisconsin. He died in 1894. In a letter written by Andreas Sandsberg at Hellen, Norway, September twelfth, 1831, to Gudmund Sandsberg in Kendall, New York, the former complains of the hard times in Norway. In the spring of 1836 the second party of emigrants from Stavanger County came to America. On the 14th of May of that year Andreas Sandsberg wrote his brother Gudmund in America as follows: A considerable number of people are now getting ready to go to America from this Amt. Two brigs are to depart from Stavanger in about eight days from now, and will carry these people to America, and if good reports come from them, the number of emigrants will doubtless be still larger next year. A pressing and general lack of money entering into every branch of industry, stops or at least hampers business and makes it difficult for many people to earn the necessaries of life. While this is the case on this side of the Atlantic there is hope for abundance on the other, and this I take it, is the chief cause of this growing disposition to emigrate.[44] [44] Letter copied from the original by R. B. Anderson in 1896 and printed in _First Chapter_, pp. 135-136. Ole Olson Menes, who came to America in 1845, is cited in _Billed-Magazin_, 1870, page 130, as follows, illustrating the prominence of the economic cause nine years later: