A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States: From the Earliest Beginning down to the Year 1848Flom, George T. (George Tobias)
History
A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States: From the Earliest Beginning down to the Year 1848
Flom, George T. (George Tobias)
Norwegians -- United States
A story is told how it came about that they did not go to Illinois
as originally intended. A good-natured fat man is said to have been
pointed out to them as the product of Wisconsin. On the other hand
Illinois was described as a hot and unhealthy region in substantiation
of which a pale, sickly man was presented as the result of life in that
state. Whether this was done or not I do not know; but the story may
serve as an illustration of frontier humor and immigrant credulity both.
Suffice it to say that the people of Milwaukee succeeded in diverting
the immigrants from Telemarken from going any farther, but selected a
site for a settlement, as we have said, near Lake Muskego in Waukesha
County. Then they returned to Milwaukee to perfect their purchase
of land there, the price paid being the usual one of a dollar and
twenty-five cents per acre.
Before reciting further the fortunes of this group of immigrants, the
first to enter the State of Wisconsin, let us turn for a moment to a
consideration of the larger movement. With the year 1839, emigration
from Norway begins to assume larger proportions, and certain districts,
which hitherto had sent very few, now begin to contribute the larger
share of the number of emigrants to America. This year may very
properly be said to have inaugurated the second period in Norwegian
immigration history. Down to 1839 the immigration movement in Norway
had not really gone beyond the provinces of Stavanger and South
Bergenhus in southwestern and western Norway. Indeed, nearly all of
the emigrants had come from these sections. In fact, before 1836 the
movement was almost confined to Stavanger and Ryfylke. In that year
it reaches Hardanger, and in 1837, Bergen. It does not reach Voss
properly before 1838, although Nils Röthe and wife had emigrated from
there in 1836. In 1837, as we have seen, the first emigrant ship, the
_Aegir_, left Bergen with eighty-four passengers. Before 1839 we meet
with occasional individual emigration from provinces to the east and
northeast. Thus Ole Rynning and Snaasen in Trondhjem Diocese emigrated
in the _Aegir_ in 1837. The first emigrants from Telemarken also came
in 1837. As we have seen above, 1837 is also the year which records
the first immigration from Numedal. Among the emigrants from other
parts of Norway prior to 1837 must be mentioned also Johan Nordboe,
from Ringebo in Guldbrandsdalen, who came in 1832 and resided for some
time in Kendall, New York, later going to Texas, and Hans Barlien from
Trondhjem County, who came to La Salle County in 1837. Neither of these
two men, however, were instrumental in bringing about any emigration
movement in Gudbrandsdalen and Trondhjem. It is not until a much later
period that these two districts are represented in considerable numbers
among emigrants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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