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
whom also had families, besides some single persons. Halvor Haugen's
family and most of the party remained in Du Page County for a time,
and Peder Haugen and his brother Andreas and the two sisters secured
employment there. The father, however, went with Erik Skavlem to
Jefferson Prairie to help him build a house. At Christmas the rest of
the party also went to Jefferson Prairie. During the winter they all
lived in Skavlem's house. This house is described as follows:
"It was sixteen by sixteen and quite low. In order to add to room
'crowns' were erected overhead, that is, beams which were laid
crosswise near the ceiling. These beams were cut pointed at the
ends which were made to rest between the logs in the walls on
either side, like riders across the house. On top of these again
was laid flats, on which beds were arranged. Down below on the
floor there were also three beds."
A writer in _Amerika_, March first, 1907, quotes one of the immigrants
as speaking of the cramped quarters in the log cabin, in which the
whole party lived that fall and winter; room which to one family would
seem too small now. "How these settlers," he says, "could manage in
one log cabin a whole winter is a riddle to me." The following spring
Halvor Haugen also built a cabin which was always full as newcomers
were constantly arriving. At the same time other cabins were erected
by Kittil and Kristoffer Nyhus, Gudbrand and Jens Myhra, and Torsten
Kirkejorden. Two years later all of these built new and more commodious
houses.
The settlement thus founded exclusively by immigrants from the district
of Numedal has always continued to be recruited largely from that
region (see, however, below). In the following year a few more families
came from Numedal, while from 1841 the accessions were considerable
every year for a number of years. Among these is to be mentioned Bergit
Nelson Kallerud, from Vægli, who also came in the ship _Emilia_,
in 1839, but who does not seem to have gone directly to Jefferson
Prairie. She married Jens Gudbrandson Myhra at Christmas, 1839, while
his brother, Gudbrand Myhra, married Ambjör Olson (also from Vægli)
in 1840. The following year they, however, moved to the Rock Prairie
Settlement (see below), and in 1852 they settled in Mitchell County,
Iowa. In connection with the settling of this county we shall have
occasion to speak again more fully of them. Jens Myhra was born in
Vægli, Numedal, in 1812.
[Illustration: Map of Southern and Central Norway
See Appendix for names of parishes here numbered.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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