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
Of the other founders of this settlement I may here add the following
facts. Ole Knudson Nattestad was born at Vægli, in Rollaug Parish,
December twenty-fourth, 1807. We have above given an account of his
settling at Clinton. In _Nordlyset_ for May eighteenth, 1848, there
appeared a communication from Nattestad relative to this occasion, in
which he rightly claims to have been the first Norwegian to settle
in the state. He married there Lena Hiser in 1840; he lived in the
settlement, as an influential, respected member of the community, till
his death, which occurred at Clinton, May twenty-eighth, 1886. His wife
died in September, 1888. They left seven children; Henry Nattestad,
the oldest, at present occupies the homestead. The other children are,
Charles (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), James (Dakota), Ann (Clinton),
Julia (Mrs. Martin Scofftedt Lawrence, Kansas), Caroline (Mrs. Louis O.
Larson, Clinton), and Eliza (Clinton). Ansten Nattestad was born August
twenty-sixth, 1813, the youngest of three brothers. Ole was the next
oldest.
Their father, Knud Nattestad, was a man of some means, but by the right
of primogeniture, the oldest inherited the estate and he remained
in Norway. Of these things and the early life of the two younger
brothers, Ole Nattestad gives an account in an interview printed in
_Billed-Magazin_, 1869, where also is a detailed account of Ansten
Nattestad's coming to America with his group of one hundred immigrants
in 1839. He also there, pages 107-108, gives a description of the
settlement as it was in 1869, and he has elsewhere in the columns of
that magazine made important contributions to the immigration history
of the years 1838-1840, which now are among the original sources of
material for a history of Norwegian immigration. Relative to the
further career of Ansten Nattestad I shall only add here that he became
one of the substantial members of this great and growing settlement, in
which he continued to live until his death on April eighth, 1889.
Hans G. Haugen was born at Vægli in Rollaug Parish in 1785. He was
an old soldier, having been in the Norwegian-Swedish War of 1814,
and having served in the Norwegian army for seven years. His wife,
whose maiden name was Sigrid Pedersdatter Valle, was born in January,
1803. The family consisted further of two sons, Gunnul and Gjermund,
the former born at Vægli, April twenty-eighth, 1827, the latter on
September nineteenth, 1836. The father, Hans Haugen, lived only a year
after coming to America; he died in October, 1840. In 1849 the widow
and two sons moved to Primrose, Dane County, Wisconsin, where we shall
meet with them again. Sigrid Haugen died in Beloit in 1885. It may be
added here that the family took the name of Jackson in this country. Of
the circumstances that led to the adoption of this name the son gives
an account which appeared in Anderson's _First Chapter_, etc., page two
hundred sixty-three.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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