The founder of the Rock Prairie Settlement was Gullik Olson Gravdal, of Vægli, Numedal; he emigrated from Norway with Ansten Nattestad in 1839. He came directly to Jefferson Prairie, but did not remain there. With Gisle Halland and Goe Bjöno he went west a distance to look over the country, with a view to settling elsewhere. Having arrived at Beloit, they managed here to secure a map and from it got some idea of where government land was to be had. Then they continued their journey along the Madison road seven miles farther west. Finally, he came to a place which suited him, for he found, as he says, "good spring water, as also prairie and woodland in the right proportion." Together with Lars Röste, a single man from the Parish of Land, he then bought forty acres of land.[87] Gisle Halland bought land one mile farther east, while Goe Bjöno took a claim on a piece of land for Mrs. Gunhild Ödegaarden, three miles south of the site selected by Gravdal. [87] Röste later went back to Norway, however. Gunhild Ödegaarden (who emigrated from Nore, annex parish in Numedal) was a widow of considerable means, who had paid the passage of several other persons. Her family, among whom were grown sons and daughters, emigrated with her to America in the Nattestad party and came directly to Jefferson Prairie. Immediately after Bjöno's purchase of land for her in Newark Township she, with family, moved out there and had a log cabin erected, this being the first dwelling built in that township. This statement is based upon the authority of Gravdal himself, as printed in an interview on page 162 of _Billed-Magazin_ for 1869. _The History of Rock County_ agrees in this statement that Mrs. Ödegaarden's log cabin, built in the fall of 1839, was the first house erected in the Town of Newark. Gunhild Ödegaarden's name appears regularly as Mrs. Gunale (or Gunile). She is there mentioned several times, her family being extensively intermarried with the old pioneer families in the settlement.[88] Gravdal completed the erection of a cabin late in the fall, and his family having been left on Jefferson Prairie, he brought them to Rock Prairie in the latter part of November (_Billed-Magazin_, 1869, page 162).[89] [88] Thus Ole Gulack Gravdal, son of Gullik Gravdal, married Juri Ödegaarden (given as Juri Gunale in _The Rock County History_) in 1855. [89] There can be no doubt as to the correctness of the facts as here given. It has also been said that Lars Skavlem's house was the first to be erected, and J. W. C. Dietrichson erroneously even names him as the first Norwegian in Rock Prairie.