We have seen that most of the immigrants from Voss, Norway, who came in 1839, located either in Chicago or in La Salle County, Illinois. It has been observed also that not all of those who went to the Fox River region located there permanently. The land here was now mostly taken, besides our pioneers from Voss did not like the prairie; they were in search of a location where timber and water was near at hand. And so some of them decided to try their fortune in Wisconsin, where they had heard there was plenty of forest land with many lakes and rivers. Our party from Voss had been in La Salle County only a few weeks, when three of them decided to go and investigate for themselves. These three were Nils Bolstad, Nils Gilderhus and Magne Bystölen. They engaged Odd J. Himle (who had emigrated from Voss in 1837), then living in Illinois, to accompany them as their guide and interpreter. Bystölen, being taken sick and thus prevented from going, gave instructions to the rest to select land for him if the region was satisfactory to the rest. Bolstad, Gilderhus and Himle started on foot for Milwaukee, a distance of a hundred and fifty miles. Having arrived there in safety, they procured maps and whatever information they could with reference to the regions that were open to settlement in the interior of the state. Then they walked west about eighty miles inspecting the land on the way, and after two weeks reached the eastern part of Dane County. The spot where they stopped was about two miles east of the site of the present village of Cambridge. Here a man by the name of Snell had shortly before established a tavern for trappers and frontiersmen; with him our party of homeseekers put up, and from him they received instructions as to the "government markings" of the sections and the stakes placed at the corner of sections and quarter sections, giving the number of each. After a two days' rest they continued their tramp westward to Koshkonong[129] Prairie. Himle, Gilderhus and Bolstad inspected the whole prairie from one end to the other, walking about for two days. Then they returned to Cambridge, finally deciding on a parcel of land a little over two miles northwest of that place, lying on both sides of the boundary line between the towns of Christiana and Deerfield. Here Gilderhus and Bolstad selected forty acres each, and forty for Bystölen. This locality was chosen because of its abundance of hardwood timber, and besides there was plenty of hay on the marshes and fine fishing in Koshkonong Creek near by.[130] [129] The prairie takes its name from Koshkonong Creek (and Koshkonong Lake). [130] As Mr. Odland points out. Odland adds: "They were all Vossings and to emigrants from that celebrated district in Norway, therefore, belongs the credit of founding the most important Norwegian settlement in America." (Article in _Amerika_).