[352] The nearest postoffice to the early settlers in Fillmore County, Minnesota, was twenty miles away at Decorah, Iowa. _History of Fillmore County, Minnesota_, 429. [353] From the list transcribed from the books of the Appointment Office of the Post Office Department, Dec., 1856. Andrews, _Minnesota and Dakota_, 191. Township affairs shade off almost imperceptibly into county affairs in the western States, and the Scandinavians soon began to take part in the latter. No records are at hand for the Wisconsin settlements, but in 1858 the first Norwegian was elected to the board of supervisors in Goodhue County, Minnesota, and in the following year Hans Mattson, who was active in building up the town of Vasa, where he filled various town offices, was elected auditor of the county.[354] He continued to fill the office until July, 1862, tho in name only for the last months, for in the minutes of Board of Supervisors of Goodhue County appears the resolution that "because the County Auditor, Hans Mattson, has voluntarily gone to the war with a company of soldiers, a leave of absence shall be extended to him, and that the office shall not be declared vacant so long as the deputy properly performs the duties of the place."[355] [354] Mattson, _The Story of An Emigrant_, 50. [355] Mattson, _The Story of an Emigrant_, 62. Hans Mattson was only one of many who found Goodhue County politics and a term of service in the army excellent fitting schools for larger activity in State affairs. One of the Norwegians who served an apprenticeship in Wisconsin, a journeymanship in Iowa, and came to the master-grade of citizenship--office-holding--in Minnesota, was Lars K. Aaker, who represented Goodhue County in the Minnesota Legislature in 1859-1860. After service as first lieutenant in Mattson's Scandinavian Company, he again sat in the Legislature in 1862, 1867, and 1869. Again after twelve years of residence in Goodhue County he moved to Otter Tail County, and represented that county in the State Senate, later becoming Register of the United States Land Office. In 1864, he moved again, to Crookston, in the extreme northwestern corner of Minnesota, where he served as Receiver of the Land Office from 1884 to 1893.[356] As the counties and towns have multiplied, by the biological process of division, in Minnesota and the Dakotas, Scandinavian names recur more and more frequently in their records, tho it is not always easy, especially since 1880, to identify such names, for the Norsemen have had a habit of Americanizing their original names or changing them altogether either with or without legal process.[357] [356] Personal interview with Mr. Aaker, May, 1890. He was school teacher, in English, and school district clerk in Wisconsin before moving to Iowa and Minnesota. See also _Minnesota Legislative Manual_, 1893, 89-92; Nelson, _History of the Scandinavians_, I, 365.