The accounts of America given by this emigrant visitor were so satisfactory, that when he prepared to go back to the United States in 1836, a large party was ready to go with him. Instead of the fifty-two who slipped out of Stavanger, half-secretly in 1825, there were now about 160, for whose accommodation two brigs, _Norden_ and _Den Norske Klippe_, were specially fitted out.[51] The increased size of this party was doubtless due in some measure to discontent with the religious conditions of the kingdom, but more to the activity of Björn Anderson Kvelve, who desired to escape the consequences of his sympathy with Quakerism, and of the marriage which he, the son of a peasant, had contracted with the daughter of an aristocratic, staunchly Lutheran army officer.[52] Being, as his son admits, "a born agitator and debater"--others have called him quarrelsome,--he persuaded several of his friends to join the party, and he soon became its leader.[53] The greater part of the two ship-loads, after arrival in New York, went directly to La Salle County, Illinois, a few stopping in or near Rochester. For several years after the arrival of this party, the immigrants from Norway generally directed their course towards the Illinois settlement, which, as a result, grew rapidly and spread into the neighboring towns of Norway, Leland, Lisbon, Morris, and Ottawa. [51] Langeland, _Nordmændene i Amerika_, 18; _Billed Magazin_, I, 83, 150 (Nattestad's account). [52] Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, 157 ff; _Madison Democrat_ (Wis.), Nov. 8, 1885. [53] Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, 155.