Chicago we met Bjorn Anderson Kvelve [the father of the present editor] from the Stavanger company. He had come to America the year before [1836] and had travelled through various parts of Illinois but all that he had heard and seen had only served to make him dissatisfied with this side of the ocean. Broken down in soul and body, he stood before us as a victim of misery and produced a scene so terrible that it never will be blotted from my memory. “God bless and comfort you!” said he. “There is neither work nor land nor food to be had and by all means do not go to Fox River; there you will all die from malarial fever.” These words had a terrible effect on our little flock, many of whom had already lost all courage. Like demons from the lower world, all the evil warnings about the terrors that awaited the emigrants to America were now called to mind and even the bravest were as by magic stricken by a panic which bordered on insanity. The women wrung their hands in despair and uttered terrible shrieks of woe. Some of the men stood immovable like statues with all the marks of frightful despair on their faces, while others made threats against those whom they regarded as the promoters of emigration and the leaders of the party. But in this critical situation Ole Rynning’s greatness appeared. He stood in the midst of the people who were ready for mutiny; he comforted those in despair and gave advice to those who doubted and hesitated and reproved those who were obstinate. He was not in doubt for a moment and his equanimity, courage, and noble self-sacrifice for the weal of others had acquired him influence in the minds of all. The storm abated and the dissatisfaction gave place to a unanimous confidence. A couple of Americans with whom Rynning talked advised him to take the immigrants to Beaver Creek, directly south of Chicago in Iroquois County. It seems to me that the story told about my father must, to say the least, be overdrawn. The facts as I have them from my mother, from Mons Aadland, and even from Ole Nattestad himself, do not warrant the painting of so weird a picture. All the prose there is in the romance is that my father met these people in Chicago and was unwilling to recommend the Fox River settlement with which he was not pleased, and as he had never seen Iroquois County, he had no share in recommending the immigrants to go to Beaver Creek. His dissatisfaction with the Fox River settlement is further confirmed by the fact that in 1840 he found a new home in Albion, Dane County, Wisconsin. In support of my view, I may here quote the words of Prof. Svein Nilsson in _Billed Magazin_ (1869) where, in alluding to the Beaver Creek settlement he states: