We have given above a brief account of the founding of the Fox River settlement. Out of that nucleus of about thirty persons, whom we know to have come there in 1834–35 grew up one of the largest and most prosperous of rural communities in the country. The settlement developed rapidly, before many years extending into Kendall, Grundy and DeKalb counties and becoming a distributing point in the westward march of Norwegian immigration during the following years. The settlement in Orleans County, New York, ceased to grow, the objective point of immigrants from Norway had been changed and the Fox River region received large accessions, especially during the year 1836.
Immigration from Norway which heretofore had been more or less sporadic, in which individuals and very small groups are found to take part, now enters upon a new phase, begins in fact to assume the form of organized effort. The year 1836 inaugurated this change, while in 1837 there was something approaching an exodus from certain localities in Western Norway. The desire to emigrate to America had also now spread far beyond the original center, at Stavanger; the source of emigration was transferred to a more northerly region and with it, as we have had occasion to observe above, the course of settlement in this country is not only directed to a more westerly region, Illinois, but also soon extends into the northern border counties of Illinois and into southern and southeastern Wisconsin.
As this increased immigration is historically associated with the names of two of those whom we have already met as pioneers in New York, New Jersey and Illinois, a brief account of their share in the promotion of immigration from Norway will be in place. These two are Gjert Hovland and Knud Slogvig. We have seen that the former of these came to America in 1831, being probably the first immigrant from Hardanger. His name deserves special mention as an early promoter of emigration from southwestern Norway, especially from his own province. He was a man of much enlightenment and liberalmindedness to whom America’s free institutions made a strong appeal. He wrote letters home to friends urging emigration and these were circulated far and wide. In one of these letters from Morris County, New Jersey, 1835, he writes enthusiastically of American laws, and he contrasts its spirit of liberty with the oppressions of the class aristocracy in Norway. He advised all who could do so to come to America, where it was permitted to settle wherever one chose, he says. Hovland was well known in several parishes in the Province of South Bergenhus, and hundreds of copies of his letters were circulated there; they aroused the greatest interest among the people and were no small factor in leading many in that region to emigrate in 1836–37.
Thus it may be noted specifically that in 1836 a lay preacher travelling in Voss had in his possession one of Gjert Hovland’s letters, which letter was read by Nils Röthe, Nils Bolstad and John H. Björgo and others. These three since said that it was the reading of Hovland’s letter which induced them to immigrate.[35] Gjert Hovland, as we have seen, came to Illinois in 1835. His purchase of one hundred and sixty acres of land in the present Miller Township was recorded on June seventeenth of that year, the same date that the purchases of Kleng Peerson, Nels Thompson and Thorsten Bjaaland were recorded. Gjert Hovland lived there till his death in 1870.
The other name, that I referred to, is that of Knud Anderson Slogvig, who undoubtedly was the chief promoter of immigration in 1836. He had come in the sloop in 1825, and, as we have seen, settled in La Salle County in 1834. In 1835 he returned to Skjold, Norway, and there married a sister of Ole O. Hetletvedt, the slooper whom we find as one of the early pioneers of La Salle County. While there, people came to talk with him about America from all parts of southwestern Norway; and a large number in and about Stavanger decided to emigrate. Slogvig’s return may be said to have started the “America-fever” in Norway, though it took some years before it reached the central and the eastern parts of the country. It was his intention to return to America in 1836, and a large party was preparing to emigrate with him.
In the spring of that year the two brigs, Norden and Den Norske Klippe, were fitted out from Stavanger. The former sailed on the first Wednesday after Pentecost, arriving in New York July twelfth, 1836. The latter sailed a few weeks later. They carried altogether two hundred immigrants, most of whom went directly to La Salle County. Of these two brigs I shall speak again in a subsequent chapter.
I have above given some of the facts of Knud Slogvig’s personal history. Having already spoken of one element in the cause of emigration I believe it will be in place to give a fuller account at this point of the various general and special factors that have been instrumental in bringing about the coming to America of such a large part of the population of Norway in the 19th century.