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]
Having thus made their choice of land, Gilderhus, Bolstad, and Himle returned to Illinois by way of Milwaukee, walking the whole distance; they remained in La Salle County through the winter. Their account of the land of promise which they had discovered, aroused much interest, and, as we shall see below, brought others in their train later. Early in the spring of 1840, Gilderhus and Bolstad, accompanied now by Magne Bystölen and also Andrew Finno, started for Koshkonong, driving, this time, in wagons drawn by oxen. They arrived there at the end of April and immediately took possession of the land selected. The land that had been chosen for Bystölen was inside the Christiana Township line, where Anders Finno also now located. Nils Gilderhus’s land lay within Deerfield Township; he was the first Norwegian to locate there. He built a log cabin, which was the first house in the town. Nils Gilderhus and, I believe, Nils Bolstad, soon after walked to Milwaukee and filed their claims at the government land office, Nils Gilderhus being the first in the party to purchase land. The date of the purchase is May sixth, 1840; the land is the south half of the southwest quarter of section thirty-five. Nils Bolstad entered on forty acres of section two in the Town of Christiana, and Magne Bystölen’s forty acres lay directly east of Bolstad’s in the same section.[131]
Their first habitation was a hurriedly built log cabin; it was not plastered, and, as we can believe, proved inadequate as a protection against winter, which was already setting in. Here they experienced the intensest suffering from cold,[132] until, the condition becoming intolerable, they dug out a cellar against an embankment, where they lived during the remainder of the cold season. In this “dugout” Nils Gilderhus and Magne Bystölen continued to live another year, but Nils Bolstad erected a log cabin in 1841, when he married Anna Vindeig, who was the first white woman in the locality. Gilderhus erected a cabin in the town of Deerfield near the Christiana line in 1842, but he sold out in 1843 to Gulleik Thompson Saue; for further facts about these men see below. Andrew Fenno and Odd Himle did not purchase land.[133]
We shall now turn to the two other groups of settlers on Koshkonong in 1840.
CHAPTER XIX
The Settling of Koshkonong by Immigrants from Numedal and Stavanger in 1840. Other Accessions in 1841–1842.
Among the immigrants who came from Rollaug, Numedal, in 1839, was Gunnul Olson Vindeig, though, as we have seen, he did not come in Nattestad’s party. Through the illness of a child he was prevented from emigrating with Nattestad, as he had intended. Coming later in the year, he went via Chicago, directly to Jefferson Prairie, where he remained during the winter. In the early spring of 1840, about the time our Vossings, spoken of above, are moving north to locate on their claims, Vindeig built or bought a boat at Beloit, and this being ready, he, with a companion, Gjermund Knudson Sunde, rowed north along the Rock River, up Koshkonong Lake and Koshkonong Creek, into the Town of Christiana.
That the journey should have been made in a boat up Rock River against the stream, may sound like a legend; why not have walked this comparatively short distance (about forty miles), just as Gilderhus and party had walked the much longer distance from La Salle County? The Norwegian pioneers were good walkers and seem to have loved walking. Vindeig evidently did not. That he actually navigated up stream I take, however, not to be merely a local or family legend, for it is vouched for by his subsequent neighbors and comes down to us on good authority. I myself visited Ole Gunnulson, Vindeig’s son, who is still residing on the old homestead, last August (1908), and also received his confirmation of the route his father took in the spring of 1840. Lars Lier, a neighbor of Ole Gunnulson, is cited by Prof. R. B. Anderson as having been told by Gjermund Sunde himself, that they had tied the boat a little below the Anikstad ford, where the Funkeli bridge was afterwards built. Evidence comes also from some of the oldest pioneers of the locality, as Halvor Kravik and Jens P. Vehus.