There being no bridges, we forded the rivers at Rockford and Freeport. There was then not a house where the thriving city of Rockford now stands and only one small grocery store at Freeport. There were, at that time, no Norwegians in or around Wiota, and the nearest Norwegian settlement was at Rock Run, Illinois. Peder Skjervheim and I, each bought forty acres of government land in the Township of Wiota, upon which we each built a log cabin and began other improvements. Andres Brække also bought forty acres but soon sold it again.
In 1842 there came to our neighborhood three young people from Voss; David Larson Fenne and wife, and his brother, Nils Fenne. In 1843 there came some families from Vik, in Sogn, and settled near by: Ole Iverson Unde and wife Britha, and his brother Erik’s family. Erik died before reaching America, but his wife and children settled down here. Likewise, Erik Engebrit Hove, Ole Anderson and Sjur Tallakson Bruavold came at the same time.
To those which Mr. Vinje mentions as arriving in 1842 may be added Isak Johnson from Skien,[176] and Christian Hendrickson from Lier, Norway. The latter however moved to Primrose Township in Dane County in 1846. (See below).
Mathias J. Engebretsen of Gratiot, Wisconsin, tells me that Per Fenne and wife Martha came to Wiota in 1842, while Nils Sunve and wife Maline, and Ivar Fenne came in 1843; all these were from Voss. Helge Meland and wife from Telemarken came in 1843, as also Tore Thompson from Tindal and Ashley Gunderson from Numedal.[177] Those mentioned by Arne Vinje at the end of the above account, Ole and Sjur Bruavolden, did not settle at Wiota, it seems, before 1845, and Erik E. Hove not until 1847. These had located first at Long Prairie in Boone County, Illinois, as had also Ingebrigt Fuglegjærdet, who came from Vik, Sogn, in 1844. Of the immigration from Land, Norway, to Wiota, which began with Syver Johnson (Smed or Smedhögen in 1844), I shall speak in the next chapter. The growth of the Jefferson Prairie Settlement will, however, claim our attention briefly first.
CHAPTER XXIII
Growth of the Jefferson Prairie Settlement from 1841 to 1845. The First Norwegian Land Owners in Rock County.
In an earlier chapter I have given an account of the coming of Norwegians to Jefferson Prairie in 1838–39. We found that a considerable number of persons had located there by 1840, principally immigrants from Numedal. These first settlers located in the southern half of Clinton Township, but others soon came who settled still farther south, so that the settlement soon came to include a portion of the Township of Manchester in Boone County, Illinois. The first settlers here were Tönnes Tolleivson (or Tollefson) from Jæderen, and Svend Larson, both of whom settled in Boone County in 1840; Tollefson had come to America in the fall of 1839, presumably spending the winter of 1839–40 on Jefferson Prairie.
The settlement thus came to be divided into a northern and a southern part, the immigrant settlers in the two representing different provinces in Norway. The Numedalians settled as we have seen, nearer Clinton and in general in the northern end of Jefferson Prairie; in fact they occupied most of the prairie proper. The southern portion, the timber land, come to be settled principally by immigrants from Voss. Very few of these located in the Town of Clinton; they selected homes in the early days, for the most part, just where their descendants now live, on the south side of the state line, in Illinois. The whole settlement extends from about a mile and a half south of Clinton across the prairie and into the timber which began about three miles south of Clinton and extends about four miles down into Illinois.
We have observed above that Ole Nattestad’s house became the stopping place of the earliest immigrants to Jefferson Prairie. In a similar way D. B. Egery’s place,[178] located four miles southwest of the Nattestad cabin on the trail to Beloit, became the headquarters for many a Norwegian immigrant in that early day. Speaking of him, H. L. Skavlem gives testimony to his kindness and the readiness with which he lent a helping hand to the incoming settlers in his vicinity, who were seeking a place to establish a home in the wilderness. As soon as the immigrants arrived, parties of two or three would fill their knapsacks (skræppe) with provisions and strike out in various directions to “spy out the land.”[179]