In 1846 about three hundred persons emigrated from Hallingdal. How many of these came to Rock County I am not able to say; among them were, however, Erik Kolsrud and family, Ole Hei and family, Nils Haugen, wife and six children, Knud Tröstem, Henrik Henriksen Tröstem, Halvor Ness, Hans Engen, Kari Husemoen, Guttorm Roen and son, Ole, Tollef Tollefsrud-Ballandby and sons Nils, Ola and Amund, Henrik Rime, brother of Tollef, A. T. Beigo, Timan Burtness and his brother John, Aadne Engen, Kristen Megaarden, Lars Grimsgaard, wife and family, Ingeborg Olsdatter Tröstem, Asle Hesla, and Asle Brunsvold. Many of the above had families. The leaders of this party were the three first named and Tollef Tollefsrude. They were the owners of large estates in Norway which they sold when they left for America. They paid the passage for many who came from Hallingdal that summer, but I cannot give the names of these. The party of emigrants left Drammen in April by the ship Newmann, which took them to Havre, France. Here they remained one month, before the ship on which they were to sail was gotten ready. They did not arrive to Rock Prairie until October, having been six months en route.
In 1847 very few came from Hallingdal, among them are mentioned Ole Onsgaard, Nils O. Wikko,[199] and Östen Burtness. In the following year, however, there was a considerable immigration. Erik K. Berg and his brother Truls Berg, Ole Trulson Ve and Ole Gulsen (Tröstem) with wife and son Gul and daughter Guri, Erik Ovestrud, Tideman Kvarve, Guttorm Megaarden, a Mr. Sagdalen and wife, Kari,[200] Levor Kvarve and family of twelve, and Knut Guttormsen Tyrebakken.[201] There came others from Hallingdal also in the years following. I may mention here Ole J. Bakke and wife and Herbrand K. Finseth (born in Hemsedal in July, 1830), who emigrated in 1852 and lived three years on Rock Prairie. They moved to Goodhue County, Minnesota, in 1855, as did also Knut K. Finseth and A. K. Finseth, brothers of Herbrand; these together with Halvor Hesgard, Aadne Engen and Christen Evenson, who removed to Minnesota at the same time, were the first white settlers in the Town of Holden, Goodhue County.[202] I may also mention Kittel O. Ruud, born 1823 of parents Erik Sanderson and Margit Ruud, and who came to Rock County in 1850. A few years later he moved to Northwestern Iowa and in 1855 became a pioneer settler in Holdon, Goodhue County, Minnesota, where he married Margrethe Andersdatter Flom in 1856. She was born in Aurland, Sogn, 1824. She died in March and he in April, 1903.[203]
The immigrants from Hallingdal settled chiefly in Spring Valley, and Plymouth; Beloit and Newark townships were settled for the most part before the Hallingdal immigrants began to come in larger numbers, yet some are located in Beloit Township. Newark is occupied largely by immigrants from Numedal, as is also Beloit. While Rock Prairie was taken possession of chiefly by pioneers from Numedal, Land, and Hallingdal, there were also a few from Telemarken, Sigdal and Ringerike, and one from Valders among the pioneers of the forties. Of those who came from Telemarken I shall mention Knut Simon (born 1819), who located near Janesville in 1843. He removed to Rice County, Minnesota, in 1854, and thence to Pope County in 1865; died in 1905.
The single immigrant from Valders to locate on Rock Prairie was Guul Guttormson. He came in 1843 and is the first known American immigrant from that district. He was born at Ildjernstadhaug in Hedalen in 1816. About 1840 he had removed to Modum; here a copy of Nattestad’s journal fell into his hands and he and Hans Uhlen and Anders Aamodt[204] decided to emigrate. These three came on the same ship that brought Kleofas Halvorson and Peder Gaarder. Guttormson bought land half way between Orfordville and Broadhead. He was always called “Guul Valdris” for he was and remained the only “Valdris”[205] there, for while he wrote home urging his friends in Valders to come to America, the immigration from Valders did not set in before 1847–48 and by that time Rock Prairie had been, as we have seen, taken up largely by immigrants from Hallingdal and Land. Guul Guttormson’s oldest son, Guttorm Guul (Broadhead, Wisconsin), born August, 1848, was probably the first child born of Valdris parentage in America. I have already spoken of the emigration of Syver Gaarder,[206] a “Valdris” who came with the party from Land in 1849. They located at Albany in Green County. These I believe were the only settlers from Valders in this locality.
CHAPTER XXVI
Economic Conditions of Immigrants. Cost of Passage. Course of the Journey. Duration of the Journey.
In discussing the causes of emigration, we have found that economic factors entered extensively into operation. It was the desire for material betterment that prompted a very large proportion of Norwegian emigrants to leave the land of their fathers. The first five decades of Norwegian emigration was a period in which the battle for existence among the Norwegian peasant and the common man was none too easy. Unfavorable economic conditions, the oppressive methods of the larger land owners, frequent crop failure, often reduced the lesser farmers into a condition of impoverishment. Even wealthy families found themselves burdened by debts from which the future seemed to offer little hope of relief. By the law of primogeniture the oldest son inherited the estate. The sons of men of means, therefore, were financially often no better situated than the cotter’s son, and were often forced to seek their fortune beyond the native village or district. These considerations will make clear first that the great majority of Norwegian emigrants to the United States were at the time of emigration of small means; they were often very poor indeed. Their wealth lay in the ability and the will to carve their way in a land of greater promise. Their wealth lay also in their thrift, in their ideals, and the moral fiber of their race. Many of those who have succeeded best in their adopted country came here well-nigh penniless. To them poverty was no longer a curse when the path of opportunity lay before them. But the above considerations will also have indicated that Norwegian immigrants of that early period were not always of the poor classes even though they came here with little or nothing. Later Norwegian immigration has, it is true, generally been from among the impecunious. But in that early period, especially 1835 to 1865, a very large number of the immigrants came from families which general or special conditions had suddenly so reduced to conditions which became to them intolerable. And it was the hope which America held out which inspired them with the will to seek there the independence now no longer theirs. We have already met with the evidence of this in such families as Hovland (1835), Nattestad (1837), Aadland (1837), Aasland (1838), Gravdal (1839), Stabæk (1839), Gitle Danielson (1839), Luraas (1839), Unde (1839), Heg (1840), Gaarder (1843–49), Nils Haugen (1846), and many others. We shall in the following pages meet with families of considerable means from Numedal, Telemarken, Voss, Ringsaker and elsewhere, of whom the same is true; and among the pioneers who came from Sogn in 1844, 1845, and later there were many old families of property and prominence in their native community. I stress this fact because some who have formerly written about Norwegian settlements in this country have never yet fully recognized the full significance of this; but I speak of it here especially because I have myself also failed to fully appreciate this fact when last I wrote upon the subject. What has been said here applies to the founders of the settlements of Northern Illinois, of Racine, Rock, Dane and other counties in Southern Wisconsin, and many of those who some years later established the settlements in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota. On the other hand also some of those who later became most substantial members of these settlements were men whose transportation to America was paid for by others that they might come and get a start in life. These men emigrated prompted by the desire of material betterment and in that aim they have succeeded, and they have succeeded honestly, often accumulating great wealth.[207]
The second topic in the title of this chapter is the cost of passage. I shall discuss this item briefly, using concrete illustrations from our sources. In that early period the voyage was made by sail-ships. These continued to be used for a long time after steam had come into use, clear down into the seventies. The ticket was then generally somewhat cheaper by sailing vessels than by steamship. Passengers furnished their own board and beading, and they were required to bring a supply sufficient for ten to twelve weeks.[208] The price of passage ranged between 33 and 50 speciedaler, that is between $25.00 and $38.00. Children under fourteen travelled for half price; those under one went free. The Luraas party (page [158] above) paid forty-two speciedaler from Gothenburg to Boston, while the Nattestad party paid fifty dollars from Gothenburg to New York in 1837. In 1839 the party that came with Ansten Nattestad secured passage for thirty-three dollars per person. This may be regarded as normal; it was the price paid, e. g., by Anders Tömmerstigen and family from Christiania via Havre, France, to New York in 1846. Those who came in June from Sogn in 1844 paid twenty-five dollars a person from Bergen to New York. The extremes are illustrated by two groups for the year 1839 and 1845: The little group of immigrants who came from Stavanger via Gothenburg to Boston with Gitle Danielson in 1839 paid, it seems, sixty dollars apiece,[209] while Peder Aasmundson Tanger and others, ninety in all, who came in 1845 from Kragerö, paid only eighteen dollars apiece to New York.
The inland journey, generally in the early days made by canal boat, varied greatly in cost, often amounting to as much as fourteen dollars to Milwaukee or Chicago. But the additional toll inland frequently made the inland journey much more expensive than was the ocean voyage. One pioneer, writing of this later, says that his whole journey cost him ninety dollars.[210] In the fifties the inland journey was made by railroad; the railroad ticket from Quebec to Chicago or Milwaukee was eight dollars.