“One day a boat carrying seven or eight men, rather ugly in appearance, evidently Spanish pirates, approached us from the west, and their leader demanded to speak with the captain. They said they came from the New Foundland coast and wanted to send some letters back. Thereupon they veered about and rowed back to their ship which lay some distance to the west, put out nine boats with a large number of men and rowed back toward our ship. The captain, suspecting their purpose and realizing that we would be helpless before an attack of pirates, turned the ship around and sailed back for one whole day and night. In the meantime a considerable tumult arose on board, axes and guns being gotten in readiness and many carried up stones from the ballast. We succeeded, however, in escaping, and, after sailing a day and a night, we turned back and arrived safely in New York. Here we learned that recently a ship had arrived at port, the masts of which had been entirely destroyed by guns from a pirate attack.”
Mr. Ellingson in telling this, added that it is doubtful what fate might have awaited them, had not the captain promptly turned the ship about and succeeded in escaping what most certainly would have been a similar attack.
Among those who came on that ship at the same time, and who located at Capron, were: Johans Dahle from Voss, his wife, Ingebjör, and son, Ole;[284] Lasse Ellingson Aase (b. 1808), wife Gjöri Ravsdal and five children, Ragnild,[285] Elling (Elim), (b. 1835), Nils, Endre and Britha; Andres E. Aase, wife and two sons;[286] Anders O. Torvold, Johannes Lie (now living in Goodhue County, Minnesota), and Johanna Stadhem. John Benson of Capron tells me that his grandmother, Martha Numedal, a widow, came there in 1845 or 1846, and also the following: Joe Sande, who was married to a Miss Aase, Edlend Myrkeskog, wife Eli and daughter Ingebjör,[287] and Ole Myrkeskog, who is living at Capron yet at the age of eighty.
The Long Prairie Settlement continued to grow for a decade. Space does not, however, permit printing here the complete list of later arrivals, kindly supplied me by Elim Ellingson and John Benson.[288] We shall now speak briefly of the growth of the old settlement of Muskego.
CHAPTER XXXIII
The Growth of the Racine County (Muskego) Settlement, 1843–1847. Personal Notes.
In Chapter [XV] we discussed briefly immigration to Racine County in 1841–1842. The period of largest growth of the settlement was between 1842 and 1847; an especially large party came in 1843. After 1847 the arrivals that became permanent residents were few and scattered. In the early fall of 1842 there arrived at one time a party of forty persons. They had embarked at Langesund about May 30th, were over eleven weeks on the ocean, arriving in New York August 16th. Here they met Elling Eielson, who accompanied them to Albany; three weeks later they landed in Milwaukee. Among others there were the following persons: Hermo Nilsen Tufte and family from Aal in Hallingdal, Johan Landsverk and family from Tuddal, Telemarken, Sondre N. Maaren and wife and his brothers Östein and Nils from Tin, Östen G. Meland also from Tin, Tostein E. Cleven and Aanund Bjaan (Bjoin) and family who were the first to emigrate from Siljord. Of these several remained only temporarily; thus Anders Dahlen went to Winnebago County, Wisconsin, about 1848, in company with Ole Myhre, an immigrant of the year 1843. Kjittel Busness, who was a brother to the said Ole Myhre’s wife, also remained in Racine County only a few years, then he went to Stoughton, Dane County.
Sondre Maaren settled on section 34, Town of Norway, where he and his wife lived in a dug-out for a time; later, selling out to a Mr. Sawyer, they moved to Jefferson Prairie and ultimately to Cresco, Iowa. Aanund Bjoin died in 1847; the son Halvor, then eighteen years old, walked to Koshkonong with the view of selecting land and settling there, and the rest of the family moved there that same year. Johan Landsverk, who was a brother of Ole Landsverk, an immigrant of 1838, settled on Yorkville Prairie and remained there till 1854, when he moved to Sande in Chickasaw County, Iowa, where he lived till his death. A son, Peder J. Landsverk, born 1840, occupied the homestead later; he died in January, 1908. Hermo Nilson Tufte and family located on section 31 in Raymond Township; here he lived till his death.
As has been said, Tufte came from Aal Parish, Hallingdal, and was not only the first emigrant to America from Aal, but it seems, also the first from the Valley of Hallingdal. The Tufte farm lay in the extreme north of the valley close up under the mountains; the region is extremely cold, much of it covered by snow the whole year round. The family was extremely poor; of a pious nature and fervid adherents of Hans Nilsen Hauge. Besides the father and mother there was a son, Nils, and a daughter, Sigrid. The latter, in whom the piety of the mother had found strong expression, was attracted to the young lay preacher, Eielson, and in July the next year became his wife. The son, Nils, married in 1865 a daughter of Ole Sanderson in Perry Township, Dane County, and lived on the old homestead until he died about 1901. The daughter, Julia, married Thomas Adland of North Cape, Racine County, and another daughter, Betsey, married O. B. Dahle of Perry, Dane County. Hermo Nilson and his wife both died in the latter part of the sixties.