In either 1848 or 1849 came Nils, Steen and Ole Haatvedt; Nils moved to Wautoma, and Ole settled in Waupaca after living a few years at Heart Prairie. In 1850 Hans Hanson, a blacksmith, came from Holdon and located there; he worked for a time with the George Esterly Harvesting Machine Co., then bought a farm, which he occupied till his death in 1893. Another blacksmith by the name of Claus Hanson came at the same time; worked at his trade for a while in Whitewater then went to Michigan, married and came back and settled in Milwaukee, where he is still living. In 1851 Arve Gunderson Vale emigrated; his son Hans Vale had come in 1844; Arve Vale lived only a week after arriving. With him came Gunder H. Vala and wife Kersti and seven children; they moved to Vermillion, South Dakota, a few years later, all except the oldest son Halvor, who is living at Rio, Wisconsin. In that year (1851) came also Christopher Steenson Haatvedt and his two brothers-in-law, Peter Kystelson Haatvedt and Christen J. Tveit, while in 1852 came Jörgen A. Nilson Vibito and wife Karen Kristine, née Hanson, and six children. Jörgen Nilson had taught parochial school in Norway for twenty-nine years and continued to do so here for many years.
The above is a complete account of all arrivals to the settlement from Norway down to the year 1852; the roster of settlers here given has been patiently gathered during several months of research by Mr. Harvey Arveson[310] of Whitewater, himself the oldest son of the third settler in the community, namely Hans Arveson Vale, of whom we have spoken above. I have followed his manuscript closely, omitting only certain facts of family and personal history. Mr. Arveson speaks briefly of the trying summer and fall of 1846 when for a time sickness and death seemed to threaten to exterminate the settlers of Heart Prairie. I will quote from his own account of the condition; speaking of John Grönsteen, who came in 1846 and died that same fall, he continues:
There was so much sickness here at that time that there was hardly any one well enough to bury those that died; and well can I remember that the men had to come down to our house and rest before they could finish the grave, and well can I remember that the cow stood outside bellowing to be milked and no one able to milk her; everybody was thirsty as all had fever and ague and had to go a mile for water before we got to the well, and sometimes no one able to go after it. I am sure a great many died for want of care, as there was none that understood the English language and did not understand how to take their medicine. Those were hard times, and to many this account may sound incredible; nevertheless, it is true and I could write volumes and tell true incidents of the trials and hardships that the old pioneers had to endure.
Whitewater city received no Norwegian settlers until in the fifties, therefore an account of their coming falls outside the scope of our discussion. Of the old Skoponong Settlement I am able to give only a few general facts. The first settlers came in 1843–44; they were: Kittil Jordgrev, Hans Bukaasa, and Björn Lien from Upper Telemarken, Hans and Harald Nordbö from Flaa, Hallingdal, Ole Lia from Hiterdal, Halvor Valkaasa from Sauland, Lars Johnson Lee, Sjur Hydle, Knut T. Rio, and Tollef Grane from Voss, and Anon Dalos; several of these had families. Lars Lee and wife Britha came to Muskego in the summer of 1843 and to Skoponong early in the fall, and were therefore among the very earliest in that locality. They lived there until 1861, when they located at Spring Prairie, Town of Leeds, Columbia County.[311] In his history of the Skoponong Congregation (founded in 1844), C. M. Mason, Secretary of the congregation, names also the following among the earliest members of the church: Halvor Mathison (in whose house the church was organized in 1844), Styrk Erikson, Knud Dokstad, Nils Herre, Ole Sjurson, Simon Sakrison, Jacob Kaasne, Halvor Glenna, Mathias Baura, Björn Hefte, Sjur Flittre, Lars Klove, Mathias Lia and Even Gulseth.
In 1846 Syver O. Haaland, wife and nine children, Hadle Evenson and wife Anne J. Fjösne, and Tostein H. and Osmond O. Högstul came to Skoponong, the latter two from Tuddal in Telemarken; the former were from Etne Parish in Söndhordland. Björn Holland of Hollandale, Wisconsin, who is a son of Syver Haaland,[312] writes me that they came on the ship Kong Sverre from Bergen.[313] In Ulvestad’s Nordmaendene i Amerika, page 56, appears an account of their first few weeks in the settlement and of S. Haaland’s sickness and death. The Högstul party came in a brig by the name of Washington, which carried iron from Tvedestrand, commanded by a Norwegian captain by the name of Simon Cook. He says:
“In Milwaukee, there were only a few stores at the time. We drove with oxen and a wagon to the so-called Skoponong Settlement near Whitewater. When we came there nearly all the settlers lay ill with ague, the condition was wretched. We immediately began to rid and break some land and after a while we got so far that we could raise some wheat. But we had to haul it fifty miles to Milwaukee with oxen; there we got 25 cents per bushel.... wages was usually 25 cents a day in the spring and fall; in the haying it was 50 cents. But there was little work to get. Like other settlers my parents were poor. My mother made baskets from withes; these she then carried on her back about the prairie and sold them to Americans, getting in return for them flour, pork and garments, in order that we should not suffer distress.”
Hadle Evenson moved to Perry, Wisconsin, in 1854, where Mrs. Evenson died in 1861. The oldest son Edwin Hadley, enlisting in Co. E, 15th Wisconsin, was killed at the Battle of New Hope Church, Georgia, in May, 1864. In 1875 Mr. Evenson settled at Slater, Story County, Iowa. Peter Hadley, Treasurer of Webster County, is the only surviving son.
Among the early settlers at Skoponong was Mrs. Ingeborg Nelson who came from Evanger, Voss, in 1849. She left Skoponong a few years later, settling permanently at Deerfield, Dane County, in 1853, where she is still living at the age of ninety-five. Mrs. Nelson is the mother of Senator Knute Nelson of Minnesota, who was born in Norway in 1843. Knute Nelson was educated at Albion Academy, Albion, Wisconsin, and removed to Alexandria, Minnesota in 1871. He was Governor of Minnesota during 1892–1895. In the latter year he was elected U. S. Senator and has been reëlected twice since, serving now his third term.
I shall mention one more settler, namely Torstein Rio,[314] born at Vossevangen in 1835, who, with his wife Ingeborg (Bershaugen) and family came to America in 1849 on the ship Henrik Wergeland and located at Skoponong. A brother whose name also was Torstein came at the same time, and the family included a son Nels (Thompson), who is living at Madison, Wisconsin, having moved there in 1860.[315] Torstein Rio died at Skoponong in 1869, his wife died in Madison in 1876.
At Pine Lake and Nashota in northwestern Waukesha County a considerable number of Norwegians lived among the forties and fifties, since which the settlement has dwindled very much.[316] At Pine Lake the first Swedish settlement founded in America in the last century had been established in 1841 by Gustav Unonius.[317] In 1843 about fifty Norwegian families located at Pine Lake, according to Unonius Minnen, 1862, page 3. Unonius mentions especially a Captain Hans Gasman as the principal figure there. Gasman had a large family of sons and daughters, and the name is a well known one among the early pioneers of Racine, Waukesha, and Dodge Counties.[318] Other members of the family were Charles, Peter and Captain Johan Gasman, who commanded the Salvator, plying between Skien and New York. This very ship brought a number who located at Pine Lake, among them Halvor Salveson from Gjerpen.[319]