With increasing Norwegian emigration to the Midwest, the Fox River colony in La Salle County, Illinois, was followed by sister colonies in the region. Within a few years, Fox River developed into the mother colony for thousands of Norwegian immigrants. In this context, “mother colony” means that this was the place where most Norwegian immigrants had their first destination in the USA. Many stayed there for a while before traveling to newer Norwegian colonies in the region.
In their letters home to Norway from Upper New York, the “Sloopers” – the passengers from the Restauration – were barely able to conceal their disappointment over the land they had bought. The prospects for the future looked poor. After they arrived in Illinois, the tone in letters to family and relatives in Norway was considerably more optimistic. Subsequently, a new urge to emigrate arose in the municipalities they had left. The land and the new opportunities in Fox River sounded enticing to many farmers. A few years of poor harvests in Norway in the early 1830s made the decision to emigrate easier.
The population pressure in rural areas increased in line with the reduction in child mortality. More and more Norwegian children lived to confirmation age. Therefore, the supply of labor continued to increase in agricultural communities in the 1830s, and wages showed a downward trend. These factors all played a role in reinforcing the desire to emigrate.[1]
A breakthrough for Norwegian emigration?
The early emigrants came from the Ryfylke region in Rogaland County and Sunnhordland, the southernmost region of Hordaland County. Emigration from the small municipality of Hjelmeland in Ryfylke in the northern Rogaland County can illustrate the process. In the local history “Bygdesoge for Hjelmeland municipality”, Trygve Brandal tells the story of Gudmund Sandsberg and his family. They left Hjelmeland in 1829 and settled in Kendall, New York, but in 1836 the family moved to Mission in La Salle County.[2]
His brother Andreas Sandsberg at home in Hjelmeland corresponded with Gudmund. In a letter dated May 14, 1836, Andreas wrote to Gudmund that a number of people in Hjelmeland whom they both knew well, had decided to emigrate. Two sailing ships full of emigrants were soon to leave Stavanger and sail to New York. Many of those who traveled, had been greatly influenced by the stories Knud Andersson Slogvig had told about life in America when he visited Norway in 1835.[3]
On May 25, 1836, the brig Norden sailed from Stavanger. She had 110 passengers on board and arrived in New York on July 20. A couple of weeks later, on June 8, the brig Den Norske Klippe cast off from Stavanger with 57 passengers and arrived in New York on August 15, 1836. A large number of the passengers came from Hjelmeland – a total of 38 people, 22 percent of the 167 emigrants.
Another two emigrant ships left in 1837
The next season another two emigrant ships departed. The barque Ægir left Bergen on April 7 with 84 passengers on board and arrived in New York on June 11. The barque Enigheden sailed from Stavanger on July 1 and arrived in New York on September 14 with 91 emigrants, including 23 families. Another group of 41 emigrants traveled to Hamburg, where they hoped to find ship accommodation to New York.[4] “In size and importance, no other group in the first generation of Norwegian immigration can match the 343 passengers on these four ships that constituted the backbone of the emigrations of 1836 and 1837,” Henry J. Cadbury later emphasized.[5]
Among the 62 emigrants who left Hjelmeland between 1829 and 1839, only seven were unmarried. The others belonged to twelve families. Seven of them owned their own farms, while the rest belonged to the category of agricultural laborers. By 1845 the emigration from Norway to the USA had spread to nine of the twenty counties in Norway. The total number of emigrants was still small; an average of 620 annually. This was a mere 0.5 emigrants per year per 1,000 Norwegian inhabitants.
But it was during these years that emigration fever really took hold. The number of emigrants per year increased significantly in the decade between 1846 and 1855. An average of 3,200 people emigrated per year from Norway: 2.3 per 1,000. New records were set in 1853, when 6,050 Norwegians emigrated, and in 1861 when 8,900 Norwegians crossed the Atlantic. Between 1836 and 1865 the largest emigration flow was from Rogaland County. Throughout this period, Rogaland had the highest emigration rate, with as many as 3 people per 1,000. The average emigration rate for all of Norway, however, was 1.8 people per 1,000.[6]
Limits to helping “thy neighbor”?
Were the immigrants aboard the four sailing ships to New York better prepared than the immigrants of 1825 had been? Did they have a realistic understanding of the vast distances between New York and Fox River – more than 1,300 km? Did they have enough money with them to cover the cost of traveling? Were they able to pay for food, housing and equipment to survive during the first winter? IN fact, most emigrant were ill-prepared and brought far too little money with them. This is evident in several letters the Quaker couple Lars and Martha Larson in Rochester sent to Norway in the fall of 1837.
The Norwegians traveling west on the Erie Canal knew that Lars Larson lived in Rochester. What could be more natural for travel-weary, sick and lonely immigrants than to ask the Larsons for help? But the Larsons’ resources were not inexhaustible, and at times, their patience wore thin. Large groups came asking for room. On October 11, 1837, Martha Larson wrote in some frustration to Elias Tastad, the leader of the Quakers in Stavanger, about the large number of Norwegians who came knocking on their door in Rochester. Just that day twelve Norwegians had asked for help, Martha wrote. They were now sitting at “the table eating supper.” Two weeks earlier, between 90 and 100 people had stayed in their house for about a week, and “we served meals to almost all of them. Most have now traveled on to Illinois.”[7]
Without money and could hardly speak a word of English
Lars and Martha Larson helped their compatriots with food and shelter as best they could, and Lars even tried to find paid work for them. They were good Quakers and wanted to help, but were surprised at how many of the immigrants had left their journey to fate.
In her letter, Martha commented that the newcomers were usually totally unprepared for the kind of situation they would encounter on the other side of the Atlantic. “People who have a good livelihood in Norway should stay where they are,” Martha wrote. “When they come here, most of them are penniless, they do not know a word of English, and they have no friends. They have little or no patience. Elias, I ask you as a friend that you must not advise anyone to emigrate who cannot take care of themselves. Practically everyone comes to us for help and we are unable to help so many!” Earlier that day, Martha had gone “around the city trying to find work for them and Lars had taken several to the countryside to try to find work there.”
The ticket paid for crossing the Atlantic was only the beginning
Later that month, Lars Larson wrote a letter to Norway on the same subject. Stavanger Amtstidende later printed the letter. The immigrants seemed to be completely unprepared for the situation they had to face in the USA. The ticket across the Atlantic was just the beginning of all the expenses the emigrants would incur before they reached their destination. There were enormous distances to travel before they reached La Salle County, and it also cost money to establish themselves and build houses. Many immigrants in 1836 and 1837 were penniless by the time they arrived in New York. “If the Norwegian and Swedish consuls hadn’t been so kind as to help them with money, they would have been very badly off,” Lars wrote.
The last ship to sail from Stavanger in 1837 had 91 Norwegians on board. Most of them ended up on the doorstep of the Larson family. After three days, they sent thirty of the emigrants on to Illinois. At the time he sent the letter, the rest of the group was “still in my house with twelve new immigrants who arrived the day after the first, and whom I house in one of my boats.”
The immigrants did not speak English, but neither did they have anyone to speak for them in meetings with authorities or merchants. Swindlers could easily get the better of them. In Rochester, Lars tried day after day to find work for the immigrants, but the moment employers realized that the laborer did not know a word of English, they sent him back to Larson.The national newspaper Rigstidende also printed this letter, on January 4, 1838.
Money for a house, farm buildings, a dairy cow and a horse
The first priority among all settlers who came to La Salle County, including Yankees, was to get a roof over their head before snow and frost set in. If they knew neighbors near where they had taken up land, they could hope to be invited to stay with them for a few weeks. It took an enormous amount of work to cut down trees and remove roots before plowing the soil.[8]
The first crop was usually corn. Prairie that had been plowed for the first time in June could be sown with wheat in September. Corn and oats could be sown the following spring. Once the corn was in the ground, it made sense to build chicken coops that could be closed at night to protect hens and chickens from owls, foxes and wolves. The pigs also needed some cover. Cows and oxen grazed freely on the prairie, but an enclosure was necessary for the cows at night and the calves during the day.
Unprepared for malaria
Many Norwegian immigrants contracted serious diseases they did not know in Norway. Once the forest had been cut down and the soil turned for the first time, the season for fever and malaria began. “The first attack of malaria was usually the worst. The first seasons after the settlers came to La Salle County, whole neighborhoods were bedridden at the same time,” Baldwin wrote. When one or two people were more fortunate than the others, they visited households where everyone was in bed. “They gave them medicine, placed fresh water and food by the bedside, and last, but not least, emptied the can, then returned to their own house and cared for the sick in their own family.”[9] The disease had other names: shivering fever, bilious fever or autumn fever. The patient experienced large fluctuations in body temperature, from high fever to severe chills.
Malaria was a dreaded disease because of its effect on body and soul. In many cases, the disease ended in death. The disease usually appeared in late summer and early fall. There were few cases of malaria after the first hard frost set in, and in spring and early summer most people were healthy. But in the spring thaw, rivers and streams overflowed their banks and water remained in low-lying areas and swamps. When such places dried up in the heat of July and August, they became breeding grounds for mosquitoes and disease. The disease undermined people’s health and resilience and also had a negative impact on the economy. Infants and children under the age of five were especially vulnerable. People in the southern states were most at risk.[10]
The prevalence of malaria in the US
Fiametta Rocco noted in her book Quinine. Malaria and the Quest for a Cure That Changed the World, that wherever the new immigrants settled, “across the Allegheny Mountains, across the Great Lakes, along the Grand River, in the area of the Rideau Canal and into Upper Canada – malaria followed.” The disease spread from the states along the Atlantic coast to Kentucky and Tennessee, into Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and northern Louisiana. “By 1850, virtually the entire United States was one big hotbed of malaria, except in Maine and northern parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota.”[11]
La Salle County was hit hard by malaria in the fall of 1835. In 1838, there was more disease and deaths from malaria than in any other year since the first white settlers settled in the area. Construction of the western section of the Illinois and Michigan Canal between Seneca and La Salle, a stretch of about 50 km, began in 1836. A number of Irish canal workers involved in digging the canal were severely affected by malaria fever in 1838.[12]
Emigrants on the Ægir made the wrong choice
The Norwegian immigrants who came to Fox River in 1836 and 1837 had very little knowledge of malaria, and many died. The passengers of the Ægir in 1837 were the worst affected. When they arrived in Chicago, they were told that the Fox River valley was a den of disease. They were frightened and chose instead to follow advice to settle in Beaver Creek in Iroquois County, about 110 km south of Chicago. Ole Rynning and three others went there to familiarize themselves with the conditions. They concluded that things looked good, and as a result around fifty Norwegian immigrants chose to follow Rynning to Beaver Creek.
The next year, after the spring thaw, it turned out that they had chosen soil in swampy areas, which became a breeding ground for mosquitoes. “A tragic misjudgment was made,” Blegen wrote. “The soil they chose in the late summer of the previous year turned out to be very low the following spring. Because of the tall and dry grass, they had not seen this. When spring came, the low-lying soil was flooded and the unfortunate Norwegian colonists found themselves in great difficulty.”[13] A serious fever epidemic broke out. For a while, Norwegians died almost every day. Ole Rynning was among those who died in the fall of 1838. Several of those who survived moved to La Salle County in the spring of 1839.
A full stop of emigration from Norway
A financial crisis broke out in the USA in May 1837. It did not take more than a few months before families and friends in Norway received letters from America mentioning the crisis. As a result, emigration from Norway stopped almost completely. As a result of the crisis, in 1839 work on the canal in La Salle County was reduced to a minimum. The economic depression in the USA lasted until the mid-1840s. Even though times were bad and people rarely had money in their pockets, there was usually enough food – bread, meat, venison, prairie chickens and vegetables.[14] Norwegians already living in La Salle tried to help new immigrants as much as they could by giving them shelter and food. They also tried to help them find work. Prospective employers, however, did not have the cash to pay workers.
Mother colonies and new sister colonies
The role of Cleng Peerson in the establishment of the Fox River colony was at least as great as his role in New York in 1825, perhaps greater. Because of the many new immigrants who came to Fox River in 1836 and 1837, Cleng Peerson was encouraged to look for another site for a new Norwegian colony. This time he headed south. The site he chose was in Shelby County in northeast Missouri, about 50 miles west of Palmyra.[21] In March 1837, a group of twelve to fourteen people traveled there under the leadership of Cleng Peerson, Jacob and Knud Anderson Slogvig, and Andrew Simonson.[22]
Shelby County, Missouri
In April 1837, John Norboe and his family were ready to move to the new Norwegian colony in Shelby County, Missouri. He sold his farm in La Salle County for 400 dollars.[23] A larger group of immigrants came to Shelby County directly from Norway in 1839. Rasmus B. Anderson claimed that Cleng bought 80 acres of land in Shelby County after he returned to Norway in 1838, and that he brought a group of immigrants back to Missouri in 1839.[24] In his 1921 article on Cleng Peerson, Theodore C. Blegen was of the same opinion.[25] But by the time his book was published in 1931, he had changed his mind. There were no written sources to prove that Cleng had returned to Norway in 1838, only oral sources.
In the meantime, Blegen had read the small booklet Peter Testmann wrote after returning to Norway from the USA in 1839. Peerson was not in Norway in 1838, but he was in New York City. He met and “persuaded a group of recently arrived immigrants, including Peter and Wilhelm Testman, to follow him west. The small group had traveled via Bremen.”[26] Also, Stavanger Amtstidende and Adresseavis printed an article on February 1, 1839, about Norwegians in Missouri.
The state of Missouri was “exceedingly fair and lovely”
The three Testman brothers from Stavanger – Peter, William and Hans – had sailed from Stavanger to Bremen together with three other Norwegians in May 1838. They crossed the Atlantic on board a ship to New York, and arrived there in early August. “The day before our departure from New York,” wrote Peter Testman, “we met one of our countrymen who was one of the first emigrants from the western edge of Norway. He was now on a journey from the westernmost states, and was to return home again. He encouraged us to follow him, and described the State of Missouri, where he lives, as very beautiful and delightful. We consented to accompany him there, and I especially for the reason of having in him a guide and interpreter, as he was much traveled in all the northern states and spoke quite fluent English”.[27]
Our knowledge about the first Norwegian emigrants from Western Norway in this period point to Cleng Peerson as the likely “countryman”, fluent in English and “much traveled” in the northern states. He could hardly have had time to travel to Norway in 1838 and return to the Midwest and be back in New York again in early August 1838.
The Norwegian colony in Sugar Creek, Lee County, Iowa
The land in Shelby County was a disappointment, and as a consequence, in 1839 several of the Norwegian immigrants in Shelby headed north. They settled in the new Norwegian colony at Sugar Creek in Lee County in southeastern Iowa.[28] Peerson agreed that the move was the right one and followed them north. The Sugar Creek colony was located in the southern part of Lee County in one of the most heavily forested areas in the state of Iowa. The Mississippi River marked the eastern boundary of the county, and the Des Moines River marked the western boundary. Neither the settlements in Shelby County nor at Sugar Creek in Iowa attracted any strong flow of Norwegian immigrants.
Relatively little is known about Cleng Peerson’s activities in the following years. We know he was back in Norway in the second half of 1842. His father was old and ill, and Cleng wanted to visit him before he died. However, he died in 1841, before Cleng had left the United States. Cleng participated in the settlement of his father’s estate and returned to the Midwest in 1843. In 1847, after he settled in Lee County, he joined the Swedish Eric Jansson sect which built up the Bishop Hill colony in Henry County in Illinois.
Credits
Maps and image from Rochester: article by Thomas x. Grasso and Ruth Rosenberg-Naparsteck, in ROCHESTER HISTORY, Vol. XLIX, October, 1987 No.4, edited by Ruth Rosenberg-Naparsteck, City Historian. Used courtesy of the City of Rochester, NY.
Map of Illinois and Michigan Canal Found in the substack https://iandmcanal.substack.com/p/canal-diggers-church-builders-part where it was credited to Lewis University Adelman Collection, Chicago, found in several sites, for instance the substack on Irish canal workers in Illinois, https://iandmcanal.substack.com/p/canal-diggers-church-builders-part where it was credited to Lewis University Adelman Collection, Chicago.
Notes
[1]Utvandringsstatistikk, Norwegian Official Statistics, VII.25, published by the Norwegian Interior Ministry, Kristiania 1921, p. 5.
[2] Rasmus B. Anderson, The First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, p. 135.
[3] Trygve Brandal, Hjelmeland. Bygdesoge 1800-1990, Hjelmeland municipality 1994, p. 30.
[4]Stavanger Adresseavis, May 27, 1836; June 7, 1837; , October 13, 1837.
[5] Henry J. Cadbury, “Four Immigrant Shiploads of 1836 and 1837”, NAHA, vol. 2, 1927, p. 20.
[6] Nils Olav Østrem, Den store utferda. Emigration from Skjold and Vats to America 1837 – 1914, Oslo 2015, p. 78.
[7] Quote Richard L. Canuteson, “Lars and Martha Larson: “We Do What We Can for Them”, NAHA, volume 25, 1972, p. 142-143, 161.
[8] Baldwin, History of La Salle County Illinois, p. 137.
[9] Baldwin, History of La Salle County Illinois, p. 156.
[10] Sok Chul Hong, “The Burden of Early Exposure to Malaria in the United States, 1850-1860: Malnutrition and Immune Disorders”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 67, no. 4, December 2007, pp. 1001-1035; R. H. von Ezdorf, “Malaria in the United States: Its Prevalence and Geographic Distribution”, Public Health Reports, vol. 30, no. 22, May 28, 1915, pp. 1603-1624.
[11] Fiametta Rocco. Quinine. Malaria and the Quest for a Cure That Changed the World, New York 2003, pp. 172, 173.
[12] Ryan Dearinger, The Filth of Progress. Immigrants, Americans, and the Building of Canals and Railroads in the West, University of California Press, Oakland, California, 2016, pp. 67-71.
[13] Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America, 1931, p. 92.
[20] Baldwin, History of La Salle County Illinois, p. 176.
[21] Theodore C. Blegen, “Cleng Peerson and Norwegian Immigration”, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 7, no. 4, p. 321; Theodore C. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America, 1931, p. 112.
[22] Anderson, The First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, p. 186.
[23] Hovdhaugen, op. cit. p. 41; Arne Odd Johnsen, “Johannes Nordboe and Norwegian Immigration”, NAHA, volume 8.
[24] Anderson, The First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration, p. 187.
[25] Blegen, op. cit., 1921, p. 321, relied on Anderson on this point.
[26] Theodore C. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America, 1931, p. 113.
[27] Peter Testman’s Account of his Experiences in North America, translated and edited by Theodore C. Blegen, published by NAHA, Northfield, Minnesota 1927, p. 10. Peter Testman, Kort Beskrivelse over de vigtigste Erfaringer under et ophold i Nord-America og paa flere dermed forbundne Reise. Published by L. C. Kielland, Stavanger 1839, p. 4.
[28] Theodore C. Blegen, “Cleng Peerson and Norwegian Immigration”, p. 321
Views: 41