The Scandinavian Element in the United States. Babcock Kendric Charles
III.
Early Norwegian Immigration
“Arrived last evening” (October 9, 1825).
“Danish Sloop Restoration, Holland, 98 days from Norway, via Long Island Sound, with iron to Boorman and Johnson, 52 passengers.”20
“The vessel is very small, measuring, as we understand, only about 360 Norwegian lasts, or 45 American tons, and brought 46 passengers, male and female, all bound for Ontario County, where an agent who came over sometime since, purchased a tract of land.”21
These ordinary shipping notices in the newspapers of New York City, and several other similar paragraphs, are the first entries in the chronicles of the newer Scandinavian immigration to the United States. From the cessation of Swedish immigration in the seventeenth century down to 1825, no considerable companies made the long journey from the Northlands to America, tho adventurous fellows in twos and threes came now and then, men who misliked the humdrum life in the old parishes, with its narrow opportunity and outlook, men who found the sea the only highway to novelty and a possible fortune.22 Now, at last, the coming of a company of some size, from Norway, adding one more to the lengthening list of nationalities which contributed to the complex population of the United States, attracted more than passing attention.23 That the sloop was not Danish, and that there is some discrepancy in the number of passengers – (and crew?) – and in the number of days in the voyage, are minor matters and easily accounted for; the New Yorker of 1825 could hardly be expected to distinguish clearly between Danes and Norwegians, when the people of the Northwest at the present time apply the name Swede indiscriminately to Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, Finns, and Icelanders. But back of the arrival of this little sloopful of Norwegians, is a story of motive, organization, and movement, more or less characteristic of Scandinavian immigration during the next two generations. The two main elements are: conditions in Norway and the United States, and the personal activities of one of the adventurous fellows already referred to.
In the region about Stavanger, in southwestern Norway, in 1825, there had been for some time a feeling of discontent with the religious conditions of the country, and a tendency to formal dissent from the established church. The direction of this tendency and the definition of the movement were vitally influenced by certain zealous and philanthropic Quaker missionaries from England, Stephen Grellet and William Allen, who visited Norway in 1818. Grellet was a French nobleman who sought refuge in the United States during the French Revolution, and there united himself with the Quakers or Friends. After residing in America for twelve years, he began making tours through Europe to propagate Quaker ideas, even obtaining an interview with the Pope, which he describes in his diary. The visit to Norway was in furtherance of his general plan. While his account of his stay in Norway does not make any mention of America, it is impossible to believe that no reference to America and to the conditions of the Friends in that part of the world, where he himself found refuge, crept into the conferences which he held around Stavanger, and that no seeds of desire to seek the New World were sown in the slow-moving minds of the Norwegian peasants whom he met.24
As dissenters from the established church, these Quakers were continually subject to actual or threatened pains and penalties, in addition to those troubles which might arise from their refusal to take oaths and to render military service. Their children and those of other dissenters must he baptised and confirmed in the Lutheran Church; they must themselves attend its services and pay taxes for its support, or suffer fines or other punishment for failing so to do. Tho prosecutions, or persecutions, were really few before 1830, an episode now and then showed the dissenters what might be in store for them if they persisted, as when one of the Quakers was arrested in 1821 for burying his children in unconsecrated ground, and fined five specie dollars a day until he re-bury them in consecrated ground, and agree to follow the outward ceremonies and customs of the state church.25 Two years before one of the Friends wrote: “There are no laws yet made in favor of Friends, so that those who stand firm in their principles act contrary to the laws of the country. Friends must be resigned to take the consequences.”26 With signs of persecution, with an increase of discontent, and with the leadership of a man possessed of first-hand knowledge about the United States, it is not surprising that emigration was decided upon.
Kleng Peerson, called also Kleng Pederson and Person Hesthammer, was a man of dubious character, who has been variously described. One has called him the “Father of the Newer Norwegian Immigration” and as such entitled to a chapter by himself; another has written him down as a tramp.27 A softer characterization, however, makes of him a “Viking who was born some centuries after the Viking period.”28 He appears to have been a sort of Quaker, either from conscience or convenience. His leaving his home parish of Skjold near Stavanger, and his emigration to the United States in 1821 in company with another Norwegian, are attributed to motives ranging from a commission from the Quakers to find a refuge for them in America, to a desire to escape the rich old widow whom he married, and who was tired of supporting him in idleness.29 Certain it is that upon his return to Norway in 1824, after three years of experience in the New World, the sentiment favoring emigration from Stavanger soon crystallized.
By midsummer of 1825 a company of fifty-two persons, mostly Quakers from the parish of Skjold, was ready to journey to America. They purchased a sloop and a small cargo of iron which would serve as ballast and which might bring them profit in New York, tho this was probably a secondary matter.30 On the 4th of July, 1825, they set sail from Stavanger, and after a somewhat circuitous voyage of fourteen weeks, which was not very long, as such voyages went, they made their landing in New York, October 9th, numbering fifty-three instead of fifty-two, for a daughter was born to Lars Larson on shipboard.31 This landing of the “Sloop Folk” of the “Restoration,” whose story is a favorite and oft-told one with the older Norwegian immigrants, is occasionally likened to the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers who fled to a wilderness to escape persecution and to seek social and religious freedom; but on close examination the comparison breaks down at almost every point, – motive, objective, method and result.32
In New York the captain and mate of the “Restoration” were arrested for having more passengers than the Federal law allowed – two passengers to each five tons of the vessel. Having an excess of twenty, the sloop was legally forfeited to the United States.33 However, for some unknown reason, the offenders were released and allowed to dispose of their cargo. The original cost of ship and cargo appears to have been about $1950, but both were sold for $400. This inadequate sum was supplemented by the generosity of the Quakers of New York, whose contributions and assistance enabled the “Sloop Folk” to proceed inland to Western New York.
They took up land in Kendall and Orleans County on the shores of Lake Ontario, about thirty-five miles northeast of the new town of Rochester in which two of the families decided to remain. The price of the land was $5 per acre, and each man was to take about 40 acres; but as they were without cash, they agreed to pay for their farms in ten annual instalments. The reasons for selecting this region are not difficult to surmise, tho there is no direct proof of the motive. The country around Rochester was, in 1825, in the midst of a sort of Western “boom”; the Erie Canal was just finished, and the prospects of Rochester were very promising.34 Its population grew quite marvelously; in September, 1822, it was 2700; in February, 1825, 4274; and in December of the same year, nearly 8,000.35
The first five years of the little colony were full of hardships and suffering. It was November of 1825 when they reached their destination; the country was all new and thinly settled;
Interview with Capt. O. C. Lange (who reached America in 1824) in Chicago, 1890; Norelius,
Grellet,
Richardson,
R. B. Anderson, “En Liden Indledning” in the series of articles “Bidrag til vore Settlementers og Menigheders Historie,”
O. N. Nelson, “Bemerkning til Prof. Andersons Indledning”,
Nelson,
Langeland,
C. A. Thingvold gives a list of the names of the “Sloop Folk,” save four, which he obtained from one of the survivors, in “The First Norwegian Immigration to America,”
J. B. Wist,
“Rochester is celebrated all over the Union as presenting one of the most striking instances of rapid increase in size and population, of which the country affords an example.” Capt. Basil Hall,