A Wedding Feast at South Tho

Ola Aakre returned to Hjartdal at the end of April with a letter of reference from Reverend Kildahl in Kristiansand verifying that he had been confirmed and had completed six years of military service. He married Helga Olsdatter Tho on May 31, 1837, a month after leaving Kristiansand.

Norwegian weddings were often held around Midsummer, between the harvests of hay and grain, when fields and woodlands were blanketed in green and reverberated with birdsong. A procession of wedding guests, usually led by a local fiddler, always accompanied the bride and bridegroom, who rode to the church in a horse-drawn cart, adorned in their finest attire.

Hjartdal Church was built in 1809 on the site of the former stave church. A monument honors the memory of local farmers beheaded on the grounds in 1540 for leading an armed revolt against the King. Three centuries later, farmers in Telemark had discovered a new way to protest—simply sell the farm and leave. Ola and Helga would soon join their ranks, but on this day attendants readied them for the long ceremony. Then came the joyful procession back to the farm, with neighbors wishing them good luck along the route.

At the South Tho farm it was the second wedding in as many summers. Berit Tho, Helga's sister, had married a year earlier. The two celebrations represented a considerable expense for Helga's parents. Food and drink were in abundant supply at Norwegian peasant weddings, which generally lasted three days. The guests also brought special baskets filled with porridge or baked goods, as well as butter and cheeses made in fine molds. A fiddler played for dancing—a "halling," or a "springleik." And a person known for his wit and sociability was hired to propose toasts, prevent quarrels, and see that everything flowed smoothly.

The wedding of Ola and Helga may have fit this description. Their farms had been prosperous in the past. On the other hand there may have been a more muted tone to the celebration—on two accounts. The first reflected the economic situation. The mid-to-late 1830s in Upper Telemark were a time of serious crop failures. Families no longer had the means to hold large wedding feasts.

The second reason concerned personal and social factors. Helga was expecting a child—in fact, she gave birth three weeks after the wedding. As Anne Gesme explains in Between Rocks and Hard Places (1993), a higher rate of illegitimacy in rural Norway two hundred years ago could be attributed in part to the lack of a place to set up a household. Ola was in line to take over his father's farm, but he was a soldier in Kristiansand, not a farmer at South Aakre, when he courted Helga. That a child was conceived before marriage was not unusual. Yet there was a stigma attached to a child born out of wedlock, and penalties were sometimes imposed on the parents. Thus it was essential that the wedding be held that spring.

A New Generation at South Aakre

Helga moved from South Tho to the South Aakre farm, where she managed the household and helped Ola's father and stepmother. A special contract guaranteed their right to remain on the farm for as long as they lived..

South Aakre had been a moderately prosperous farm. In 1835, two years before Ola took it over, it had had two horses, fourteen cows, twenty-four sheep, and four goats, and Ola's father had planted fourteen bushels of barley and twenty bushels of potatoes. In a good year, yields may have been several-fold. But the 1830s, especially the end of that decade, were lean years in the mountains of Telemark. South Aakre is at a high elevation, with a harsher climate and shorter growing season. Tillable areas were small, the soil was of poor quality, and farm implements were still rather primitive. Crop failures plagued Ola's first years of farming.

Soon there was an extra mouth to feed. On June 21 Helga gave birth to a son, christened Johannes Olson Aakre on August 6. Traditionally, the first son was named for the paternal grandfather. That they did not honor this practice may have been due to the circumstances of the child's birth. They chose a name from Ola's ancestry and with a tradition in Helga's family.

There has been confusion among descendants of Ola and Helga about the death of this child. In Andrew O. Anderson's account of the family's arrival in Boone County, Illinois, we read: "Johannes, five years old, had to walk all the way with the old ones. A few days after reaching their destination, Johannes died, undoubtedly of over-exertion. Whenever Helga told of this incident she would cry."

In reality, the child who died in Boone County was the infant Kittel. He had been born and christened less than two weeks before Ola and Helga left for America, an extraordinary fact in itself. Johannes did not make the journey. He had died much earlier, on September 14, 1837, at the age of 14 weeks. He may have been a premature birth. The church register lists extreme weakness as the cause of death. He was buried at the Hjartdal church cemetery on September 25.

When Helga Aakre told stories of her life in Hjartdal and the journey to America, Andrew O. Anderson, her grandson, was a teenager. She told of events 40-50 years in the past, and yet another 40-50 years may have passed before Andrew dictated what he had heard. Today, far removed from the events, it is tempting to imagine that Helga told about both sons, Johannes and Kittel, weeping with each telling. She had over time perhaps found her own way to remember the mournful deaths of the infants.

Helga's second child was born on October 14, 1838, and christened Anund for Ola's father. In America, where he fathered fourteen children by three wives, he went by Anon and was known as "Old Anon," to distinguish him from a son and a nephew by the same name.

A third child, born on October 26, 1840, was christened Ole for Helga's father. He became the father of Andrew O. Anderson, the author of the account referred to in this history.

Had the birth of Helga's fourth son been delayed by three weeks, he might have made his entrance on the North Sea. Instead he arrived amidst all manner of preparations for the long journey. There is some confusion of dates in the Hjartdal parish register. The pastor recorded May 12, 1843 for birth and baptism. He was christened Kittel, for Ola's great-grandfather, Kjetil Såmundson Midtbøen (1709-1743).

News of America

Emigration to America had likely been a popular topic of conversation at Ola and Helga's wedding,. Two weeks earlier, on May 17, 1837, a group of 59 people, later known as the Rue party, had gathered on the shore of Tinnsjø, not far from Hjartdal, to begin the first leg of their journey. They were the first emigrants to America from Telemark. Certainly people in Tinn and Hjartdal had been talking about the planned departure during much of the winter and spring.

A number of events influenced Ola and Helga's decision to leave. Stories of America, first told by the Nattestad brothers, had been circulating in Upper Telemark since 1836. And among the Rue party that left for America in the spring of 1837, there were those who had friends or relatives in Hjartdal.

In the summer of 1838, Ansten Nattestad returned to Numedalen from the American Midwest carrying letters from the first Norwegian emigrants and the handwritten manuscript of Ole Rynning's little book, Sandfærdig beretning om Amerika (True Account of America). He created a sensation, much like Knud Slogvig had done in Stavanger three years earlier. Telemark farmers traveled long distances to hear him tell of his experiences. Ansten Nattestad published Ole Rynning's account in Christiania, and this little book, together with letters from America, had an enormous influence on the decisions of many thousands of Norwegians, in districts near and far, to sell their farms and leave for America.

Ole Rynning's "True Account of America"

Rynning's little book was a primer for Norwegian farmers who knew nothing about the new land called America, or how to get there. He wrote of the location, size and climate of the United States, and of the openness of its government toward immigrants. He described the prairie land, listed many prices, and warned of land speculators and swindlers.

Rynning wrote that the emigrants were not in danger of being enslaved. He said that the tediousness of the ocean voyage was worse than seasickness. It is true that he did not know of the terrible conditions on sailing ships that would become the lot of thousands of Norwegians in the decades to come, but he gave good advice regarding ships,

the best routes, and what items to take. He told the reader that America was not a land of heathens, and one could worship as one pleased. He also described the institution of slavery in the South, his comments foreshadowing the position that Norwegian immigrants would take in the slavery controversy. Finally, he assured his readers that the danger from diseases, wild animals, and Indians was slight, and he encouraged farmers, servants, and all manner of craftsmen to emigrate. There were, he wrote, many Norwegian bachelors who would prefer to marry Norwegian girls if they could.

Two Brothers Named Ole

In the Andrew O. Anderson history we read: "Ola worked five years in a drugstore in Kristiansand. He had read the "Amerikabrev" by Ronning, an early pioneer in Illinois . . . . Some years later Ola and Helga felt there was no future financially for them and their three sons if they remained in Norway. Then Ola remembered the "Amerikabrev" and they decided to emigrate." Here is confirmation from Helga Aakre herself, as recounted by her grandson, that she and Ola had read America letters and Ole Rynning's book. In Andrew's account the two sources of information are erroneously lumped together.

Andrew wrote that Ola and Helga Aakre were "the first to go to America from that parish." He may have confused what Helga had told him about an older brother, Ola Tho, who was among the first persons in Hjartdal to sell his property and emigrate. This brother, Ola Tho, was married to Ola Aakre's sister, Anne Aakre. In May, 1839, Ola and Anne joined the Luraas party, sailing by way of Gothenburg, Sweden, to Boston, where they arrived on July 31 aboard the sailship "Venice." Most of the Luraas party helped establish the Muskego settlement in southeastern Wisconsin, where they bought government land for $1.25 an acre. But Ole Tho and his family did not join the Muskego settlement. They found land in Manchester Township, Boone County, Illinois, in the Jefferson Prairie settlement.

And then another Ole Tho arrived. The sailship "Tuskina" arrived in New York City on September 5, 1842, from Le Havre, France. Among the emigrants on board the vessel was Ole Bergend, formerly Ole Tho, his wife, Asloug, their daughters Bergit, Torgon, and Rollev, and their infant son Ole. This Ole Tho the younger also settled at Jefferson Prairie, not far from his elder brother. Helga Aakre now had two brothers, both named Ole, living in Boone County, Illinois.

America fever was infectious, and it spread rapidly among the farmers of Telemark. In 1839, Ole Tho the elder was one of 91 persons leaving Telemark for America, more than double the number of emigrants of the first two years. In 1842, Ole Tho the younger was among 262 persons from Telemark, equal to the entire number leaving the first five years. When Ola and Helga Aakre left the following spring, the number of emigrants from Telemark to America had swelled to a thousand, or double the number of the first six years.

Discontent and Hope

From 1839-1843, Ola and Helga Aakre had a direct line to information about the New World, through letters from siblings who had settled there. What they read made the option of emigration to America seem all the more attractive. They were told that land was cheap, and the soil fertile and rock-free. Moreover, American society allowed greater individual freedom; no longer were you beholden to the local sheriff, the tax collector, or the parish priest.

Helga told Andrew that when the pastor had learned of their intention to emigrate, he had warned them that "they would have heathen descendants like the Red Men in America." Helga's story confirms what is known about the opinions of the clergy and local authorities, who made every effort to dissuade and intimidate would-be emigrants. The Crown and the Church nurtured a relationship meant to preserve mutual power and privilege, as illustrated in a passage from Toril Brekke's novel Drømmen om Amerika ("The Dream of America," in my translation): "The pastor preached that it was sinful to go against the orders of the authorities, for they are ordained by Our Lord. To whom God gives authority, He also gives wisdom."

Helga told Andrew that she and Ola had felt "there was no future financially for them and their three sons if they remained in Norway." Mildly put. The population of Hjartdal and all of Norway had exploded. The meager farmland could not support large families, and land was in short supply. Crops, mainly barley and potatoes, were sown in rocky soil on steep hillsides with no rotation. Farming implements were primitive. As late as the 1830s, there was hardly an iron plow or a harrow to be found in Hjartdal. The main tool of agriculture was a primitive wooden plow with a hoe-like blade. It was used together with spades, hoes, and pickaxes.

Our ancestors in Hjartdal lived in a barter economy. Very little money changed hands. But they had to rely on a modest income from livestock to buy seed grain each year, and keeping livestock was labor-intensive. Small fields in the mountains provided the hay, and winter fodder was collected in the surrounding forests. Timber, their other cash crop, involved securing the right to build and operate a sawmill. If the price of lumber on the international market was good, their effort was rewarded. But when the price fell, remote areas such as Hjartdal were acutely affected.

The crop failures of the late 1830s coupled with the day-to-day struggle of their lives convinced Ola and Helga that there was good reason to sell what they owned and bid family and friends farewell. The descriptions of life "over there," as found in Ole Rynning's little book and in letters sent home by Helga's brothers, fueled the hope that a better future awaited them.

Preparations and Farewells

When Ola and Helga Aakre began to ponder a fresh start in a distant land, the idea was new and the sources of information were few. Half a century later, when crofters and owners of tiny farmsteads were leaving by the tens of thousands in pursuit of a better life, three generations of their families had listened to stories about the riches of this new land.

Ola and Helga were among the first to hear the news. And although they were not the first to leave, they were at the forefront of a growing movement—farmers who were selling all they owned and placing their trust in Divine Providence, and in their power to shape their own future.

With imperfect knowledge of what lay ahead, Ola and Helga had to prepare themselves for the rigors of the long journey and their arrival in a foreign culture. Depending on wind and weather, a transatlantic crossing in 1843 took from eight to twelve weeks and cost 20-35 specie dollars per person. As a basis of comparison, a farm hand toiling from dawn till dark earned 10 specie dollars for an entire year.

Passengers had to bring their own food and bedclothes; the shipping company provided water and wood. Based on information gleaned from reading the Rynning book and America letters, Ola and Helga had to decide what to take along and what to leave behind. Less useful items were prepared for an auction to be held that spring. In an article entitled "The Immigrant's Luggage," Jon Gjerde wrote:

"Since the journey typically took place in the spring, women spent much of the winter making new clothes. They spun, wove, and sewed throughout the dark winter months . . . And since securing provisions for the journey was daunting, the family prepared food, baked flat bread, slaughtered and salted beef. These provisions were first packed in bentwood or stave-constructed containers which often had burnt, carved, or painted decorations, but had served as purely functional objects around the household. Much of the food was put in large copper kettles that were used for making cheese and brewing beer because it was assumed that such a practical dual-purpose object would also be much needed in America. The earliest emigrants expected that they were leaving their homeland forever. Keepsakes, family heirlooms, and remembrances of the old home were treasures that could be chosen only once.

Helga, with the help of neighbors and relatives, filled chests with dried meats, salt herring, potatoes, dried peas, hulled grains, cheeses, barley meal, butter, vinegar, salt, coffee, tea, syrup, flatbread and hardtack. And she packed cooking utensils, clothing, sheepskin blankets, and other bedding. Both Ola and Helga had to decide if there were special tools and implements they would need when they arrived in America—spinning wheels, griddles, handmills, axe-heads, saws, and other small tools perhaps too expensive to buy in the beginning. They received advice in these matters from Helga's brothers.

Documents of the time tell of the flurry of activity at South Aakre in mid-May, 1843:

Helga gave birth to her fourth child on Friday, May 12, in the midst of final preparations for departure.

There was a settlement on Monday, May 15, with members of the family, including Ola's father and stepmother, his sisters Torbjørg and Guri, and his half-sister Anne.

On Friday, May 19, the pastor issued Ola a letter of reference and made an entry in the Hjartdal parish register recording the intention of Ola and his family to emigrate to America, warning him, as told in Helga's later account, that he would have "heathen descendants like the Red Man in America."

Kittel Olson Aakre, Ola and Helga's newborn, was christened Kittel during the worship service at the Hjartdal church on Sunday, May 21 (erroneously recorded as May 12).

On Tuesday, May 23, Ola sold the farm to Ola Drengmannson Uppmoen. The new owner and his family moved to South Aakre from Tuddalsdalen. (N.B. Ola Drengmannson and his wife emigrated from South Aakre to Wisconsin five years later, with five daughters and two sons, one of whom fought in the Civil War and was captured by the Confederates. They settled later in Ridgeway, Iowa. Gerhard Naeseth, a University of Wisconsin professor and a great-great-grandson of Ola Drengmannson, founded Vesterheim Genealogy Center and Naeseth Library in Madison, Wisconsin http://vesterheim.org/genealogy/index.php)

Then, at last, came the melancholy farewells. Family and friends gathered at the farm, as Ola and Helga loaded their trunks and other luggage on the wagon. Anund, four and a half, and Ole, two and a half, sat on the wagon next to their mother, who held the infant Kittel, not yet two weeks old. Ola walked alongside the wagon. The way led past South Tho, where Helga's family waited. Helga's parents had seen two children leave. Soon they would bid farewell to yet two more.

There were many wagons on the road that day. It was the first year in which more than one thousand Norwegians left their homeland. At no time in the past had the rural parishes of Telemark witnessed the exodus of so many native sons and daughters—close to four times the number of the previous spring. Ola and Helga turned for last looks at the farms and faces which they had known since birth and which they would see no more.

Hjartdal to Skien

They traveled in the company of friends and acquaintances. It was not an emigrant party as such, but rather the beginnings of mass emigration from the parish. The church register is filled with the names of former farm owners, their wives, sons and daughters, servant girls, hired men, and day laborers who left Hjartdal that spring. Using pack horses and wagons, they moved along the north shore of Hjartsjø Lake and continued on past Heddal Stave Church to the north end of Heddal Lake.

Steamer service did not begin in Telemark until 1852. At Tangenbrygga, near the present location of the Notodden town airport, they loaded their heavy trunks into waiting prams. It was the beginning of a seemingly endless journey over vast waters from a primitive inland navigation system in Telemark—now one arm of the Telemark Canal—all the way to Chicago, a small town chartered six years earlier at the southern end of Lake Michigan.

They were rowed over Heddal Lake, down the Sauar River, along the length of Nor Lake, then covered the last four miles over Geiteryggen on foot. Some farms along the route offered food and lodging, or a place to wait when wind or disagreeable weather hampered rowing. When finally they reached Skien, they had traveled 75 miles from Hjartdal and had been underway at least three days.

Skien to Le Havre

The port of Skien was one of Norway's largest towns, with close ties to the rest of Europe. It had been an important commercial center since the fourteenth century. Generations of Telemark farmers had floated their logs down the watercourses to Skien, where they were loaded onto Dutch ships. Around this time, too, as a flood of emigrants arrived from the mountains of Upper Telemark. Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, who had been born in Skien in 1828, was preparing to leave the town of his birth.

A passage by Jon Gjerde describes a typical Norwegian port of departure in the spring of the year: "When they reached the seaport, the 'Americans' often created their own small subculture. Peasants, dressed in colorful homespun costumes that signified their region of origin, clustered near the port and distinguished themselves from their urban countrymen."

And another passage from Norwegian poet Aasmund Vinje, as quoted by historian Ingrid Semmingsen: "Now it is again that time of year when the emigrants are to be seen in the streets, and ships are being rigged, and water casks are being made for the trip to America . . . This is just as regular as the coming of the cuckoo, and the one is as much a part of the order of nature as the other."

In May of 1843 the docks of Skien were crowded with emigrants, most of whom had arrived from Seljord, Kviteseid, Tinn, Hjartdal, and other impoverished districts of Upper Telemark. According to Einar Østvedt, in an article entitled "Utvandringen over Skien" ("Emigration by way of Skien"), 41 persons left Hjartdal that spring. The total number from Upper Telemark was 684.

Because of timber exports to the French market, there had always been frequent ship's traffic between Skien and Le Havre. Thus Le Havre became the preferred port of departure to America for many Telemark emigrants during the 1840s. Fifty francs was the maximum fare from the French port to New York on an American ship. Direct passage to New York on a Norwegian vessel cost over three times as much.

Depending on weather conditions and lengths of stops, the shorter voyage over the North Sea lasted one to two weeks, sometimes longer. It was a trial run before the transatlantic crossing, which could take up to twelve weeks. The emigrants got their first taste of life between decks as steerage class passengers. Reports from that time describe overcrowded conditions aboard many of the ships sailing between Norway and France.

In the late spring of 1843, two Norwegian brigs brought Telemark emigrants from Skien to Le Havre. The "Axel og Valborg," under the command of Capt. Cornelius Blom, left Skien on May 26, 1843, arriving in Le Havre on June 13. It carried 120 emigrants from Tinn, the district directly north of Hjartdal. The "Venskabet," with Capt. F. H. Blom in command, left Skien June 5, 1843 for Le Havre with 211 emigrants, 28 of whom were sent back to Norway for lack of funds for the transatlantic fare. The remaining ca 300 passengers who had arrived on the two Norwegian vessels continued their journey to New York on the "Argo." It carried 301 passengers, all Norwegian—among them, Ola and Helga Aakre, and their sons Anund, Ole, and Kittel.

Le Havre to New York

Knowing that Ola sold the farm on May 23, the Aakres are likely to have been aboard the "Venskabet" when it weighed anchor in Skien on June 5. Ola doubtless knew passengers who had been sent back to Telemark. They had sold everything, then were not permitted to continue the journey from Le Havre because they lacked money. The rapid rise in the number of persons leaving Germany and Scandinavia in 1843 had led to an increase in the fare.

The Norwegian-Swedish consul in Le Havre wrote a letter the same year to Norwegian authorities telling of the wretched situation of many of the Norwegians waiting in Le Havre. He recommended that the Norwegians take measures to regulate emigrant traffic. A law was proposed in parliament two years later, but it did not pass.

Helga Aakre told Andrew that they had waited two weeks in Le Havre. They may have had a wait of a week in primitive quarters. In the end, they were allowed to board with their heavy trunks and other belongings.

Swedish film director Jan Troell poignantly captures the confusion and excitement of boarding, and the extreme conditions under which emigrants spent many weeks at sea, in his film "Utvandrarna" (1971), based on Vilhelm Moberg's novel of the same title, The film stars Liv Ullmann as Kristina and Max von Sydow as Karl Oskar. A dubbed and censored version of the film entitled "The Emigrants" was released in the U.S. in 1973. In portraying the hardships endured by our ancestors on transatlantic crossings, the images—preferably in the undubbed and uncensored version—are indeed worth a thousand words.

From the passenger list of the American packet ship "Argo,"submitted in the port of New York by Captain Caleb Anthony. The ship sailed from Le Havre, France, on June 23, 1843, and arrived in New York harbor on July 26, an unusually rapid crossing for the time. Ages listed are Ola Aakre, 29, Helga, 28, Anund, 4, Ola 2, and Kittel, 3 months.

Crossing the Wide Atlantic

On June 23, 1843, the American packet ship, "Argo," under the command of Captain Caleb Anthony, slipped away from the docks of Le Havre, crossed the Bay of the Seine, and entered the English Channel on the first leg of its transoceanic voyage. A steamship following the same route three decades later would have arrived in New York harbor in less than two weeks. But Captain Anthony knew that the average crossing time of a sailing ship from France to the American East Coast was seven to nine weeks. With favorable winds, a voyage of five weeks was possible, but with less friendly weather gods it could last ten to fourteen weeks, and even longer.

As the number of emigrants had increased, shipowners had begun to add a floor and partitions in the cargo holds of their ships. This middle deck had a ceiling six to eight feet high and rows of double bunks along port and starboard sides There was enough room between the upper and lower bunk and the upper bunk and ceiling that an adult could sit up in bed. On larger ships the size of the "Argo" there was sometimes a middle row of bunks with narrow corridors running between the rows. The 'tween deck area' was filled with emigrants on the outward passage and with cargo on the homeward journey.

English was the language of the ship's crew, of the commands from the bridge, and of responses from the rigging. Venturing a few steps down a ladder to the middle deck, one heard only Norwegian—a mixture of local dialects, mostly from Telemark. Pressing forward through the throng of passengers in steerage, one passed large families squeezing themselves and their effects into the cramped quarters that would be their home for the coming weeks. A sampling from the passenger list reads: Hølje and Asloug Maarheim with six children aged four to eighteen; Leif and Kari Pilebak with a son and daughter aged three and one; Søren and Martha Sødholt with four children, the eldest fifteen, the youngest two months; and Sigurd and Mari Indlæggen and son Ole, two years, who would not survive the voyage.

Kittel Aakre, the infant, was six weeks old. Helga breast-fed him as she made herself comfortable in a lower family bunk with space for five persons. She sat on the bedding, spread out on a layer of hay. Anon and Ole, for whom the confusion below deck was as absorbing as it was bewildering, ventured out from the berth and soon were tumbling about with children their age. Alongside their humble accomodations made of rough boards, Ola hung cured meats and arranged trunks packed with clothing, bedding, tools, prayer books, and food to nourish them for ten weeks.

The captain set the tone of day-to-day life aboard the vessel. He posted regulations informing the passengers when to be out of the bunks in the morning and in the bunks in the evening, when to light fires and lanterns, where smoking was permitted, how often to clean steerage quarters, when and where clothes could be washed and

hung out to dry, how often bedding had to be aired out on deck, and whether spirits and alcoholic beverages were to be turned in for safekeeping. Games of all kinds were encouraged, but cards and dice were often forbidden because gambling could lead to serious quarrels. Passengers were expected to appear on deck in clean clothing each Sunday for worship services, which were led by the captain when no minister was on board.

Few of the emigrants had ever been to sea. Many became seasick when they reached open water, and the foul air in steerage only aggravated their misery. But most became accustomed to the rolling and pitching of the ship as they established their daily routines on board.

Women spent much of their time preparing food, or waiting in line to use the cooking facilities. Daily rations of water and firewood were included in the price of the ticket. In many cases the kitchen was a shelter on deck with a large area of sand on which small fires could be built for cooking. The smoke ventilation system was primitive, and in rough seas pots and kettles slid into the fire and ashes. Meals were consumed below deck, while sitting on simple benches or trunks.

When hatches were battened during stormy weather, passengers found themselves confined below deck for long periods of time. Then life in steerage became nightmarish in the all-encompassing darkness, with the groans of seasick passengers and the stench of unventilated air. Storms lasting many days sometimes led to epidemics, which were difficult to control because of the unsanitary conditions. Outbreaks of measles, typhoid fever, dysentery, and cholera were feared more than storms. The first victims were usually small children and the elderly, who were were laid to rest at sea.

When conditions permitted, steerage passengers could spend many hours on deck. Children amused themselves with games, and fiddlers played while people danced. Linka Preus, wife of pioneer Norwegian pastor, Herman A. Preus, kept a diary during her voyage in May, 1851. She described a scene on deck during pleasant weather:

"The [steerage] passengers gather on deck to enjoy the sunshine after a night of anxiety. The women have found a sunny spot and are diligently working at their knitting, while the men, casually leaning against the railing, smoke their pipes and engage in desultory conversation. The striplings have fetched their rifles, and we hear occasional rifle shots . . . the fishermen just let their lines hang over the side of the ship, while they smoke their pipes and read their books, never even bothering to pull the lines up . . . The children played; the boys wrestled; the little girls rolled peas and kernels of grain on the deck; then they invited the boys to pick them up, and into the mouth they went as quickly as they got them into their hands . . . "

Anticipation mounted when soundings confirmed the ship had reached the Newfoundland Banks. Lines were put out and, with luck, fried cod was added to the passengers' fare. If the fish were plentiful, barrels of cod were salted away. Then it was down the coast to New York.

Close to 300 Norwegian immigrants stood on the deck of the "Argo" as it sailed into New York harbor on July 26, 1843, mooring alongside other vessels four weeks and five days after leaving Le Havre. Although 20 days faster than the average Atlantic voyage of seven and a half weeks, it was not a record. A few of the emigrant sailships had made the crossing in 30 days and less.

Ola and Helga Aakre arrived in New York 50 years before the opening of Ellis Island, and twelve years before Castle Garden was established as the first official reception center. Captain Anthony presented a passenger list to the Collector of Customs and exchanged money for the new arrivals. Then the passengers made whatever customs declarations were necessary and went on their way.

As Andrew Anderson's account does not include Helga Aakre's first impressions in this strange new setting, we can include another passage from the diary of Linka Preus. She was the wife of a Norwegian clergyman and traveled first class, it is true, but her description of leaving the ship tells what the experience may have been like eight years earlier for Ola and Helga:

"On the pier we stood; but how desolate and dreary in spite of the noise on every hand. We could hardly draw a deep breath. In all that mass of humanity there was not a familiar face; no one to be seen but shouting hucksters and peddlers, or tradesmen, breathless in their hurry of business . . .On shipboard, life had been relatively quiet; the people had made little noise, save as they sang, danced, and chatted as they walked back and forth between the galley and their living room, carrying with them their lunch pails and frying pans. Throughout our seven weeks' voyage our ears had become adjusted to all this, to the accompaniment of the roar of the sea and the unsteady bluster and whistling of winds, together with the shouted commands of the ship's officers. No wonder we were now confused by the noise of innumerable wagons, horses, and people, trying to make their way across every street."

New York was an alien world, a city of 400,000 inhabitants. They were met by runners employed by various agencies hoping to get the immigrants' business. One had to be wary of unscrupulous persons making false offers. And here for the first time in their lives they saw a railroad with steam carriages, and much more that attracted their attention.

Most of the immigrants who arrived in New York City in the early 1840s were still far from their destination. As Helga Aakre recounted, the journey continued on a paddle steamer up the Hudson River to Albany, a distance of 150 miles. Johan Gasmann, the captain of a Norwegian ship, described a similar trip up the Hudson in 1844:

"The Hudson is one of the most picturesque rivers in the world. Its banks reveal alternating landscapes, beautiful estates, and pleasant rural villages, together with various larger towns. . .To the left, farther ahead, one sees the Catskill Mountains, which are about four thousand feet in height and extend to a steep precipice beside the Hudson. . . The river swarms with steamboats and sailing vessels. There is activity everywhere, both on land and water. The steamboats with their star-spangled flags and long smoke streamers whiz past each other, filled with thousands of well-dressed and attractive-looking people. The music of horns and other instruments comes from them over the water. Schooners, sloops, and numerous smaller vessels skim about like flies on the broad surface of the water. "

Through the Erie Canal

In Albany, as told by Helga Aakre, they transferred from the sternwheeler to a canal boat. The Erie Canal was an engineering marvel of its time, 363 miles long and 40 feet wide. It reduced travel time from the Hudson River to the Great Lakes by half. Martin Ulvestad, in Nordmændene i Amerika, includes an anecdote from a journey through the Erie Canal in 1840 (in my translation):

"The passengers sat on deck with their luggage, and when it became too monotonous, some would jump from the boat and walk alongside it. When the boat made a longer stop in one of the small towns along the route, it was common for passengers to walk far ahead and wait on a bridge, from which they could leap to the deck when the boat passed beneath it. On one such occasion, there were a number of youngsters who intended to put on board in this manner, but the bridge was higher than usual, and so they hung from the edge of the bridge to shorten the fall. Everyone made the leap successfully, except for one, who happened to be a young lady, somewhat overweight. When the moment of 'now or never'arrived, she lost her courage and was left hanging from the bridge, while the boat continued on its way. Her cries for help brought a number of male passengers to their feet, who then rushed to her aid, and, with great difficulty, managed to pull her to safety."

And Peter Testman, a Norwegian, wrote the following account of his trip through the canal in 1838, five years before Ola and Helga Aakre:

"The boat on which we traveled was drawn night and day by two horses, but we did not go forward very rapidly, as the horses had to advance at a walking pace all the time because of the great cargo . . . At the many cities through which the canal passes, freight was either loaded or unloaded, and this caused some delay in our trip. Provisions at these places were fairly expensive: one pound of butter cost from eighteen to twenty-five cents, one quart of milk or one loaf of bread, six cents, and other things in the same proportion. After six days had passed, we reached Rochester, which is situated 270 English miles from Albany. . .We arrived next at Buffalo, which is situated ninety-three English miles from Rochester at the eastern end of Lake Erie, where the canal ends. Here we went aboard a large steamboat, which was going all the way to Chicago, in Illinois, a distance of about a thousand miles by sea."

From Buffalo, New York, Ola and Helga Aakre traveled by Great Lakes steamer across Lake Erie, through the Detroit Straits, up Lake Huron, through the Strait of Mackinac, and down Lake Michigan to Chicago, then a small town of several thousand inhabitants. The trip from Buffalo took approximately four days. From Chicago they walked and went by oxcart to Jefferson Prairie Settlement in Boone County, Illinois.

Over the Great Lakes

Helga told Andrew that when they reached Lake Erie, they transferred to a lake steamer which took them all the way to Chicago. In the course of the next ten years, the completion of railroad lines in New York state and between Detroit and Chicago would shorten travel time from the East Coast to the American Middle West by many days. But immigrants journeying from New York to settlements in Illinois and Wisconsin in 1843 had to travel by steamer through the Detroit Straits at the west end of Lake Erie, up Lake Huron, through the Strait of Mackinac, and south on Lake Michigan to Chicago, a trip of four days. Captain Johan Gasmann, himself from Telemark, described a stop in the town of Mackinac in 1844, one year after Ola and Helga had passed this northernmost point of Lake Huron at its confluence with Lake Michigan:

"Near the town is a fort or fortress with a small garrison. I was especially interested in this place because here for the first time I saw real Indians. Near here they have a trading post, and there they set up their wigwams along the shore, and nearby lay their birchbark canoes. They were quite tall and well-grown people . . . both men and women were bedecked with considerable finery . . . some of their clothes were decorated with pearls in designs somewhat in the style of our Telemark country-folk. Some men, whom I took to be chieftans, wore feathers on their heads and had painted red and white stripes across their faces. The men also carried in their hands small, highly polished axes."

Discrepancies in Helga's Account

The story of Ola and Helga Aakre as told in this chapter, their lives in Hjartdal, and their emigration to America, is based on information found in Hjartdalsoga, a carefully researched farm history of Hjartdal, and in public

documents filed away in archives in Norway and the United States. In a number of important points it deviates from Helga Aakre's account told some 120 years ago and transcribed by Andrew O. Anderson years later. In that account we read:

"Ola and Helga Aakre and their three sons, the youngest only one year, left Hjartdal on January 13, 1842, by way of Christiania (*Oslo). They sailed to Le Havre. There they waited two weeks for the boat to sail to New York. Leaving Le Havre they had a tailwind and fine weather for four weeks, then a severe storm arose which continued for some time, followed by headwinds and more storms. Eighteen weeks after raising anchor in Le Havre, they landed in New York, where they were transferred to a side-wheeled steamboat, which took them up the Hudson River to Albany. There they were transferred to a canal boat which took them through the Erie Canal across the state of New York to Lake Erie. They were then transferred to a lake boat, and the journey continued on the Great Lakes to Chicago, where they landed on the late afternoon of July 4, 1842. . . . Helga told that what she could see of Chicago she counted 40 houses".

Much of Helga's account as told to Andrew can be verified by the historical record—Ola in Kristiansand, the importance of the Rynning history, their three sons at the time they emigrated, sailing from Le Havre, traveling via the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, and the Great Lakes to Chicago, settling at Jefferson Prairie, and a number of other details.

But there are noteworthy discrepancies: Johannes, Helga's first child born in 1837, died as an infant and did not emigrate with the family; the youngest of the three children was two weeks old when Ola and Helga emigrated, not one year; they left Hjartdal in 1843, not 1842, and in late spring, not early winter, sailing to France from Skien in Telemark, not from Kristiania (*Oslo); their Atlantic voyage from Le Havre to New York lasted four and a half weeks, a remarkably rapid journey, not 18 weeks, which would have set the record for the longest transatlantic crossing; Ola, Helga, and the three children probably arrived in Chicago about the second week of August, not the Fourth of July, and at a time when the city had considerably more than 40 houses. In 1837, the year Chicago was chartered, it is known to have had 308 houses, and in 1840, three years before Ola and Helga arrived, it had 4,500 inhabitants. Finally, it was the infant Kittel, three months old, not Johannes, age five, who died following the last leg of the journey from Chicago to Boone County.

Why the inconsistencies? Helga was recalling events from 40-50 years earlier, and many years may have passed before Andrew dictated what he had heard. We must assume, too, that the stories were told and retold, making it likely that they would be altered and embellished with subsequent retellings.

Chicago to Boone County

For immigrants traveling from New York to Illinois and Wisconsin in the early 1840s, the water route ended in Milwaukee or Chicago. There they could hire a driver or buy a team of oxen and a wagon on which to load their heavy trunks. Small children could perhaps ride on the wagon; the others had to walk. In Andrew Anderson's account we read:

"For the first time since leaving Norway they opened their large chest containing their bedding. Near the boat landing was a pile of railroad rails on which they spread their bedding to get off the damp ground. There were several other immigrants on this lake boat bound for the same locality.

A multi-volume study entitled Norwegian Immigrants to the United States, A Biographical Directory, 1825-1850 contains information about the passengers who sailed on the "Argo" from Le Havre to New York with the Aakre family. It was researched and written by Professor Gerhard Naeseth of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. His great-great-grandfather, Ola Drengmannson, bought South Aakre from Ola Aakre in 1843.

The information compiled by Professor Naeseth confirms that most of the passengers on the "Argo" were bound for the same place—the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. Many wound up in settlements in southeastern Wisconsin—Luther Valley, Koshkonong, and especially Muskego. Many too settled in Racine County, Wisconsin, south of Milwaukee. And a few came, as did the Aakres, to Boone County, Illinois, and neighboring counties.

Ola Aakre and his family were part of a larger immigrant party that left the "Argo" in New York and traveled over the route described in the immediately preceding sections. The lake steamer certainly stopped in Milwaukee, where some disembarked, while Ola and Helga remained on board until it reached Chicago. They would have continued the journey from Chicago around mid-August, 1843, and not July 5, 1842, as we read in Andrew's account. It continues:

"They had the wagon loaded and had bought provisions for the 80-mile trip, and then they all started walking. Helga carried Ole in her arms. Anon was on his father's back, as his father was carrying a valise in each hand of most needed articles. Johannes, five years old, had to walk all the way with the old ones. A few days after reaching their destination, Johannes died, undoubtedly of overexertion. Whenever Helga told of this incident, she would cry. On this overland trip, the women and children slept under the wagon, and the men around it.

Occasionally they came to a home where the women could sleep on the floor. The trip took almost a week."

It was Anon, five years of age, who walked with the adults, and Ole, age three, who rode on his father's back. Helga sat on a wagon, holding Kittel, age three months. It was he who died soon after reaching their destination.

First Home: Jefferson Prairie Settlement

When Ansten Nattestad returned to Norway in the spring of 1838, his brother Ole staked a claim in Rock County, Wisconsin, in what is now Clinton Township. In doing so, he became the first Norwegian to settle in Wisconsin. The area where Ole Nattestad claimed his land came to be known as Jefferson Prairie settlement. Rasmus Anderson considered it to be the fourth Norwegian settlement in America after Kendall, Fox River, and Chicago.

Ole Nattestad lived alone, without contact with his countrymen in Illinois. In an interview with Billed-Magazin (1:84, transl. by Rasmus Anderson) he said: "The soil I found to be exceptionally fertile, and the dreary uniformity of the prairie was broken here by intervening clumps of woods. Flocks of deer and other wild animals were to be seen almost every day, and the mournful howl of the prairie wolf disturbed my sleep regularly, until custom fortified my ears against interruptions of this sort."

During the summer of 1839, Ansten Nattestad arrived at Jefferson Prairie with a large party of settlers from Numedal. More Norwegians were to follow, including Ola and Helga Aakre and other members of their families. Andrew Anderson tells how they decided to settle there, as he had heard the story from Helga, his grandmother:

"When they left Norway, they knew of two Norwegian settlements in the United States. The one was known as Fox River settlement in Illinois, the other Jefferson Prairie settlement in southern Wisconsin and the northern edge of Illinois. They did not know which one they would settle in, but they met a man from Jefferson Prairie when they arrived in Chicago. He was there with his team of oxen and a wagon. The man urged all the immigrants to go with him, and he would haul their chests. There were so many chests that he had to get planks to extend his wagon to make room for them. The chests were stacked and laced in several tiers."

Andrew's account does not mention Helga's brothers, who had settled at Jefferson Prairie in 1839 and 1842, respectively, and had encouraged Helga and Ola to join them. The three families preempted government land and established farms. Their story continues in chapter six.

Contributor: julrene thornberg (47323751) •