chapter XXXIII

above. This little settlement received its first Norwegian settlers in 1844 when Ole Vale and wife Anne from Holden Parish, Skien, located there; with them came the sons John and Anders and the daughters Aasta, Anne, Turine, Andrea and Maria. Vale and his wife lived in Sugar Creek till their death, and the daughters all married and settled there. In the same year Ole Kittelson and Nils T. Kvamodden, both unmarried and both also from Holden, came to the settlement. Ole Kittelson located permanently in Sugar Creek, but Nils Kvamodden and wife moved to Norway Township, Goodhue County, Minnesota, in 1857. There they died years ago, the homestead being now occupied by the son Ole.

Christian L. Vestremo and wife Ingeborg and three children, and Gunder K. Næseth emigrated from Gjerpen near Skien, in 1844. Næseth moved to Norway, Minnesota, in 1856 and Vestremo in 1857. According to Ole Jacobson of Elk Horn, to whom I am indebted for these facts, there were no further accessions to the colony before 1847. In that year his parents came from Gjerpen, as also Jacob Torstenson and wife Maren Margrete and three sons Ole, Torsten and Jacob, and a daughter, Maria with her husband Lars Jensen Teigen and family. With them came also Teigen's mother. Jacob Torstenson died in 1861; the widow is still living at the old home.

Ole Jacobson writes me that his father and family left Skien in April by the ship _Axel (og) Valborg_, Captain Bloom, going first as far as Havre, France. There they waited three weeks, then secured passage with an American ship, the journey being very slow. Landing in Boston, they went by train to Albany, thence by canal boat to Buffalo, and by steamboat via the lakes to Milwaukee, where they arrived sometime in August. From Milwaukee they thereupon proceeded to Sugar Creek, where they located permanently. Ole Jacobson is at present living on the farm purchased in 1847. In 1849 Aslak Rasmusson Slettene with wife Gunild and eight children came from Gjerpen, Norway.[325] Grindemelum, with wife, son, and daughter, also came in 1849, as did Peter J. Gromstulen, wife Svanang and five children, and Nils J. Overholt, wife and two children.

[325] Some of the children have moved away, to Minnesota and Washington.

There do not seem to have been any further accessions of Norwegian immigrants during the pioneer days of the Sugar Creek settlement. In the sixties quite a number came and located at and about Elk Horn but these do not fall within the scope of our survey.

The original home of immigrants from Land, Norway, was Rock Prairie, as we saw above,