| jnorton785 | A man identifying himself as "Charles Wilson," and claiming himself as a Norwegian, wrote from Chicago in 1853 about Norway and the Norwegians, and again from St. Louis in September 1854 about conditions in the Erik Janssonist prairie Utopia of Bishop Hill, Illinois, settled by Swedes in 1846.
A Swedish Erik Janssonist named Jonas Nylund led an unidentified group of Norwegian settlers to Bishop Hill in the late summer of 1849, bringing the dreaded cholera. Most are said to have died or left the colony, and no records exist about them. Kleng Peerson did, however, live in the Colony for some time, marrying a Swedish girl, before heading west to Texas.
Any information on Charles Wilson, Jonas Nylund or the Norwegian immigrant group of 1849 to Bishop Hill would be most helpful to the Illinois Department of Historic Preservation and Bishop Hill State Historic Site.
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