Erie County, New York

Norwegian Presence in Buffalo

S. Munch Kielland, a well-known engineer and longtime resident of Buffalo who came from Stavanger, provided an account of some of the early Norwegian connections to western New York. Kielland noted that a number of the emigrants who arrived aboard the Restauration in 1825 had settled at Kendall in Orleans County. During a visit there in 1881, he met several of the Sloopers or, more precisely, their descendants. Among those he remembered were men named Johnson, Larson, Aarsland, Danielsen, and Roes. According to Kielland, the older Norwegian immigrants and their families were held in high regard by the local American population.

Buffalo had relatively few Norwegian residents. Nor were there many Norwegians elsewhere in New York State outside Greater New York.

Martha Larsen

In 1887, Kielland met Mrs. Martha Larsen in Rochester. She was the widow of Lars Larsen Jeilene, one of the leaders among the Sloopers, and was then in her eighties. She knew many of Kielland’s relatives in Stavanger. When she learned that he was planning a journey back to Norway, she exclaimed that such a trip seemed almost like “a journey to Heaven.” Kielland recalled that she had never forgotten her childhood home among the fjords of Ryfylke.

Hans Holst and Other Early Norwegians

One of the oldest Norwegian residents of Buffalo was Hans Holst, who had lived there for more than forty years. He was a son of Captain Per Holst of Chicago. The Holst family, originally from Skien, was well known. Buffalo was also home to several people connected with Ole Bull’s former colony at Oleana in Potter County, Pennsylvania. N. Nielsen, who had lived in Buffalo for many years, had been one of Ole Bull’s followers. Nielsen’s son later became Treasurer of the First National Bank in Buffalo. Mrs. Bergh, who was about ninety years old (ca. 1905), and her daughter, Mrs. Kate Parker, also lived there.

Ole Snyder

Another prominent Norwegian connection was Ole Snyder, the first child born at Oleana. Ole Snyder’s father was named Anderson. He and his wife emigrated from the Kværnmoe farm in Elverum to Ole Bull’s colony in Pennsylvania in 1852. Ole was born there, but his mother died in childbirth. He was subsequently adopted by a German family named Snyder and took their surname. His biological father later enlisted during the Civil War, rose to the rank of Captain, and was killed in service. Snyder became one of Buffalo’s leading lawyers and was later the Democratic Party’s candidate for the U.S. Congress.

Sources:

[Ulvestad, Martin. Nordmændene i Amerika. Utg. History Book Company's Forlag. Minneapolis, Minn. 1907.]