Todd County, Minnesota

Early Norwegian Settlement

The first Norwegians in Todd County were Knut Larsen from Helgeland and Andrew Johnson, a Civil War veteran. They settled in Kandota Township in 1866. They were followed by Per Eriksen, Steffen Pedersen, and Peder O. Jemtvold. Mikal Klukken and Baard Anderson from Verdal were the first Norwegian settlers in West Union Township. They settled there in 1868 or 1869. Martin Olson, also from Verdal, arrived somewhat later.

The first Norwegians in Little Sauk Township were Sergeant Knut O. Bjerkness from Hemne in Trøndelag; Nils A. Berg from the same place; Nikolai Nilsen Schotten from Namsos; and Julius Olsen from Kristiania (Oslo). They settled there in 1869. They were followed by Jens J. Stjørdalsvold and Emanuel Johnson from Meråker, as well as Ole Pedersen, Lars Jensen, John Olsen, and Ole Sørensen.

Tosten Nelson, Lars Pedersen, Lars J. Stenmoe, and John Pedersen, all from Meråker, were the first Norwegian settlers in Gordon Township. They arrived in 1870 and were followed by Ole Kleppen.

The first Norwegian settler in the vicinity of Eagle Bend was Ole J. Pedersen, who settled there shortly after he had been “beating up the Indians.”

Pioneer Life

These were expensive times for the first settlers in Todd County. A barrel of salt cost six dollars, a barrel of flour five dollars, a cow between forty and fifty dollars, and a team of oxen two hundred dollars. Fortunately for the newcomers, an American established a sawmill at Little Sauk, where the settlers could obtain an allotment of timber and thus had a means of earning a living. One of the old settlers later remarked:

“Had it not been for the sawmill on the Little Sauk River, we would have starved to death.”

“A Tenacious Trønder”

Professor J. Stjørdalsvold wrote an article for the Minneapolis Tribune and Decorah-Posten under the title “A Tenacious Trønder.” He began by describing a man living in the deep forests between Osakis and Long Prairie in central Minnesota who, at various times and in various ways, had come remarkably close to death. Yet, as he approached his sixtieth year, he remained in excellent physical and mental condition. After considering the matter for ten years, Stjørdalsvold decided that the public deserved to hear something about the man’s extraordinary experiences. 

The man was Thorsten Nelson, originally from Stordalsvolden in Øvre Meråker.

The Flood of 1867

In 1867, Minnesota experienced a severe flood. At the time, Thorsten Nelson lived with his wife and two children in a small house standing in a narrow valley a little west of what was then the local parish in Goodhue County. The flood came during the night. Within only a few minutes, a tremendous rush of water poured through the valley, frightening even the strongest men and women. Nelson’s house stood on a slight rise, but the torrent soon divided around it until the farm resembled an island. The water rose steadily on every side and eventually began flowing through the windows. When the water reached the bed where the family had taken refuge, Thorsten and his wife realized that the lives of all four were in danger. Each parent placed one of the children on their shoulders and attempted to reach higher ground where they knew the water was shallower.

Lightning flashed almost continuously. At times it seemed as though they were wading through a torrent of fire, while at other moments the darkness was so complete that they could see nothing. The rain continued without pause. The current was dangerous. First the water reached their hips, then their chests, and continued rising. When it finally reached the children sitting on their shoulders, Thorsten and his wife decided that, with God’s mercy, they would return to the house and either live or die there. 

Conditions inside were little better. Water poured through the doorway so strongly that the door could not be closed. Everything loose had been carried away by the current, including furniture, clothing, shoes, and food. Although the water reached the bed, they remained there because it was even deeper on the floor. When the rain finally stopped, the water receded even faster than it had risen. All four members of the family survived, but Thorsten and his wife continued to shudder whenever they remembered that night. The following morning, Thorsten Nelson walked barefoot to a neighbor’s home. He worked there until he had earned enough to obtain a new pair of boots. They cost seven dollars, but they were stout and heavy.

On the Ice

Thorsten Nelson and his family had lived at their present home since 1870. During the early settlement years, Sauk Centre was the town where Nelson and his neighbors usually went whenever they had something to buy or sell. On one return journey from Sauk Centre, Nelson and several companions decided to shorten their route by crossing a bay of Sauk Lake. It was late fall, and although the ice appeared fairly solid near the shore, the men were uncertain whether it was safe farther out. Since Nelson had crampons on his boots, they decided that he should go first so the others could judge the condition of the ice.

About halfway across the bay, the ice began to creak ominously. Suddenly Nelson’s heel broke through. The other men jumped backward just in time to reach safer ice. Around Nelson, however, the ice was so thin that it moved beneath him almost like water. He immediately realized that if he stopped or attempted to turn around, he would certainly break through. Instead, he bent forward and ran as fast as he could toward the opposite shore. His companions could clearly see the ice sagging beneath him as he ran. He reached the other side safely, and his life was saved.

In the Threshing Machine

Several years later, Nelson was threshing grain during cold fall weather while wearing a thick scarf around his neck. He knew that such clothing could be dangerous around a threshing machine and therefore kept the scarf tucked securely inside his tightly buttoned coat. While he was clearing loose material that had accumulated at the front of the machine, however, the scarf slipped out.

The threshing machine was one of the old-fashioned types powered by round iron rods extending from the horses to the machine. The scarf became caught around the drive shaft. Nelson did not realize what had happened until he was suddenly pulled toward it. He had enough presence of mind to shout for the others to throw the driving rods aside. They did not manage to do so, but the horses were stopped more quickly than was usually possible in such accidents. Before the machinery stopped, Nelson had been swung repeatedly around the shaft with such force that his feet struck the man feeding the machine and threw him far out into the field. Nelson’s body also struck the board on which the man had been standing with such force that it rang as though struck by a mallet.

When the machinery finally stopped, Nelson was wrapped around the drive shaft, and everyone believed he was dead. Several determined men stepped forward and cut him loose. They carried him inside, still believing he had been killed. His neck appeared badly twisted and distorted. Knowing how tough he was, however, they straightened his neck and placed his body in a natural position. Nelson had been wearing exceptionally heavy clothing. Even so, the skin had been torn from his chest where the drive shaft had pressed against him. 

Then someone realized that he was still alive. When Nelson regained consciousness, he explained that he had lost consciousness almost immediately after he began spinning around the shaft. He had felt no pain either when he lost consciousness or when he regained it. For several days he was badly shaken, but within two weeks he had returned to work. His involuntary dance around the threshing machine’s drive shaft became only one memory among many.

A Blow to the Head

On another occasion, Thorsten Nelson and a neighbor were setting fence posts. One man held the post while the other drove it into the ground with a large wooden mallet fitted with a heavy iron ring at each end. The entire tool weighed between twenty and twenty-five pounds. Just as the neighbor swung the mallet, its head flew off and struck Nelson directly in the forehead. “I dropped like a stone,” Nelson later recalled. He regained consciousness within a few seconds and rested for barely five minutes. He did admit, however, that he suffered from a severe headache for several days afterward.

Blowing Up the Rifle

Stjørdalsvold also offered an example of Thorsten Nelson’s ingenuity when trying to make things work. Nelson once bought a rifle for hunting large game. It was an unusually powerful weapon, loaded from the breech, with a bore considerably narrower at the muzzle than at the point where the bullet was inserted. As the powder drove the bullet through the barrel, it was compressed considerably.

On one occasion, while hunting smaller game, Nelson used a relatively light powder charge. The result was somewhat comical. There was not enough force to drive the bullet completely out of the barrel, and it became lodged about six inches from the muzzle. Nelson first attempted to push the bullet back through the barrel, but he could not move it. Rather than take the rifle to a gunsmith, he loaded it again. This time, he was generous with the powder. Taking precautions, Nelson held the rifle above his head before firing. The resulting explosion was tremendous. He then heard something echo strangely through the woods in the direction in which the rifle had been pointed. Upon examining the weapon, he discovered that the end of the barrel had blown off at the point where the first bullet had been lodged. The strange sound in the woods had been the severed piece of the rifle barrel flying away.

In the Sawmill

When Thorsten Nelson acquired a steam-powered sawmill, he was not the kind of man to leave the most dangerous work to others. When everything was ready to begin, he took his place beside the first log that was to be cut into boards in the new mill. The saw passed through the log beautifully. On the return, however, the log moved with such speed that Nelson lost his balance. As he began to fall, he grabbed the log with his right hand, close to the circular saw. The log was now moving backward while the saw continued to turn in the same direction. Nelson’s hand was therefore carried directly toward the upward-moving teeth of the saw.

The instant the teeth struck his hand, it was terribly mangled. As the original account put it, there was “not a sign of fingers on it,” only a bloody, shapeless mass. The doctor who treated Nelson’s hand must have been highly skilled. No bones had actually been cut through, but tendons and muscles had been torn apart and twisted together. The outer joint of his thumb had been stripped of flesh and muscle, leaving the bone bare and exposed. It was difficult work for the doctor to put the fingers and hand back together, but he succeeded so well that the hand eventually appeared almost normal and became as strong as before. This time, however, several weeks passed before Nelson could use the injured hand for work.

Sheep Shears in the Chest

Thorsten Nelson also discovered that something as harmless-looking as a pair of sheep shears could be dangerous. The accident occurred while he was trimming the mane of a horse in the stable. Just as Nelson was clipping the mane, the horse suddenly bolted out through the door. Nelson fell flat to the ground and at the same moment felt a sharp pain in his chest. He had fallen with considerable force onto one of the blades of the sheep shears. The extremely sharp point struck a rib directly above his heart and penetrated the bone. His chest remained sore for a long time afterward. Had the point struck only slightly higher or lower, the author observed, it would clearly have pierced Nelson’s heart.

A Wagon Pole Through the Thigh

Only a few years before this account was written, Thorsten Nelson experienced another serious accident. He was returning home from Long Prairie in a buggy drawn by a pair of spirited horses. The horses became frightened when the traces came loose. After they had gathered considerable speed, the wagon pole dropped to the ground, frightening them even more. A moment later, the front of the pole struck the ground and broke off about three feet in front of the buggy. The circumstances of what followed were so unusual that Stjørdalsvold considered it necessary to describe them in some detail, although the entire incident lasted only a few seconds.

The wagon pole broke at an angle, leaving thin, sharp ends. The part still attached to the buggy dropped downward, while the front part became embedded in the ground at an angle, with its broken end projecting upward in front of the buggy. At approximately the same moment, and in some unexplained manner, the horses broke free from the buggy. Nelson continued to hold tightly to the reins. When the buggy stopped abruptly, the horses pulled him out of it.

He did not get far. His right thigh struck the sharp, projecting end of the broken wagon pole. He was literally impaled on it while the horses continued running. Only then did Nelson and his companion fully realize what had happened. The pole had passed completely through his thigh, somewhat closer to the hip than to the knee. It had passed alongside the bone, and at least six inches of the pole projected from the other side of his leg. His companion grabbed Nelson and pulled him off the pole. Once freed, Nelson helped his companion pull the blood-covered pole out of the ground. It was embedded so firmly that they succeeded only after considerable effort. The horses had disappeared from sight, but their tracks showed the direction in which they had gone.

Remarkably, it was Nelson himself who went after them and recovered them, even though they had run a considerable distance. He then borrowed another wagon, returned to the damaged buggy, tied it behind the wagon, and drove home as though nothing serious had happened to him. His sons, however, took him to a doctor in Osakis. The first thing the doctor did was remove a piece of wood four or five inches long that was still embedded in the wound. He then thoroughly cleaned the injury.

Stjørdalsvold remarked that there is an old saying that “nothing is so bad that it is not good for something.” Since the pole had passed completely through Nelson’s thigh, the doctor was able to insert a clean washcloth into one opening and pull it out through the other. By drawing it back and forth several times, he was able to clean the wound thoroughly. On one side, the opening was so large that the doctor could insert his hand a considerable distance into it. “You must stay overnight,” the doctor told him.

The following day, however, Nelson got up and bought himself a new wagon. He was even prepared to walk the five miles home, but his son arrived and hired transportation for him. Nelson remained in bed for barely a week. Within three weeks, he had returned to his usual work.

The Family

Thorsten Nelson married Anne Mikkelsdatter Tjernmo when he was nineteen years old, and, according to Stjørdalsvold, she had been a splendid wife from the day they married. They had four sons and four daughters, five of whom were still living at the time the account was written. Stjørdalsvold added that among the many fine homes visible along the road from Osakis to Long Prairie, in Gordon Township, none was finer than theirs. 

Testimonial

Because so many extraordinary events had happened to one man, Stjørdalsvold recognized that some readers might question whether the stories were true. He therefore explained that, since he had always tried to seek and adhere to the truth, he wished to remove any such doubt. He first asked Nelson himself, and later several of Nelson’s neighbors, to read the account. They provided the following declaration:

“We, the undersigned, who were born in the same neighborhood as Thorsten Nelson in the old country and have lived in the same neighborhood as him for thirty years or more, find that the above account is absolutely truthful.”

The declaration was signed by: Jens Johanssen Størdalstvedt, Manuel Jensen Tevedal, Lars Pedersen Stenøien, 

Churches and Congregations

The Little Sauk Congregation was established in 1872 by Pastor Chr. Saugstad of the Conference and was the first Norwegian congregation in Todd County. Its church was built in 1873. By 1907, Todd County had fifteen Norwegian congregations and nine churches. Ten congregations belonged to the United Church, two to the Norwegian Synod, two to the Lutheran Free Church, and one to the Methodist Church.

Public Office

Henry Ellingsen was the first Norwegian to hold public office in the county. He was elected Register of Deeds in 1867.

Sources:

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