Walworth County, Wisconsin

Early Norwegian Settlement

The first Norwegian settler in Walworth County was Ole Amunsen Søgal from Valebø, Holla Parish. He settled in the vicinity of Whitewater in 1842. He was followed by Hans Nordby and Harald Nordby from Flå; Bjørn Lien from Kviteseid; Halvor Olsen Balkaasa from Sauland; Ole Røe; Mathias Lia, Ole Lia, and Haldor Lia from Heddal, Telemark; Nils Herre and Knut (?) from Voss; as well as Anon Dalos and Erik Johnson, whose birthplaces were unknown. Osmund O. Hogstul, who came from Tuddal, Telemark, only three or four years later, was still living. He provided a detailed account of his family’s journey and the first years at the Skoponong Settlement.

Osmund O. Hogstul’s Account

Hogstul recalled that they left Norway in 1846 aboard the two-masted brig Washington, built in New York and commanded by the Norwegian captain Simon Cook. The vessel took on a cargo of iron at Tvedestrand, and the voyage to New York lasted nine weeks and two days. From New York they continued by canal boat to Buffalo and from there by steamship to Milwaukee. Milwaukee was still a very small city at the time, with only a few stores. From there they traveled by ox and wagon to the Skoponong Settlement near Whitewater. When they arrived, nearly all the settlers were suffering from ague, which Hogstul remembered as a deeply discouraging sight. 

The newcomers immediately began clearing and breaking the land, and before long they were able to produce some wheat. Their harvest, however, had to be hauled by ox team about fifty miles to Milwaukee. Wheat generally brought about fifty cents a bushel, occasionally a few cents more. Daily wages were twenty-five cents for spring and fall labor and fifty cents during haying and harvest. Paid work was difficult to find, and Hogstul’s parents, like many of the other settlers, were poor. His mother made baskets from willow and carried them on her back across the prairie to American settlers, trading them for flour, meat, and used clothing so that the family would not go without necessities.

A few years later, cholera struck Milwaukee and, according to Hogstul, almost half the city’s population died. For a time the settlers could no longer take their products there. Conditions improved somewhat when a small flour mill was built at Whitewater and a general store was opened there. Hogstul also recalled that settlers at Muskego, about thirty miles east, frequently came into conflict with Indians, whom he described as troublesome in that area. Indians did not often visit the Skoponong Settlement, and Hogstul believed that the settlers’ large Newfoundland dogs served as an effective deterrent. In his later years, Osmund O. Hogstul lived in Rockford, Washington.

Bjørn Holland’s Account

The Hon. Bjørn Holland of Hollandale, Wisconsin, was also among those who came to the Skoponong Settlement in 1846. He emigrated aboard the Norwegian ship Kong Sverre.

His family consisted of his father, mother, and nine children, the oldest eighteen years old and the youngest only one and a half. Soon after their arrival, Holland’s father and oldest brother traveled toward Milwaukee to obtain land. During the journey, his father was struck by an intense headache and asked his son to sit on his head in an effort to relieve the pain. The illness developed into a severe case of bilious fever. For several days before his death, the pain was so severe that he became delirious and fell out of bed. At the same time, nearly the entire family was sick with ague, and Holland’s mother was too ill to fully understand her husband’s condition. His oldest son, although himself weak and sick, had to summon a neighbor to help lift his father back into bed. After three days of suffering, he died. Holland’s mother was then left alone with nine children. Like many newly arrived immigrant families, they owned almost nothing and neither understood nor spoke English. Holland later wrote that the hardships were almost impossible to describe.

About five miles south of their home was an American settlement where farming was already well established. Four or five of the Holland children would leave early in the morning with an ox and wagon and work throughout the day helping with the harvest. In return, they received part of the crop and could return home in the evening with a wagonload of corn for their mother. In this way, the family obtained the necessities of life until they were able to produce their own harvest. The children brought their food from home and ate it cold in the fields. Looking back on those years, Holland remarked that people in his own time would probably have become rather dissatisfied if forced to live under such conditions.

Bjørn Holland’s father was Enver Olsen, who had lived with his family on the Haaland farm in Etne Parish, Bergen Province, before emigrating to America in 1846.

Churches and Congregations

Skoponong Lutheran Congregation was established by Pastor J. W. C. Dietrichson in 1846. It was the first Norwegian congregation in Walworth County and, according to the author, the first Norwegian congregation in Wisconsin. By 1905, Walworth County had five Norwegian congregations and four churches. Three congregations belonged to the Norwegian Synod, one to the United Church, and one to the Methodist Church.

Sources:

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