The ship Nicanor was built in 1857 by N. Sandstrøm at Skelleftiå in Sweden. Her tonnage was 438 tons gross, 423 net. The ship was wrecked in 1893. In 1866 the Nicanor sailed from Trondhjem in ballast carrying 233 steerage passengers and 5 cabin. A boy had died of phrenitis during the crossing. 2 passengers were sick when the ship arrived the quarantine station, one of debility, one of common continued fever. The ship detained a day under observation at Gross Ile. She was mastered by Capt. Mørk and had a crew of 12.

The following story has been translated from Per Jevne's book "BREVET HJEM" (The letter home), a collection of letters sent back to Norway, from immigrants in America. The letter was sent by Erland Blegen originally from Gulbrandsdalen. When Erland came to America he changed his surname to Tomasrud.

Tomasrud September 7th, 1866
Dear brother-in-law and sister!
Since I by the help of God, now have reached my destination in an other part of the world, I will not forget to inform my relatives and friends about how I am and how things have worked out for me lately.

I left Trondheim on May 25, at 6 o'clock in the after noon. In good weather the steamer "Finmarken" towed us 6 miles (Norwegian) off the Trondheimfjord, and from there we sailed on a mild north-east wind out to the ocean, and the last sight of the Norwegian cliffs we had the 27th, and we then got a quite strong south-east wind and most of the emigrants became sea-sick, and I was sick for one day and night. My brother, our wives and Peder Jonsen was sick for a long time. we had good weather, and everything went us well until June 21st when a boy at the age of 21 years died from "brain-infection". He found his grave in the deep of the ocean 50 miles east off Newfoundland, 100 fathoms of water down. The captain made a beautiful speech, and laid sand on the body before he was lowered in to the water, it was a moved moment for us all.

I must regret that there has arrived many people from Norway here this summer which are unhappy and wants to go back. I think that because the large numbers of immigrants, it is hard to get work, and if we get work it only gives the half.

We had such nice weather all the way, so the journey was not dreadful. The weather was very could, but not stormy, dough we had a lot of head wind, which is the reason for the long crossing time. On July 3rd we cold see the American coast, and we were so happy that we thanked God for taking us across the great ocean and for spearing us from suffering. The most unpleasant that happened during the journey, was that the son of Torger became so ill, that he had to be brought to hospital at "Øsen Graasel" 7 miles down off Quebec. We left him at the hospital on July 8th, and on the 10th we arrived at Quebec. In Quebec we had an interpreter which guided us to Chicago. From Chicago we traveled on our own for 14 days to where we are now. When I last talked to Torger we planned to reunite at our relatives in "Camperi", but when I came to "Lakrose" I was told that in Camperi there was no land left to buy, and there was not any work to get, because there had all ready arrived a lot of immigrants.