The first organized emigration from Norway to the USA was triggered by the persecution of a small Quaker sect in Stavanger around 1820. The Quakers in Stavanger, western Norway, felt harassed by the state church, by the authorities, and people in the local community. The Quakers and religious freedom During the Napoleonic Wars, from 1807 […]
First organized emigration from Norway Read more...
In the decades before the American Civil War and also the first few years after the war, most Norwegian emigrants chose to buy a ticket on a Norwegian sailing ship that brought passengers directly from a Norwegian port to America. After the Civil War, Quebec in Canada replaced New York City as the main port
Sailships, steamships and Norwegian emigrants Read more...
The first Norwegians in western New York worked hard for several seasons to grow enough food for their families to last through the long and cold winters. Their new home in America was no Canaan’s Land. Could there be a new beginning farther west? When the ice broke up on Lake Erie and Lake Michigan
A new beginning farther west Read more...
On October 21, 1825, most of the Norwegian emigrants from the sloop Restauration boarded a steamship from New York to Albany. From Albany they traveled west through the region of the brand-new canal, which was creating a direct route to Lake Erie from New York City. Only five days later, the whole length of the
No milk and honey for Norwegians in Western New York Read more...
Just before Christmas in 1886 the Cleng Peerson monument was unveiled in the cemetery of “Our Savior’s Lutheran Church” at Norse in Bosque County, Texas. The monument was dedicated to “Cleng Peerson, the Father of Norwegian Emigration to America”. It had the following inscription in Norwegian and English: “Cleng Pierson, the Pioneer of Norse Emigration
Who was Cleng Peerson, the father of Norwegian Emigration? Read more...
Before the Civil War, emigrants from Norway usually crossed the Atlantic on board a Norwegian sailing ship from a Norwegian harbor to New York or Quebec. This mode of transportation changed radically in the 1870s. Trans-Atlantic steamship companies from British ports offered faster journeys. A steamship crossed the Atlantic in less than half the time
Emigrants from Byneset, Trøndelag, ended up in Montana Read more...
It is high time to tell the story of early Norwegian immigration to Montana. In his excellent book from 1958, Kenneth Bjork, West of the Great Divide. Norwegian Migration to the Pacific Coast, 1847-1893, wrote that important research themes such as the “movement of immigrants from region to region in the New World have been
Time to tell the story of early Norwegian immigrants in Montana Read more...
Many people have written about the history of the Montana cattle industry. In comparison, historical research and writing on the sheep industry in Montana is scant. The stories of “the great sheep trails from California and Oregon have lain in deep obscurity,” wrote Edward N. Wentworth in 1941, while the trails from Texas “with its
Early sheep industry in Montana. The big picture Read more...
Late in the fall of 1864 gold was discovered in a gulch on the west-facing slopes of the Big Belt Mountains. The small stream flowing through the gulch drained into Canyon Ferry Lake. The gold was discovered by four former Confederate soldiers who were traveling south from Fort Benton on the Missouri River. Their destination
Gold discovery led to the establishment of Meagher County, Montana Read more...
Two Grande brothers from Trondheim, the middle of Norway, in 1866 set out on a long and winding journey to the United States. They crossed fjords and oceans, followed rivers, roads and trails over plains, valleys and mountain ranges before they ended up in the grassy Musselshell Valley, Montana, in 1878. The journey was not
From the middle of Norway to Musselshell Valley, Montana Read more...