Читать книгу A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States - George T. Flom - Страница 13

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Far more influential, however, than the factors just noted were the efforts put forth by successful immigrants to induce their relatives and friends to follow them. Numerous letters were written home praising American laws and institutions, and setting forth the opportunities here offered. These letters were read and passed around to friends. Many who had relatives in America would travel long distances to hear what the last “America-letter” had to report. Among the early immigrants who did much in this way to promote emigration from their native districts was one whom we have already spoken of, Gjert Hovland. He wrote many letters home praising American institutions. These letters “were transcribed and the copies distributed far and wide in the Province of Bergen; and a large number were thus led to emigrate.”[57]

The interviews in Billed-Magazin contain statements from several among the early settlers on Koshkonong Prairie and the neighborhood of Stoughton which give evidence of the part that “America-letters” played in their emigration. On page 123 occurs a statement of Gaute Ingbrigtson (Gulliksrud) who came from Tin in Telemarken in 1843 and became one of the earliest pioneers of Dunkirk Township in Dane County. He says: “Two of my uncles and a brother emigrated in 1839. I, however, remained at home with my father who was a farmer in the Parish of Tin. But then letters came with good news from America, and my relatives as well as other acquaintances on this side of the ocean were encouraged to emigrate. From this it came about that I and many others in my native district prepared for leaving in the spring of 1843. The party numbered about one hundred and twenty. …”

We have already had occasion to refer to a letter received by Ole Menes of Stoughton in 1845. Ingbrigt Helle came from Kragerö in 1845 and settled in the Town of Dunn. The ship he came on brought one hundred and forty immigrants and he mentions the fact that many had been induced to emigrate by letters from America, and he writes: “Such letters from America urging emigration was, as far as I can see, the thing that brought the majority of emigrants to bid farewell to Norway.” Ole Knudson Dyrland, who emigrated from Siljord, Telemarken, in 1843, and became one of the earliest white settlers in Dunn Township, Dane County, testifying to the same fact, mentions Ole Knudson Trovatten as one who, through letters, exerted considerable influence upon emigration in Telemarken (page 218, Billed-Magazin, 1870). We shall meet Trovatten again below as a pioneer in the Town of Cottage Grove in the same county. The editor of Billed-Magazin writes of Trovatten elsewhere, page 283, after giving a brief sketch of his life: “he settled on Koshkonong and wrote therefrom many letters to his numerous friends in his native country in which he, with much eloquence, made his countrymen acquainted with the glories of America, and there is no doubt that Trovatten in a large measure gave the impulse to the rapid development of emigration in the region of Telemarken.”

Of Trovatten’s influence as a promoter of immigration Gunder T. Mandt, himself an immigrant of 1843 (died 1907, Stoughton, Wisconsin), gives similar testimony. He speaks of the opposition to emigration in Upper Telemarken, which found expression in all sorts of adverse accounts of America, especially among the clergy, and that much uncertainty prevailed among the masses as to the advisability of going to America. During all this, Trovatten, he says, “came to be looked upon as an angel of peace, who had gone beforehand to the New World, whence he sent back home to his countrymen, so burdened by economic sorrows, the olive-branch of promise, with assurances of a happier life in America. … ‘Ole Trovatten has said so,’ became the refrain in all accounts of the land of wonder, and in a few years he was the most talked of man in Upper Telemarken. His letters from America gave a powerful impulse to emigration, and it is probable that hundreds of those who now are plowing the soil of Wisconsin and Minnesota would still be living in their ancestors’ domains in the land of Harald Fairhair, if they had not been induced to bid old Norway farewell through Trovatten’s glittering accounts of conditions on this side of the ocean.” (Billed-Magazin, 1870, p. 38.) Similar evidence of the influence of “America-letters” is also given by Knud Aslakson Juve, a pioneer of 1844, in the Town of Pleasant Spring, in Dane County.

At the close of the preceding chapter I spoke of Gjert Hovland’s letters in 1835 as a chief factor in bringing about the emigration of 1836. From settlers in other portions of the country comes testimony of similar nature, and I have spoken with many pioneers from a later period of immigration, whose coming was, in the last instance, determined by favorite accounts of America received from friends and relatives already resident there.

In letters from immigrants to their relatives at home prepaid tickets, or the price of the ticket, were often enclosed. This custom was so common as to become a special factor in emigration. According to Norsk Folkeblad (cited in Billed-Magazin, p. 134), 4,000 Norwegian emigrants, via Christiana in 1868, took with them $40,335 (Speciedaler) in cash money of which $21,768 (Spd.) had been sent by relatives in America to cover the expense of the journey. It has been estimated that about fifty per cent of Scandinavian emigrants, arrive by prepaid passage tickets secured by relatives in this country.[58]

The visits of successful Scandinavians back home was in the early days an important factor; and as a rule only those who had been prosperous would return. In 1835 Knud Anderson Slogvig, who had emigrated in the sloop as we know, returned to Norway and became the chief promoter of the exodus from the Province of Stavanger in 1836, which resulted in the settlement at Fox River, La Salle County, Illinois.

We have already above, page 63, recited this fact and its significance toward promoting further emigration from Stavanger Province and of inaugurating the first exodus from Hardanger also. Thus, while Jacob Slogvig, the brother, was one of a few to secure land in La Salle County and make the beginnings of settlement, Knud became the means of bringing hosts of immigrants from Norway to recruit the colony and start it upon its course of growth. In precisely a similar way did two other brothers become even more significant factors in the foundation and development of the earliest Norwegian settlement in Wisconsin, namely, that of Jefferson Prairie in Rock County. They were Ole and Ansten Nattestad, who had emigrated in 1837. Returning to Norway in 1839 Ansten Nattestad became the father of emigration from Numedal, Norway, bringing with him a large party of immigrants, who located for the most part in southern Rock County, Wisconsin, and adjacent parts of the state of Illinois. But of this movement I shall have occasion to speak more fully below.

An equally interesting instance we have from a somewhat later period. We have above referred to Ole Dyrland’s testimony of the effect of Ole Trovatten’s letters. After remarking that many still were doubtful of the advisability of emigrating he goes on to say: