THE TEXIANS AND THE TEXANS
THE
'NORWEGIAN
TEXANS
\),,1 ' c"",'y1
LIBRARY
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO
THE TEXIANS AND TEXANS
A pamphlet series dealing with the many kinds of people who have
contributed to the history and heritage of Texas. Now in print:
The Indian Texans, The German Texans, The Norwegian Texans,
T he Mexican Texans (in English), Los T ejanos M exicanos (in
Spanish), The Spanish Texans, The Polish Texans, The Czech
Texans, The French Texans, The Italian Texans, The Greek Tex­ans,
The Jewish Texans, The Syrian and Lebanese Texans, The
Afro-American Texans, The Anglo-American Texans, The Belgian
Texans, The Swiss Texans and The Chinese Texans.
The Norwegian Texans
Principal Researcher: W Phil Hewitt
© 1971: The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
Jack R. Maguire, Executive Director
Pat Maguire, Director of Publications and
Coordinator of Programs
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 77-632308
International Standard Book Number 0-933164-12-2
First Edition, Third Printing, 1980
This publication was made possible, in part, by a grant from the
HOUSTON ENDOWMENT, INC.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover: Ole Bull
Courtesy of Sadie Hoel
Inside Cover: Small Creek in Bosque County
LT.C. Collection
Back Cover: Wilhelm Waerenskjold, wife and children
Courtesy of Mrs. William E. Waerenskjold
I
NORWEGIAN EMIGRANTS IN THE STEERAGE OF A SAILING VESSEL
INTRODUCTION
"Farewell, thou Mother Norway, now I
must leave thee. Because thou fostered
me, I give thee many thanks. All too spar­ing
wert thou in providing food for the
throng of thy laborers, thou who gavest
more than enough to thy well-schooled
sons."
"So we rowed up the bay; and there lay
the mighty ships, with masts hewn of the
tallest trees in the forest, all ready to sail
for America. It was a wondrous sight to
see: the decks swarmed like an ant heap,
kerchiefs and caps of every color-and all
were bent on leaving the country."-from
two Norwegian immigrant ballads.
It is not an easy task to leave the country
of one's birth and travel thousands of
miles to settle in a strange land. Such a
move is not undertaken without a good
reason. Yet, between 1840 and 1914 more
than 1,105,000 Norwegians emigrated;
viritually all of them came to America.
Den Norske Sjo/arts Historie
Their number included religious dissent­ers
searching for freedom of worship, lib­erals
frustrated by Norway's conservative
political system, factory workers dissatis­fied
with low wages and poor working
conditions, and farmers who dreamed of
mild winters, low taxes and rich land.
Their reasons for coming were as varied
as their social and economic backgrounds.
But most came because they believed that
the United States offered social mobility
and economic opportunities that were de­nied
them in their native land.
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CLENG PEERSON
1821
Cleng Peerson is honored in Norway and
Texas as the "Father of Norwegian Immi­gration
to America." Born near Stavan­ger,
Norway, in 1782 or 1783, little is
known of his early life except that he
traveled widely in Denmark, Germany,
France and England. When he returned
to Norway, he found himself in sympathy
with the Quakers, who were being perse­cuted
for their dissent from the official
state church.
Peerson first came to the United States in
1821 to locate suitable places for his fel­low
Quakers to settle. His reports were fa­vorable;
the land was good, the people
were congenial, and farm wages were
high. In 1824 he returned to Norway to
CLENG PEERSON
. ~\. '.
encourage others to immigrate to Amer­ica
. He returned to America in December
1824 and wrote a letter of encouragement
to those who were planning to follow him,
"I am letting you know that I have ar­rived,
happy and well, in America. After
a journey of six weeks we reached New
York ... . I am already building a house,
... which I hope to finish by New Year's
day ... . I bought a stove for $20, fully
equipped with pans, pots for meat, a bak­ing
oven and other things-so we shall
not need to build a fireplace."
The expedition that Peerson had orga·
nized arrived in New York in October
1825 aboard a 52 foot sloop named Res­tauration.
The 53 Norwegians consisted
of families, couples, single men and wom­en-
all sizes and ages, including one baby
girl born at sea.
In 1833 and 1834 Peerson made a walk­ing
tour across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
The result of his trek was the first large
Norwegian settlement in the United
States, at Fox River, Illinois.
SELF PORTRAIT OF JOHN NORDBOE Rosdail, The Sloopers
JOHAN NORDBOE
1841
Johan Nordboe was the first permanent
Norwegian settler in Texas. At age 64,
deeply in debt, married, with four chil­dren,
Johan Nordboe saw America as the
last chance for himself and his family. He
sailed from Goteborg, Sweden, to New
York in 1832. He settled for a time in
upper New York state, and was one of the
founders of the large Norwegian settle­ment
at Fox River, Illinois. Nordboe was
no illiterate peasant. A self-taught painter
and physician, he wrote many letters to
friends in Norway exposing the shortcom­ings
of Norwegian society and encourag­ing
his fellow countrymen to emigrate.
From Illinois in 1837, he wrote, "Here no
restrictions are placed upon the right to
earn one's living . ... Religion is free in
America, ... every man believes what he
thinks right." And finally in that same
letter, "A poor man need never work for
a minister without pay; such things be­long
only to the old world."
By 1841 Nordboe was living on his farm
in Dallas County, Texas. There at last he
achieved the success that had eluded him
in Norway. He continued to write, "Here
a young but poor man can soon become
a well-to-do farmer, if he works hard and
uses good sense. He can look forward to
becoming rich without usury, a difficult
task in Norway."
Johan Nordboe died on his farm in Dallas
County in 1855, but he lived long enough
to see other Norwegians follow in his foot­steps.
JOHAN REINERT REIERSEN
1843
J ohan R. Reiersen is considered to be the
father of Norwegian immigration to Tex­as.
He dreamed of "caravans of immi­grants"
who would leave the timid be­hind,
escape the restrictive social and
economic systems in Norway and estab­lish
large, prosperous settlements in the
United States. Reiersen believed that mass
emigration of Norwegian workers would
create labor shortages in Norway which
in turn would force an increase in wages.
In 1843 Reiersen prepared to VISIt the
United States in search of a suitable place
for a Norwegian settlement. Upon his re­turn
he would organize and lead the first
group. For the success of his venture he
would require men who were, in his
words, "moral, orderly, industrious and
friendly people."
Reiersen spent the fall and winter of 1843
traveling in the upper Midwest. By Janu­uary
1844 he had narrowed his choices to
Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin. Subse­quently
he traveled to Texas, visiting Na­cogdoches
and San Augustine. He rode
horseback to Austin where, "Congress had
just assembled and I easily gained admit­tance
to the president of the republic,
General Houston, who was intensely inter­ested
in having immigrants choose Texas
as their new fatherland." Nearing the end
of his journey, Reiersen remained unde­cided
as to which place he would recom­mend.
.•. _ ~._ ~ _,. _p o. ____ , ___ _____ -- --
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JOHAN REIERSON ~,- R. W . Reierson ---
REIERSEN'S PUBLICATIONS
1844
Before his trip to America, Reierson, with
his brother Christian, had begun a liberal
newspaper, Christiansandsposten, which
contained many articles-his own includ­ed-
promoting immigration. When he re­turned
to Norway in 1844, Reiersen
edited his notes on his travels into a book
entitled Veiviser-Pathfinder for Norwe­gian
Immigrants to the United North
American States and Texas. It was the
most comprehensive handbook about
America published by a Norwegian up to
that time, and was very influential in
encouraging Norwegian emigration. Be­fore
returning to America, he began a
monthly magazine, Norge og Amerika,
( Norway and America), as a forum for
reports from colonists, and for discussions
of social and economic conditions among
Norwegian farmers and laborers.
"A new spirit is awakened in these immi­grants,
a feeling of independence and
freedom, a spirit of tolerance in matters
of religion, and an open mind for infor­mation,
together with that conviction of
their worth as men and citizens which is
the cornerstone of the moral virtues."
-Reiersen, in his Pathfinder.
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MAP OF BROWNSBORO
THE BROWNSBORO COLONY
1845
In the Spring of 1845, Reiersen returned
to New Orleans, bringing his own family
and his parents. As soon as Texas was ad­mitted
to the Union, his father, Ole,
bought a land certificate for 1,476 acres
of unclaimed Texas land. They began the
first Norwegian settlement in Texas in
Henderson County. The colony was called
Normandy, but the name was later
changed to Brownsboro. In 1846, Reier­sen's
brothers, Christian and George, ar-t,;~;
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County Clerk's Office- Athens, Texas
rived with 50 more settlers.
According to Elise Waerenskjold, most of
the Brownsboro pioneers "settled, con­trary
to Reiersen's advice, in very un­healthy
places .. . in the bottom lands . ..
All went fairly well until the warm sea­son
arrived; then almost everyone became
ill, with the exception of J. R. Reiersen's
family, whose house lay on high and
healthful ground. Consequentially, many
were discontented, and some had died
when the writer of these lines arrived in
the settlement, in October, 1847."
ELISE AMALIE TVEDE
WAERENSKJOLD
1847
One of the most remarkable Norwegian
settlers in Texas was Elise Amalie Tvede,
who arrived at Brownsboro in 1847. The
daughter of a Lutheran pastor, she went
far beyond the social constraints of her
day. At the age of 19 she became a school­teacher-
very unusual for a woman then.
She championed various social causes,
such as the temperance movement. In
1839, she married Svend Foyn, a young
sea captain who later invented the har­poon
cannon used in modern whaling.
After three years they decided they were
incompatible, and took the daring step of
separating and divorcing. Elise resumed
her maiden name and, in 1846, became
editor of Reierson's monthly, Norge og
Amerika. When the magazine ceased
publication in 1847, Elise, then 3Z, left
for Texas and arrived at Normandy in
October, 1847. One year later, she moved
to Four Mile Prairie where she married
Wilhelm Waerenskjold, with whom she
had crossed the Atlantic. Waerenskjold
had been the leader of a group which had
financed Reiersen's first trip to Texas in
1843.
WILHELM AND ELISE W AERENSKJOLD
From The Lady With the Pen
: ...... ~-.;.: .
1848
When the Texas government renewed its
offer of 640 free acres to families and 320
acres to single men, Reiersen founded
another settlement on the borderline of
Kaufman and Van Zandt Counties. Four­teen
families from Norway joined this so­called
Four Mile Prairie colony in 1850.
A few years later in 1869, Elise Waeren­skjold
described the settlement: "In its
natural aspects this country (Four Mile
Prairie) closely resembles Denmark and
is very pretty . . . As the name signifies,
the prairie dominates the landscape, al­though
there is no lack of woods. Browns­boro,
on the other hand, is more like
Norway, as the land is very hilly and even
has high ridges and large pine woods. It
was really beautiful when the Norwe­gians
first settled there. The forests were
without underbrush, and there were a few
small prairies of luxuriant grass, but these
prairies were later overgrown with an
almost impenetrable thicket, just as the
bushes have shot up everywhere among
the trees."
Reiersen was filled with optimism about
the prospects for Norwegian immigrants.
"All those who have been in America a
few years, with a few exceptions are in a
contented and independent position . . .
They do not suffer want. Taxes and rent
encumber no one, and fear of confiscation
of property does not trouble their minds.
... The majority still live in their original
log cabins, which, however, are always a
good deal better than the mountain huts
in which they lived in Norway." -Reier­sen
on the Texas Norwegian Settlements.
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ADAM LOVENSKJOLD
Not all Norwegians favored emigration.
The Rev. J. W. C. Dietrichson, who came
to America to bring religious order into
the Lutheran settlements, denounced the
entire emigration movement so fervently
that J. R. Reiersen accused him of being
bought by the government of Norway­Sweden.
The government was not entirely
pleased with the sight of so many of its
citizens leaving their homeland. In 1848,
Adam Lovenskjold, the Norwegian-Swed­ish
Consul-General, gave an "official" ac­count
in his "Report on the Norwegian
Settlers in North America." His report
was so pessimistic that he was accused of
attempting to discourage emigration.
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CLENG PEERSON AND
OLE CANUTESON
1849
In 1847, when he was 64 years old, Cleng
Peerson sold his farm lands in Missouri
and Iowa, joined a Swedish religious-com­munal
settlement at Bishop Hill, Illinois,
and contributed all his possessions to the
colony. He married a young girl who was
a member of the sect, but the marriage
did not work out. Peerson soon left her,
"stripped," he later wrote, "of everything
except my honor." For the next two years
he lived in the Norwegian settlement he
had begun at Fox River, Illinois. In 1849,
he set out for Texas "to investigate the
possibility of a new settlement." He visit­ed
John Nordboe and was impressed with
the immense stretches of still unsettled
land. When he returned to Illinois, he
urged the thousands of Norwegians who
were pouring into the upper Mississippi
valley and southern provinces of Canada
to move instead to Texas. But when Peer­son
returned to Texas in 1850, he brought
only a few families with him. One of
these, the Ole Canutesons, homesteaded
10 miles south of Dallas, near John Nord­boe.
Peerson lived with the Canutesons
and J. R. Reiersens during the next four
years. It is interesting that the 1850 cen­sus
listed 105 persons of Norwegian birth
living in Texas.
THE WAERENSKJOLDS'
WRITINGS
1851
Both Wilhelm and Elise Waerenskjold
were good writers, and their letters about
immigrant life in Texas were published,
along with Reiersen's, in Norwegian pa­pers.
In 1851, a Norwegian newspaper
published correspondence written under
the name of a Captain A. Tolmer. Tolmer
was disparaging of Texas-its soil, its
climate, its crops and its people. Mrs.
Waerenskjold wrote a long and vigorous
"Manifesto" in defense of Texas, with
supporting letters from John Nordboe and
Cleng Peerson.
"When Tolmer says it is a miracle that
he is still alive after having been in Texas
a couple of weeks, one can only laugh.
... I believe now, and as formerly, that
there are many thousands in Norway who
would be far happier over here. . . . In
general, it depends much on a person's
character and ability to work whether he
will be satisfied or dissatisfied. Land can
still be obtained in our neighborhood for
35 cents to $2 per acre .... I believe Texas
is the best of the States to migrate to,
partly because the climate is milder and
more pleasant than in the Northern States
and partly because the land is cheaper."
Elise Waerenskjold's "Manifesto," 1851.
1852
In 1852, the letters from Texas Norwe­gians
were given great prominence in the
Norwegian labor movement's chief news­paper,
Arbeider-Foreningernes Blad. The
editor, Marcus Thrane, hoped to encour­age
poorly-paid workers to migrate to
Texas, thus creating a labor shortage at
home. This, he reasoned, would build up
pressure for higher wages and shorter
hours.
In a letter to Thrane's newspaper, John
Reiersen said: 'I consider the old monar­chic,
aristocratic, and hierarchic institu­tions
as contemptible .... I (now) am free
and independent, among a free people
who are not bound by the chains of old
class and caste conditions, and I feel
proud to belong to a mighty nation, the
institutions of which must necessarily
conquer eventu!1lly I the entire civilized
world because they are based upon the
only principles which rea~on can ac-know
ledge to be right." ,
DISCONTENT AT
FOUR MILE PRAIRIE
Not every newcomer in Texas was satis­fied
with the first tract of land he had
settled. One of them wrote: "The soil in
this part of the country is of various qual­ities;
here in Texas some of the land is so
rich that I do not think any better can be
found on this earth .... (1. R. Reierson)
has, so far as I am able to judge, a part of
the very best land near Four Mile, but
even that is far from as good as I have seen
in other districts ... I can tell you that I
shall leave here as soon as I can obtain
land somewhere else, where the yield
may be ten times as much in a year."­T.
Grimseth.
THE WATERS
OF THE BOSQUE
Although he was now 67, Cleng Peerson
still found it difficult to remain in one
place. In 1850, he began to explore land
to the west. His tales led Ole Canuteson
to follow his path. Canuteson later wrote:
"In the summer of 1852, I started out
(from Dallas County) with a man by the
name of Bryant, to search for vacant land.
... Our objective was the waters of the
Bosque .... We found enough (land) to
accommodate many more people than
had at first been contemplated. This was
the beginning of the Norwegian settle­ment
in Bosque County."
BOSQUE COUNTY
1854
The Texas Legislature created Bosque
County on February 3, 1854, and offered
320 acres of free land to those who would
settle there. Peerson and Canuteson urged
their friends to move to this area, which
was more like their native land and of­fered
better soil and plenty of wood and
good water. Many of the Norwegians
moved to the southwest part of Bosque
County, which is still the most genuinely
Norwegian colony in Texas. The first set­tlement,
appropriately, was called Norse.
The Bosque settlements lay in the south
central portion of the county. It was a
region of gently rolling prairie, dotted
with woodlands and spring-fed streams.
Among the first to establish land claims
there were Karl Questad, Knut Canuteson,
J ens Jenson, Berge Rogstad, and their
families. Ole Ween was a single man.
ORIGINAL NORWEGIAN SETTLERS IN BOSQUE COUNTY Bosque County Memorial Museum
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MAP OF THE NORWEGIAN SETTLEMENTS IN BOSQUE COUNTY
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T".THEO'(OLWI(K·~".
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THE OLD NORSE POST OFFICE Clarence Colwick
KARL QUESTAD Mrs. Ole Hoel
KARL QUESTAD
Karl Questad was born in 1815 in Loiten,
Norway. As a young man he served as a
hunting and fishing guide for the N or­wegian
gentry. Later, he became a black­smith.
Life for the poorer classes was not
too promising, however, so Questad de­parted
his homeland about 1850, and
came to Texas. In 1853 he was in the ad­vance
party of Norwegian immigrants
which explored the region along the
Bosque. The land records show that in
1854 Questad was one of the first to take
out a deed to farm land in the newly
created Bosque County. The country was
then so wild that marauding Indians
sometimes raided the outlying home­steads.
In 1867 he was attacked by Co­manches
and escaped only by jumping
off a thirty-foot cliff.
Though he was a farmer by vocation,
Questad continued to work as a black­smith.
He made his own farm implements
in his smithy on the Questad Place, and,
on numerous occasions, volunteered his
skills to help less fortunate neighbors. He
was also an accomplished stone mason.
His masonry house at Norse still stands.
Questad possessed a variety of intellectual
interests. He collected books and aided in
the education of his fellows by loaning
volumes to any who wished to read. He
was an accumulator of scientific data. In
1874 and 1882. he sent collections of fos­sils
and Indian artifacts to the Bergen
Museum in Norway. He also contributed
to the work of Gustav Belfrage by provid­ing
a home and workshop for the noted
Swedish naturalist during the years 1870-
1879.
OLE RING NESS Mrs. Ole Hoel
OLE RINGNESS
Among those who moved to Bosque Coun­ty
was the Jens Ringness family which
had come from Norway in 1851. Ole, the
eldest son, became the mail carrier from
the Bosque settlement to Fort Worth. An
observant man, he noticed that when
wagons were heavily loaded, their wheels
cupped and dug large furrows in the soft
earth. He began to wonder about the pos­sibility
of making a disc plow and disc
harrow. At a local blacksmith shop, he put
together models which worked successful­ly.
In 1872, while enroute to Norway, he
planned to register his patents in New
York, where he was also to meet some
prospective buyers. He died in New York
under mysterious circumstances, before
filing his papers. His brother, John, was
advised by the New York patent office
that the patent could be issued in his
name if he would remit the usual $5 fee.
But, he did not make the application, and
the disc plow was later patented by the
J. I. Case Plow Company. Today few peo­ple
know that the idea for one of the
major advances in modern agriculture
first arose in the inventive mind of a
Norwegian immigrant to Texas.
The first homes in the Bosque settlements
were built of logs or, occasionally, of
stone. The ends of the logs were notched
so that they could be crossed and fitted
together at the corners. Caulking was
necessary to fill cracks in the walls. Stone
homes were much more difficult to build,
since the stone was quarried and shaped
by hand, with the help of hammers,
chisels and an occasional saw.
Early settlers in Bosque County built
"stake" fences at social events called
"fencing bees." For days ahead the men of
the settlement cut and sharpened posts
which were then hauled to the field where
the fence was to be constructed. They
drove the posts into the ground and bound
them together at the top with wire.
STAKE FENCE ON THE QUESTAD FARM
Where stakes could not be driven, rock
fences were used.
Bosque County was part of the frontier.
Although most of the Indians were friend­ly,
the Kiowas and Comanches still made
raids. The settlers formed their local mili­tia
for protection, and sentries sometimes
had to be posted on the tops of hills. Ole
Canuteson's cabin was ransacked in 1854,
while, fortunately, no one was at home.
In 1867, Karl Questad nearly died from
an arrow wound suffered during a raid;
and 14-year-old Ole Nystel was held cap­tive
for three months before he was bar­tered,
unharmed, at a Kansas trading post
for $300 worth of merchandise.
MR. AND MRS. HENDRIe DAHL
HENDRIC AND
CHRISTINE DAHL
Hendric Dahl, who had come to Kaufman
County from Norway in 185Z, moved on
to Bosque County in 1854. Dahl was a
genuine Texas horsetrader. He swapped
his saddle horse to Jasper Mabray for 3Z0
acres of land in Gary Creek valley. When
he returned from a visit to Norway in
187Z, Dahl brought back a considerable
number of new immigrants.
Hendric died in January 1873, leaving
Christine with nine children to raise and
a large farm to manage. Although she
could not write and could read only Nor­wegian,
Christine became an expert farm­er.
She continued to accumulate land on
which she raised horses, cattle and grain.
Bosque County Memorial Museum
At one time she owned more than 4,000
acres.
At her death in 1910, her children inher­ited
a sizeable and profitable farming
operation. Today the 3Z0 acres that Hen­dric
Dahl acquired in a horse trade re­mains
one of the few farms in the settle­ment
that has never been sold outside the
family.
A CHURCH AND A PASTOR
AT FOUR MILE PRAIRIE
1854
The Norwegians at Four Mile Prairie es­tablished
a church in 1848. At first, wor­ship
services were held in private homes.
At Four Mile, William Waerenskjold led
the services and conducted baptisms using
an altar book which had belonged to his
wife's father. Still, Elise Waerenskjold
and others worried that their countrymen
were losing their religious ties in the new
environment. Elise wrote, "Some of the
Norwegians have abandoned their Lu­theran
faith .... I wish very much that
we could soon get a good Lutheran pastor.
. . . I cannot tell you how much I wish we
might get someone who could instill a
love and respect for the Christian teach­ings
in the young people."
In 1854 a small church was built at Four
Mile. Through the efforts of the Waeren­skjolds,
the Reverend A. Emil Fridricksen
of the Norwegian Lutheran Church made
a missionary visit to Texas. He served the
congregation at Four Mile Prairie, and
another at Brownsboro, for four years­from
1854 to 1858. FOUR MILE CHURCH
1860
As influential as they were in promoting
immigration to the United States, neither
Peerson, Reierson, nor the Waerenskjolds
could turn the main tide of immigration
south to Texas. In 1860, the census listed
only 326 persons of Norwegian birth in
Texas.
As the nation edged toward Civil War,
Elise Waerenskjold spoke out strongly
against the institution of slavery. "I be­lieve
that slavery is absolutely contrary to
the law of God .. .. People have asked me
if I would tolerate having a Negro woman
as a daughter-in-law. I must admit that it
would not please me very much, but I
would rather have it thus than to have
grandchildren who are slaves ... . We im­migrants,
to be sure, can do nothing to
abolish slavery; we are too few to accom­plish
anything for this cause and would
merely bring on ourselves hatred and per­secution.
All we can do is to keep our­selves
free of the whole slavery system."
The Texas Norse were divided over the
Civil War. Though most were Union
men, according to Mrs. Waerenskjold, the
records show that almost 50 of them
served in the Confederate armies. The
story is told of how Otto Swenson was
conscripted from the Bosque area late in
the War. He knew little English and cared
less for the Southern cause. Since he had
not been issued a uniform, he soon just
walked off from his company, drifted
around until the war was over, and then
returned home. No action was taken
against such men by the Union, which
STONE CABIN WEST OF CLIFTON
saw no r eason to punish those in the South
who had not fought against it.
1865
When the war had ended, Elise Waeren­skjold
foresaw great problems r esulting
from the Reconstruction process: "Much
as I have always wished for the Negroes
to be free, I cannot help thinking that it
could have been brought about a little
more gradually . ... For great numbers of
them, life will be harsher now than when
they were slaves .... So many thousands
of people suddenly left to their own re­sources
without anything to give them a
start in life! They have hardly enough
clothes to cover their bodies-and this in
a country terribly devastated by the
war!"
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CLENG PEERSON
Ovee (or Ovie) Colwick came to the
Bosque area from Illinois in 1859. At that
time he was a single man who devoted
himself to caring for the sick and elderly.
Cleng Peerson, now 76, made his home
with Colwick, and, in return, deeded half
of his land grant in Bosque County to
Colwick. Despite his age, Peerson still
made "treks" to Austin to negotiate land
deals for his friends . It is said that he
dressed for these trips in frock coat and
top hat, and that he brought such enter­tainment
through his story-telling that
no one would ever accept money from
him for his food and shelter. Cleng Peer­son
died in 1865, at the age of 82 and was
buried in the Norse Cemetery. Years later,
Colwick's son wrote of Peerson: "He was
the most unselfish man I have known. His
chief ambition was to promote the welfare
of his countrymen and fellow-men." A
.~ymbolic statue to Peerson's memory now
stands in Stavanger, Norway.
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PASTOR JOHN
KNUDSEN RYSTAD
1867
The Rev. Ole Olsen Estrem was the first
resident pastor to the Norwegians of the
Bosque country after the Civil War, and
during his time (1869-1877) the first
church was built at Norse-Our Savior's
Lutheran Church. Estrem was succeeded
hv the Rev. J. K. Rystad, who served the
Norse church for the next 48 years. In
1886, the "Rock Church," St. Olaf's, was
huilt at Cranfills Gap, and Trinity Lu­theran
was built at Clifton in 1907. Ry­stad
also led in the founding of an acad­emy
at Clifton in 1896. He served as its
first president. Clifton Junior College was
established as the upper branch of the
academy in 1922. The academy closed in
1936. The Junior College was merged in
1953 with Texas Lutheran College at
Seguin.
MR. AND MRS. PETER HOFF Mrs. Ole Hoel
PETER HOFF
Peter Hoff and his family landed at Gal­veston
in December, 1867. Thev had little
money and no knowledge of the English
language. They bought a wagon to haul
their baggage to Bosque County, but they
could not afford a team to pull the wagon.
A kindly old man at Galveston hitched his
team to the wagon and hauled them a
day's journey. That night he asked a
nearby farmer to lodge them for the night
and haul them one day further. This was
repeated with each "hauler" explaining
the predicament to the next-until the
family finally reached Bosque. No one re­fused
to help, and no one asked for pay­ment.
In 1867, thirteen died in an epidemic at
the Four Mile Prairie settlement. The fol­lowing
spring, twelve of the thirty-three
Norwegian families there moved to
Bosque County, where most of the Nor­wegian
immigrants now live.
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1870
Wheat was raised in the Bosque colony
and was milled at Norway Mill. The flour
was then freighted by oxen to Waco,
where the farmers also bought the manu­factured
products and foodstuffs they
could not supply at home. This practice
ended with the coming of the railroad
in the 1880's.
1872
Some Norwegians migrated to Texas from
other sections of the United States after
1872. Several families came to the Lower
Rio Grande Valley with a substantial
number of Swedes. Eventually they either
intermarried with people of other nation­alities
or left the area. Few Norwegian
names survive in the Lower Valley today.
By 1880 the Census Bureau listed 880 per­sons
of Norwegian birth living in Texas.
1884
Norwegians settled in the northeastern
part of Bee County between 1884 and
1898, in a settlement known as Normanna
("Home of the Norseman"). By 1897 the
village had seven stores, all of which were
destroyed in a fire the following year.
After the fire, many settlers moved out.
Today the settlement has a population of
100.
ELISE WAERENSKJOLD
1895
Wilhelm Waerenskjold had been stabbed
to death in 1866, in what Elise later de­scribed
as a "cold-blooded and long-pre­meditated
murder" by "a scoundrel of a
Methodist preacher." Elise continued to
live on the 1,250-acre family farm at Four
Mile Prairie which her son, Niels, man­aged.
She often visited in the Norwegian
homes, and local tradition remembers her
as having a stately bearing and being re­ceived
"like a bishop" into the homes she
visited. She continued her letter-writing,
giving her contemporaries (as she now
gives us) the best account of the Nor­wegians
in Texas. Late in 1894 she moved
to the home of her son, Otto, in Hamilton,
Texas, where she died on January 22,
1895.
At the beginning of the twentieth cen­tury,
the Census reported 1,356 Norwe­gian-
born living in Texas. ELISE W AERENSKJOLD
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Mrs. William Waerensk;old
OSLO ON THE PLAINS
1909
Oslo, located in Hansford County in the
northern Texas panhandle, did not look at
all like the ancient capital of Norway for
which it was named. It possessed no view
of majestic mountains and was 500 miles
from any sea. It did boast a school, a Nor­wegian
Lutheran church and a Norwe­gian
language newspaper. The town was
the product of one of the many panhandle
land development schemes that bloomed
and quickly faded during the early years
of the 20th century.
The developer, Anders L. Mordt of Chi­cago,
sold land to Norwegians from the
Midwest. To encourage settlement Mordt
built a school, donated land for a church
and published a newspaper in the Nor­wegian
language. He printed handbills,
circulars and booklets, and organized rail-road
excursions so that potential buyers
could see the land.
For a short time the settlement thrived.
But a long drought that began in 1912
doomed the experiment. Many of the fam­ilies
moved away. About 30 Norwegian
families remained in the area. Today, the
Oslo church is the center of community
life and descendants of the original set­tlers
are some of the most productive
wheat farmers in the state.
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C. B. NORMANN
1931
C. B. Normann, immigrant painter from
Norway, was impressed by the work of
the German immigrant Elisabet Ney, in
preserving Texas' historical figures in
sculpture. In 1931-1935 he painted from
photographs, Elizabet Ney at Work,
which was presented in 1968 to the State
by Governor and Mrs. John Connally.
Normann's Signing of the Declaration of
Independence hangs in the San Jacinto
Monument. His portraits of Nine Texas
Heroes are in the State Library building
in Austin.
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MILDRED ELLA DIDRIKSEN
1950
The famous Texan, Mildred Ella Didrik­sen
(Babe Zaharias) was the daughter of
Ole Didriksen, a Norwegian immigrant.
She was born at Port Arthur in 1912 and
became perhaps the greatest woman ath­lete
of all time. She dominated the wom­en's
events at the 1932 Olympics in Los
Angeles and excelled in every sport, par­ticularly
basketball and golf. In 1950 she
was named Woman Athlete of the First
Half of the 20th Century. She died of
cancer in 1956.
While the Norse settlements of Bosque
County have retained much of their old­country
flavor, the Norwegian descend­ents
at Brownsboro and Prairieville have
been assimilated by the farming com­munities,
and only a few Norse names are
now seen on the mail boxes of these
areas. One reminder-about three miles
east of Prairieville-is the old Lutheran
church and the country cemetery full of
ancient tombstones bearing Norwegian
names.
One of a series
prepared by the staff of
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO
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