THE TEXIANS
AND THE TEXANS
THE UNIVERSITY
OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF
TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO
THE
NORWEGIAN
TEXANS
THE NORWEGIAN
TEXANS
,J)}
The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures
at San Antonio
1985
THE TEXIANS AND THE TEXANS
A series dealing with the many peoples who have contributed to the history
and heritage of Texas. Now in print:
Pamphlets - The Afro-American Texans, The Anglo-American Texans, The Belgian
Texans, The Chinese Texans, The Czech Texans, The German Texans,
The Greek Texans, The Indian Texans, The Italian Texans, TheJewish
Texans, The Lebanese Texans and the !$yrian Texans, The Mexican Texans,
Los Tejanos Mexicanos (in Spanish), The Norwegian Texans, The
Spanish Texans and The Swiss Texans.
Books - The Danish Texans, The English Texans, The German Texans, The Irish
Texans, The Japanese Texans, The Polish Texans and The Wendish Texans.
The Norwegian Texans
©1971: The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
John R. McGiffert, Executive Director
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 77-632308
International Standard Book Number 0-86701-029-0
Second edition, second printing 1989
This publication was made possible, in part, by a grant from
Houston Endowment, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover: Hendrik and Christine Dahl
Back Cover: Wilhelm Wmrenskjold, wife and children
THE NORWEGIAN TEXANS
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)
I t is not an easy task to leave the
country of one's birth and travel
thousands of miles to settle in a
The Norwegian bark Arendal, which carried Norwegian immigrants to Texas in 1851
strange land. Such a move is not
undertaken without a good reason.
Yet, between 1840 and 1914 more
than 1,105,000 Norwegians emi­grated;
virtually all of them came to
America. 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 of
the emigrants came because they
believed that the United States
offered social mobility and economic
opportunities that were denied them
in their native land.
CLENG PEERSON
1821
Cleng Peerson is honored in Norway
and Texas as the "Father of N orwe­gian
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
3
Cleng Peerson
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 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,
The sloop Restauration
4
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 emigrants organized by
Peerson arrived in New York in Oc­tober
1825 aboard a 52-foot sloop
named Restauration. The 53
Norwegians consisted of families,
couples, single men and women­all
sizes and ages, including one baby
girl born at sea.
In 1833 and 1834 Cleng Peerson
made a walking tour across Ohio,
Indiana and Illinois. The end result
of his trek was the first large N orwe­gian
settlement in the United States,
at Fox River, Illinois.
JOHANNES NORDBOE
1841
Johannes Nordboe was the first per­manent
Norwegian settler in Texas.
At age 64, deeply in debt, married,
with four children, 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
Self-portrait of Johannes Nordboe
settlement at Fox River, Illinois. A
self-taught painter and physician, he
wrote many letters to friends in N or­way
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
a 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."
Johannes N ordboe died on his
farm in 1855, but he lived long
enough to see other Norwegians
follow in his footsteps.
JOHAN REINERT
REIERSEN
1843
Johan R. Reiersen is considered to
be the "Father of Norwegian Immi­gration
to Texas." He dreamed of
"caravans of immigrants" who would
Johan R. Reiersen
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 N or­way
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 January 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 of the several
suitable places he would recommend.
REIERSEN'S
PUBLICATIONS
1844
Before his trip to America, Reiersen,
with his brother Christian, had
begun' Christiansandsposten, a liberal
newspaper 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 Jor Nor­wegian
Immigrants to the United North
American States and Texas. It was
Uorfke (fmigrl1nter
~e forenebe uorbamerifantle
eitater Oil ~er.ae.
~:C~~~~~~(ttt~:t~t~~~~~I~i~C!: itfr'il~~h~:~ t?tm~:,rt{~~
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og (oInf'(o"".:IItring. ~nlttoning til .,,,r"Cncllt for QUe 91019'
lIrt>tlt-tn. o;)ilQ:nb\·trrnf 09 ~l"bm.x"O, priilr P44 Pr.>touo:'
rtt "9 3rbtlbr, ('lfrnth~r (anto. ( o"gipni"9 0!J ftlltolt-rltg
<Dt~tn •. m" i bet \'tllhg:, 'lImer,''''' ""'vnlig: t l'O.i.c')nlin.
'It :lUu,,,it, ""tG'Cil "'Q tlli.i.mri. filmt "tl jl.urn l:rr.a, flUlgn.cl>
to erriptlir til ':'"n, 1.5.1tm4nn "'" f't Q:fllttlf.:nj'l'r "orholb
oitt'rtr h..>"ct', Ittliol~cf mel) ban. ;z,(m-:trfnincttl' ('Q ~(f-:t"f"ill; frol B'tItnll'ci·tn lIn",nlllf, 't";",rfll-:tnbinr ,fUtr ~a.er"ft'1\
, lI"j~bQ~~t~a;~~:nf~~n~~i~91ft'!:;'~~:;~I~~~~~:~~ 01
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1.",11 I w. r !lhOt ••• Cfl".
Title page from Veiviser by Johan Reiersen
the most comprehensive handbook
about America published by a Nor­wegian
up to that time and was very
influential in encouraging N orwe­gian
emigration. Before returning to
America, he began a monthly maga­zine,
Norge og Amerika (Norway and
America), as a forum for reports from
colonists and 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)
THE BROWNSBORO
COLONY
1845
In the spnng 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. The Reiersens
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, arrived with
50 more settlers.
According to Elise Wreren­skjold,
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 N orwe­gian
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 - highly 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
5
Elise W IErenskjold
incompatible and took the daring
step of separating and divorcing.
Elise resumed her maiden name and
in 1846 became editor of Reiersen's
monthly, Norge og Amen/ca. When the
magazine ceased publication in 1847,
Elise, then 32, left for Texas and
arrived at Normandy in October
1847. One year later she moved to
Four Mile Prairie, where she married
Wilhelm Wcerenskjold with whom
she had crossed the Atlantic. Wceren­skjold
had been the leader of a group
which had financed Reiersen's first
trip to Texas in 1843.
1848
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When the Texas government renewed Map of Prairieville
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 so-called
Four Mile Prairie colony in 1850. A
few years later, in 1869, Elise Wceren­skjold
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
6
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 ofluxuriant
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 optimistic about
the prospects of Norwegian immi­grants.
"All those who have been in
America a few years, with a few
exceptions are in a contented and in-lYe
u. ". 'Iv b~ $'0 y{;-.;
:J3loc.c yw"//
ro-/; n' ;!, ~ (J., ,J...,,,,,.J.
.e1rtlk Iffjk~ 7<ntn:o;
R'Qi c{'4v,iHri
't{;lPkS
\l~~-.'
~f:Jl"<~ •
dependent 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)
ADAM L0VENSKJOLD
Not all Norwegians favored emigra­tion.
The ReverendJ.W.C. Dietrich-
~trttning
om
9lor"amtrifa,
tittr ~tn nor{l' C!lmrr<llr~nrUi5, 2(~run l!n>mrrioiM,
iii ;C'~rtnnmttt untcr I.~ t:;cMtI' 1847 inb;)il'1lt
ltIcrttninq, om ~Qn! i Qf~iSlt eommtT I bt IWrb·
amenr.nllt ~rinQ!(~ ~tnli9t ~inbfrr, i bt 1II>t.
flt ettitnlmlrr GtlG8tt !8rfes.
Title page of Levenskjold's report
son, who came to America to bring
religious order into the Lutheran
settlements, denounced the entire
emigration movement so fervently
that J ohan Reiersen accused him of
being bought by the government of
N orway-8weden, which was not par­ticularly
pleased with the fact that so
many of its citizens were leaving their
homeland. In 1848 Adam L0ven-skjold,
the Norwegian-8wedish 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.
Despite such efforts, the 1850 census
listed 105 persons of Norwegian birth
living in Texas.
CLENG PEERSON AND
OLE CANUTE SON
1849
In 1847, when he wap 64 years old,
Cleng Peerson sold his farmlands in
Missouri and Iowa, joined a Swedish
religious communal settlement at
1947 postage stamp
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
Johannes 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 Johannes
Nordboe. Peerson lived with the
Canutesons and the J ohan Reiersens
during the next four years.
Ole Canuteson
THE WAERENSKjOLDS'
WRITINGS
1851
Both Wilhelm and Elise Wreren­skjold
were good writers, and their
letters about immigrant life in Texas
were published, along with Reier­sen's,
in Norwegian newspapers. In
1851 a Norwegian paper published
correspondence written under the
Reiersen's cabin name of a Captain A. Tolmer. Tol-
7
Wilhelm WlErenskjold
mer was disparaging of Texas - its
soil, its climate, its crops and its
people. Mrs. Wrerenskjold wrote a
long and vigorous "Manifestd' in
defense of Texas, with supporting
Original Norwegian settlers in Bosque County
8
...
Elise WlErenskjold
letters from Johannes 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 Wrerenskjold's "Manifesto")
1852
In 1852 the letters from Texas
Norwegians were given great promi­nence
in the Norwegian labor move­ment's
chief newspaper, Arbeider­Foreningernes
Blad. The editor, Marcus
Thrane, hoped to encourage poorly
paid workers to emigrate to Texas,
thus creating a labor shortage at
home. This, he reasoned, would
build up pressure for higher wages
and shorter hours.
To Thrane's newspaper J ohan
Reiersen wrote: "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 eventually the entire civi­lized
world because they are based
upon the only principles which rea­son
can acknowledge to be right."
DISCONTENT AT
FOUR MILE PRAIRIE
Not every newcomer in Texas was
satisfied with the first tract ofland he
had settled. T. Grimseth 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 . ... U.R. Reiersen] 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."
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
A Bosque County farm scene
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 begin-
The old Norse Post Office
9
ning of the Norwegian settlement in
Bosque County."
BOSQUE COUNTY
1854
The Texas Legislature created
Bosque County on February 3, 1854,
and offered 320 acres offree 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 ofthe 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, JensJenson, Berge
Rogstad and their families. Ole Ween
was a single man.
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
Stone cabin west of Clifton
10
Stake fence on the Questad farm
fill cracks in the walls. Stone houses
were~ much more difficult to build,
since the stone had to be quarried
and shaped by hand with hammers,
c;hisels and saws.
Early settlers in Bosque County
held "fencing bees" to build stake
fences. For days before, 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. Where the
ground was not amenable to driving
stakes, rock fences were built.
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 no one was at home.
In 1867 Karl Questad nearly died
from an arrow wound received dur­ing
a raid; and 14-year-old Ole Nystel
was held captive for three months
before he was bartered, unharmed,
Karl Questad
The bluff from which Questad Jumped while escaping the Comanches
at a Kansas trading post for $300
worth of merchandise.
KARL QUESTAD
Karl Questad was born in 1815 in
L0iten, Norway. As a young man he
served as a hunting and fishing guide
for the Norwegian 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 get a deed to farmland in the
newly created Bosque County. The
country was so wild that marauding
Indians sometimes raided the out­lying
homesteads. In 1867 he was
attacked by Comanches and escaped
only by jumping off a 30-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 stonemason,
and his masonry house at Norse still
stands. <%~estad possessed a variety
of intellectual interests. He collected
books and aided in the education of
his rellows by loaning volumes to any
who wished to read. He was also an
acc~mulator of scientific data. In
1874 and 1882 he sent collections of
fossils and Indian artifacts to the
Bergen Museum in Norway. He con­tributed
to the work of Gustav Bel­frage
by providing a home and work­shop
for the noted Swedish naturalist
during 1870-1879.
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 a disc harrow. At a local black­smith
shop he put together models
which worked successfully. In 1872,
while en route 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,
however, before filing his
papers. His brother, John, was
advised by the New York patent office
that the patent could be issued in his
name ifhe would remit the usual $5
fee. But he did not make the applica­tion,
and the disc plow was later
patented by the].!. 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.
HENDRIKAND
CHRISTINE DAHL
Ole Ringness
Hendrik Dahl, who had come to
Kaufman County from Norway in
1852, moved on to Bosque County
in 1854. Dahl was a genuine Texas
horse trader. He swapped his saddle
horse to Jasper Mabray for 320 acres
of land in the Gary Creek valley.
When he returned from a visit to
Norway in 1872, Dahl brought back
a large number of new immigrants.
Hendrik 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
11
r
Dahl house
grain. At one time she owned more
than 4,000 acres.
At her death in 1910 her chil­dren
inherited a sizable and profit­able
farming operation. Today the
320 acres that Hendrik Dahl ac­quired
in a horse trade remains one
of the few farms in the settlement
that has never been sold outside the
original 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
Wrerenskjold led the services and
conducted baptisms using an altar
book which had belonged to his wife's
father. Still Elise Wrerenskjold 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
one who could instill a love and
respect for the Christian teachings in
the young people."
how much I wish we might get some- Four Mile Church
12
In 1854 a small church was built
at Four Mile. Through the efforts of
the Wrerenskjolds, the Reverend A.
Emil Fridrichsen of the Norwegian
Lutheran Church made a missionary
visit to Texas. He served the congre­gations
at Four Mile Prairie and at
Brownsboro from 1854 to 1858.
1860
As influential as they were in pro­moting
immigration to the United
States, neither Peerson, Reiersen nor
the Wrerenskjolds could turn the
main tide of immigration south
toward Texas. In 1860 the census
listed only 326 persons of Norwegian
birth in Texas.
As the nation edged toward civil
war, Elise Wrerenskjold 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,
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.
Wcerenskjold, the records show that
almost 50 Norwegians 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 saw no reason to pun­ish
those in the South who had not
fought against it.
1865
When the war had ended, Elise
Wcerenskjold foresaw great problems
resulting from the Reconstruction
process: "Much as I have always
wished .for the Negroes to be free, I
cannor help thinking that it could
have been brought about a little more
gradually . ... For great numbers of
th~m, life will be harsher now than
wren 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
Exterior of St. Olals Lutheran Church near Cranfills Gap
The first Norse band
hardly enough clothes to cover their
bodies-and this in a country terribly
devastated by the war!"
CLENG PEERSON
AND OVE COLWICK
Ove Colwick and his wife,johanna,
came to the Bosque area from Illinois
Ove Colwick
Colwick house
in 1859 with their four children.
Cleng Peerson, now 76, made his
home with the Col wicks and, in
return, deeded half of his land grant
in Bosque County to Ove. 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 storytelling that no
one would ever accept money from
him for his food and shelter. Cleng
Peerson died in 1865 at the age of 82
Cleng Peerson's tombstone
14
.1 II
...
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 sy~bolic statue to Peerson's mem­ory
now stands in Stavanger, Norway.
Memorial to Peerson, Stavanger, Norway
PASTOR]OHN
KNUDSEN RYSTAD
1867
The Reverend Ole Olsen Estrem was
the first resident pastor to the N orwe­gians
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 by
the ReverendJohn Knudsen Rystad,
who served the Norse church for the
next 58 years. In 1886 the "Rock
Church;' St. Olafs, was built 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 and 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.
John K. Rystad
PETER HOFF
Peter Hoff and his family landed at
Galveston in December 1867 with
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 man in 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 their predicament to the
next - until the family finally reached
Bosque. No one refused to help, and
no one asked for payment.
Mr. and Mrs. Peter Hoff
1867
In 1867, 13 people died in an
epidemic at the Four Mile Prairie set­tlement.
The following spring 12 of
the 33 Norwegian families there
moved to Bosque County, where
most of the Norwegian immigrants
now live.
1870
Wheat was raised in the Bosque col­ony
and milled at Norway Mill. The
flour was then freighted by oxen to
Waco, where the farmers bought the
manufactured items and foodstuffs
they could not produce 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 U.s. Census
listed 880persons 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 away. Today the
settlement has a population of 100.
Elise WtErenskjold
ELISE WAERENSKJOLD
1895
Wilhelm Wrerenskjold had been
stabbed to death in 1866 in what
Elise later described as a "cold­blooded
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 her Nor­wegian
neighbors, 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 turn of the century, the
census reported 1,356 Norwegian-
Norway Mill born people living in Texas.
15
Immigrants having lunch infront of Oslo School and Meeting House, I9II
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 railroad 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 experi-
16
~ent; many of the families moved
~way. 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.
~ J..~.~ ... _ _ _
Charles B. Normann
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's
historical figures in sculpture. In
1931-1935 he painted Elizabet Ney at
Work, from photographs. It was pre­sented
in 1968 to the State of Texas
by Governor and Mrs. John Connal­ly.
Normann's Signing if the Declaration
oj Independence hangs in the San
Jacinto Monument and his portraits
of Nine Texas Heroes are in the State
Library building in Austin.
MILDRED ELLA
DIDRIKSEN
1950
The famous Texan, Mildred Ella
Didriksen (Babe Zaharias) was the
daughter of Ole Didriksen, a N orwe­gian
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
Babe Didriksen
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 Old Country flavor, the
Norwegian descendants at Browns­boro
and Prairieville have been
assimilated by the farming commu­nities,
and only a few Norse names
are now seen on the mailboxes 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.
SUGGESTED READING
The Lady with the Pen, Elise Wreren­skjold
(Northfield, Minn. : Norwe­gian-
American Historical Associa­tion,
1961).
Land of Their Choice, ed. Theodore C.
Blegen (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1955).
Norway to America: A History of the
Migration, Ingrid Semmingsen; trans.
Einar Haugen (Minneapolis: Uni­versity
of Minnesota Press, 1978).
Norwegian Settlement in the United States,
Carlton C. Qualen (New York: Arno
Press, 1970).
Original home oj John Rogstad in Norse, 1899
17
PHOTO CREDITS
All photos are from the collection of The University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures
at San Antonio, courtesy of the following lenders. Credits from left to right are separated
by semicolons and from top to bottom by dashes.
Cover Bosque County Memorial Museum, Clifton.
Page 3 Norsk Sjofartsmuseum, Oslo, Norway.
Page 4 Olaf Norlie, History oj the Norwegian People in America
(Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1925); Kathleen
Riley-Theodore C. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America:
The American Transition (Northfield, Minn.: Norwegian­American
Historical Association, 1940).
Page 5 R.W. Reierson, Houston; Theodore C. Blegen, Norwegian
Migration to America: 1825-1860 (Northfield, Minn.:
Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1931).
Page 6 State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Kaufam County
Courthouse.
Page 7 Theodore C. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America:
1825-1860 (Northfield, Minn.: Norwegian-American
Historical Association, 1931); The Institute of Texan Cultures;
John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (Austin:
L.E. Daniell, n.d.)-The Institute of Texan Cultures.
Page 8 Mrs. William E. Warenskjold, Cleburne - Bosque County
Memorial Museum, Clifton.
Page 9 The Institute of Texan Cultures-Mr. and Mrs. Clarence
Colwick, Clifton.
Page 10 Clarence Colwick, Clifton -The Institute of Texan Cultures;
Bosque County Memorial Museum, Clifton.
Page 11 The Institute of Texan Cultures; Mrs. Ole Hoel, Cranfills
Gap .
. Page 12 Colonel and Mrs. Neal Grimland, San Antonio-C.A.
Clausen, ed., The Lady with the Pen (Northfield, Minn.:
Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1961).
Page 13 Mrs. Ole Hoel, Cranfills Gap -The Institute of Texan
Cultures; Mary Latimer Colwick, The Colwicks, Ovee, John and
Family, 1825-1966 (Durant, Okla.: Privately published).
Page 14 Charles 0. Bronstad, Aurora, Colo.-The Institute of Texan
Cultures; Norwegian Information Service; Bosque County
Memorial Museum, Clifton.
Page 15 Mrs. Ole Hoel, Cranfills Gap-Mrs. O'Belle Harris, Grand
Prairie; Mrs. William E. Warenskjold, Cleburne.
Page 16 Dr. Peter L. Petersen, Canyon-Charles Berkeley Normann,
Austin.
Page 17 The San Antonio Light Collection, The Institute of Texan
Cultures-Colonel and Mrs. Neal Grimland, San Antonio.
Back Cover Mrs. William E. Warenskjold, Cleburne.
19
Italic numerals identify illustrations.
Arendal (ship) 3
Bosque County, Texas 8, 9, 10, 11, 15
Brownsboro Colony 5, 6, 12
Canuteson, Ole 7, 7, 9-10
churches 12, 12, 13, 14, 16
Civil War 13
Clifton Junior College 14
Clifton, Texas 10, 14
Colwick, Ove 13, 13, 14
Cranfills Gap, Texas 13, 14
Dahl, Christine 11-12, 12
Dahl, Hendrik 11, 12
Didriksen, Mildred Ella 16-17, 17
emigration and emigrants 3, 4, 5, 6-7, 8, 8, 12
Estrem, Ole Olsen 14
farms and farming 9, 10, 11, 12, 15
Four Mile Prairie, Texas 6, 9, 12, 12, 15
Fridrichsen, A. Emil 12
Hoff, Peter 14, 15
houses 6, 7, 10, 10, 12, 14, 17
Indians 10, 11
L0venskjold, Adam 6-7, 7
20
...
INDEX
Nordboe, Johannes 4, 4
Normanna, Texas 15
Normann, Charles B. 16, 16
Norse, Texas 9, 10, 13, 14, 17
Norway Mill 15, 15
Oslo, Texas 16, 16
Peerson, Cleng 3-4, 4, 7, 7, 9, 14, 14
Prairieville, Texas (map) 6
publications by Norwegians 5, 5, 6, 7-8, 7, 16
Questad, Karl 10, 10, 11, 11
Reiersen, Johan Reinert 4-5 , 5, 6, 7, 9
Restauration (ship) 4, 4
Ringness, Ole 11, 11
Rogstad, J ohn (house) 17
Rystad, John Knudsen 14, 14
ships 3, 4, 4
slavery, attitude toward 12-13
Swenson, Otto 13
~iv iser (handbook) 5, 5
Wrerenskjold, Elise Amalie Tvede 5-6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 12-13, 15,
15
Wrerenskjold, Wilhelm 6, 7, 8, 12, 15
One oj a series
prepared by the staff of
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO