Crossings 200 – Bicentennial Commemorating Organized Emigration from Norway to North America 1825-2025
Norsemen have migrated to North America since the Viking Age. Archeological remains at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland show Norsemen – perhaps even Leiv Eiriksson – built a settlement approximately the year 1000 and stayed there for about 20 years. In the 1600s Norwegians, some of whom had first migrated to the Netherlands, settled in New Sweden along the Delaware River, or New Amsterdam on Manhattan. And seamen went ashore to settle in ports along the east coast of North America. But in 1825 an important change took place in the migration pattern. Norwegians began to organize into groups, often with a leader, they traveled together, and they settled in the same area, creating Norwegian enclaves that preserved Norwegian language and culture, producing a Norwegian diaspora in North America. Crossings 200 commemorates the sailing of the sloop Restauration from Stavanger to New York on July 4-5, 1825, with 52 passengers mainly from Ryfylke, the fjord landscape north of Stavanger. A baby named Margaret Allen was born during the crossing to Martha and Lars Geilane, so 53 passengers arrived in New York on October 9. Kleng Peerson led the group, but he was not on board, having crossed earlier to meet the Sloopers on arrival. This was the start of organized, direct emigration from Norway to North America.
Emigration fever eventually infected all parts of Norway, but emigration in the early period is usually portrayed as a Western Norwegian phenomenon. This is not entirely true, and since the Emigrant Museum is in Eastern Norway, we have chosen to base our play on emigration from this area, specifically from Ringsaker, which seems to have played a special role in early emigration from Eastern Norway.
A shipwreck near Bergen in 1817 provided inspiration for immigrating to America in both the west and east. An unseaworthy immigrant ship, De Zee Ploeg, traveling from Amsterdam to Philadelphia with ca. 560 German emigrants aboard, went aground, and the town of Bergen suddenly had to mobilize to care for the passengers and arrange transportation for them. The aftermath led to newspaper articles, rumors, and urban legends about opportunities in America transmitted from church congregation to church congregation. The news reached Hedmark in 1818 and rumors spread that Norwegians could also apply for free travel and board, and when they arrived in America, they would be given free farmland. If they were not satisfied, they would get a free return trip to Norway. Several tenant farmers left their work and went to the authorities to apply. Two men from Vallset in Stange had heard that a ship was about to sail from Kristiania (Oslo), and they went to the bailiff in hopes of taking advantage of this incredible opportunity. The bailiff had to disappoint them. The aftermath of the fate of De Zee Ploeg was part of the inspiration for the Sloopers who left for America in 1825. In Hedmark people are known for making spontaneous decisions – after they have thought about it for a while – so it took another 10-15 years before those folks decided to try their luck in America.
Around 1830, however, Eastern Norway produced a pioneer family parallel to Kleng Peerson: Jehans Persson Nordbu, his wife Kari Knutsdotter, and their four children. Jehans was born in Venabygd in Ringebu kommune in Gudbrandsdal. But he was restless and interested in other things than farming. Jehans (1768-1860) sold Nordbu in 1797 and spent several years traveling around and working as a painter and self-educated doctor. He spent some time in Rena in Østerdal, where he married Kari Knutsdotter Hovdeneset (1790-1874) in 1814. The couple moved to Ringsaker and settled at Nar-Holo farm in 1815 and later moved to Dumpidalstuen farm in 1824. In 1825, they moved to Larvik, but did not sell Dumpidalstuen until 1831. Their four children were born in Ringsaker. Jehans served as country doctor, vaccinating people against smallpox and making home visits to bleed the sick. In 1831 or 1832 the family left for America. Family lore describes a voyage in 1831 on a ship that was blown back to Europe, forcing the Nordbus to find new passage from Portugal. We do not know whether this account is true. But records show that the Nordbus arrived in 1832. According to the passenger list for the Delta, they disembarked in New York on March 12, 1832. While the Nordbus did not lead a group to America, Jehans was a prolific letter writer, and his epistles were passed around, published in newspapers, and widely discussed, influencing many to immigrate to America, among them Lars and Maria Holo, who were the first emigrants who lived in Ringsaker when they left, in 1839. Two years prior, Augusta Charlotte Laumann, the daughter of Grethe Laumann from Ringsaker who was married in Fåberg near Lillehammer, left to explore possibilities for her family. Augusta was 17, going on 18, but proved entirely capable of finding her place in America. The rest of the Laumann family and the Holo family traveled together in 1839 and were welcomed by Augusta in New York.
Ole Rynning (1809-38), a Ringsaker minister’s son who emigrated in 1837, wrote the first guidebook for Norwegian immigrants to America, Sandfærdig Beretning om Amerika, til Oplysning og Nytte for Bonde og Menigmand, published posthumously in 1839 (English translation by Theodore C. Blegen, Ole Rynning’s True Account of America). Ole Rynning is usually claimed to be from Snåsa, but he was born and bred in Ringsaker, the son of a prominent local woman and the resident chaplain, and he spent only a few years in Snåsa before he emigrated. His guidebook was enormously influential and inspired many to emigrate.
Another man from Ringsaker took a trip to America in 1846 and published a pamphlet about his experiences when he returned, with the unwieldy title, “Description of a Journey that Farmer Niels Kjos from Ringsaker in Hedmark made in the year 1846 from Norway to America and Back Again, Including his Observations during the Journey Regarding the Conditions and Status of the Pioneers.” This was Ole Nilsen Kjos (1805-49). The pamphlet led to the first mass emigration from Ringsaker in 1850, when 126 people left, as well as several more from Furnes. You will learn about the Kjos family in the play.
A good many of the early immigrants from Eastern Norway thus had roots in Ringsaker, and emigration started earlier here than in other parishes. A larger percentage of the population of Ringsaker emigrated than in other parts of Hedmark and in Norway as a whole.
From 1825 to 1960, 898,672 people immigrated from Norway to America. Emigration from Eastern Norway eventually surpassed that from Western Norway. There are two important emigration periods: 1836-1865 and 1866-1915. Telemark and Buskerud had the most emigrants during the first decade. But Innlandet, consisting of the earlier provinces of Oppland and Hedmark, tops the list of provinces with the most emigrants.