The Kindred House

On November 5th, 1954, an old log house was dismantled in a little village within Norman township, North Dakota. 

The house was sent over the Atlantic Ocean on the ship M/S Oris and was rebuilt at the Norwegian Folk Museum, Bygdøy June 22nd, 1955.

The house was originally built for pastor Hellestvedt in Norman township, North Dakota around 1873. He was the first pastor in the first Norwegian Lutheran church in the area. He was young and unmarried and lived in two rooms on the second floor, while the first room was used as a church. At the same time, the building also functioned as the new community’s first school, post office, land office, and town hall.

Later, the house was taken over by the Steingrim Perhus family from Hallingdal, Norway who used it as a residence until 1928. Eventually, the local Sons of Norway lodge took it over and used it as a meeting house and pioneer museum until it was given to the Norwegian Emigrant Museum which, at the time, was a part of the Norwegian Folk Museum in Oslo.

The house was built from raw timber and was roughly cut. It was limed inside, something which also contributed to the drawing out of moisture from the timber. The sealant between the logs was a blend that consisted of lime and sand/clay.

The windows are American. Already in the 1870s, people could order such windows through mail-order catalogs. The house had a woodstove on the first floor, and the two holes in the ceiling let the warm air up into the rooms upstairs.