Early History of Chisago Lake Reexamined Emeroy Johnson

EARLY HISTORY OF CHISAGO LAKE REEXAMINED EMEROY JOHNSON Chisago Lake in Chisago county, Minnesota, is the place where about a dozen Swedish immigrants settled in 1851. They had emigrated from Sweden in 1850 and come to the vicinity of Moline, Illinois, in the fall and spent their first winter in the United States there. They set out for Minnesota Territory in response to a communication from Erik Ulrik Norberg, a Swede who had been in America since 1842 and who had gone to investigate the land in Minnesota. Several more Swedish immigrants came to Chisago Lake that summer and fall, and some Swedes came to the area around Scandia at about the same time. This was the beginning of a movement that eventually brought some 100,000 Swedes to Minnesota. The first Swedish minister to visit the new colony, in 1852, was the Reverend Gustaf Unonius, pastor of the St. Ansgarius Episcopal Church in Chicago. Norberg and Unonius have been mentioned in several historical books and articles that tell of the origins of the Chisago Lake community. In general, the main facts are well known and substantiated. However, Ulf Beijbom, director of the Emigrant Institute in Växjö, has found interesting material in the Unonius archives in Uppsala, which sheds new light on the story, as recounted in an article published in 1983. Beijbom has discovered that Norberg was personally acquainted with Unonius and that they had some correspondence with each other during the time that Norberg was in Minnesota. This significant fact had been unknown to the authors who have previously written about the origins of the Chisago Lake communi¬ ty.1 Gustaf Unonius, a graduate of Uppsala University, emigrated to the United States in 1841, and lived as a pioneer in the woods at Pine Lake, Wisconsin, some miles west of Milwaukee. He met some Episcopal clergymen and became convinced that that church was the "true representative" of the Church of Sweden, since it had a hierarchical form of organization like the Swedish Church. He was ordained by the Episcopal bishop and organized the 215 Swedish Episcopal St. Ansgarius Congregation in Chicago in 1851. There he was active in meeting Swedish immigrants and helping those in need. In 1858 he returned to Sweden, where he later wrote his reminiscences of his seventeen years in America.2 Unonius mentions Chisago Lake only briefly in a footnote, but it is known from other sources that he visited the Chisago Lake colony in September 1852, where he conducted worship services and served communion. But no Episcopal congregation was organized there, then or later.3 Erik Ulrik Norberg was in his early twenties when he emigrated to the United States in 1842. He had received some education and had held various responsible positions in his home community in Västergötland. Here in this country he lived in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois, joining the Bishop Hill colony briefly in 1848, where he came into disagreement with the leader, Erik Janson. Norberg thereafter became a member of Andover Lutheran Church in 1850. It was from that vicinity that he journeyed to Minnesota in the summer or fall of 1850.4 Some time in the winter or early spring of 1851 he sent a letter to Per Anderson, a newly arrived immigrant from Hassela parish in Hälsingland, or perhaps Norberg wrote a letter to some friend who showed it to Anderson. This letter described the Chisago Lake region, its woods, lakes, and soil. Norberg also sent a map showing the way from Illinois to Chisago lake. As a result the Per Anderson family, two more families who had come from Sweden at the same time, and one other family arrived by boat at Taylors Falls and from there were guided to Chisago Lake. The Anders Swenson family, which had come to America by a different route, also came to Chisago Lake early in 1851. It is known that at least two other families came to this place as a result of letters from Norberg. Why did Norberg go to Minnesota in 1850? What was involved in his efforts to get Swedish immigrants to go to Chisago Lake? Ulf Beijbom sheds new light on the story of Norberg and Unonius. His diligent research in the Unonius archive at Uppsala University has revealed a number of letters written by Norberg to Unonius in the years 1851-1853. The letters were written from Chisago Lake to Unonius in Chicago.5 Beijbom relates in some detail the story of Norberg's life in Sweden and his early years in America. He was born in 1813 in Ullervad, Västergötland, went to school in Skara, served as a 216 bailiff, and was being investigated for some "financial improprie• ties," but before he was to be questioned he and his sister Erica Sophia emigrated. They went to Wisconsin and became acquainted with Gustaf Unonius, who then lived in his pioneer home at Pine Lake. Gustaf Unonius in later years. (Courtesy of Emigrant Institute, Växjö.) They evidently met several times thereafter. In the first of the letters to Unonius that have been preserved, dated February 12, 1851, Norberg refers to the last time they had been together. He relates that he had come to the vicinity of St. Croix Falls in the fall of 1850. Soon after coming to that place he had made a journey of about 100 miles north and after his return he had looked around to see if the land in the St. Croix Falls vicinity might be suitable for farming. Norberg found, after this reconnaissance, that Minneso• ta, especially the St. Croix Valley, had good possibilities. The fact that Norberg sent such reports to Unonius indicates that the two men had discussed the matter beforehand, that Unonius probably had requested Norberg to see if Minnesota might become an alternative to Illinois as a place for Swedish settlement. Norberg, in his letter of February 12, 1851, to Unonius, reported that he had found a good place. "West of Taylors Falls about five 217 or six miles there are many lakes, streams, and rivers, and a better place for a large settlement I have hardly ever seen." In the very center of this paradise there lay "an especially wonderful lake." Norberg sent along a map showing the peculiar form of the lake, and told of how suitable the place was for farming along its shores. Presumably he made several copies of the map, one of which reached Per Anderson in Moline.6 In March Norberg wrote to Unonius telling of a journey to "Big Lake," that is, the Indians' Ki-Chi-Saga. Seldom had Norberg seen anything more wonderful. "The land around there was particular• ly beautiful and fertile, lightly covered with timber, mainly sugar maples. The shores of the lake had a romantic appearance and the islands scattered here and there delighted the beholder." On the islands were sugar maples and grass that stayed fresh all through the winter and could be eaten by cattle without being made into hay. Norberg wanted Unonius to urge all Swedish immigrants to come to Minnesota rather than to Illinois, which hitherto had been the main goal for Swedish farmers.7 On July 21, 1851, Norberg wrote from Chisago Lake that there was already "a little Swedish settlement," consisting of 26 persons, all of whom were thriving and well satisfied. Efforts at identifying the early settlers fail to account for that many. In my article, "Norberg, First Swede at Chisago Lake," I have listed the following: Per Anderson, wife Carin, children Anders, Daniel, Helena, and Ingrid; hired man Daniel Rättig; Per Berg, wife Martha, children Nils and Carin; Per Wicklund; Anders Swenson, wife Cajsa Lisa, children Johan Ferdinand and Johanna Christina; and Lars Peter Sjölin. When we add Norberg's name to the list we have a total of eighteen. Per Anderson, in a letter to Eric Norelius, dated September 1, 1851, says: "We are now ten who have begun farming here, nine Swedes and one American." The only ones he mentioned by name are Per Berg, Wicklund, and himself.8 It seems that Swenson also had started farming and that Anderson's hired man, Rättig, and Sjölin had also started farms of their own. If these suppositions are correct we can account for six of the nine Swedish farmers, be we still have to account for eight of the twenty-six settlers mentioned in Norberg's letter of July 1851. Eric Norelius lists the original members of the Chisago Lake Lutheran congregation by the year of their immigration. Those who had come to America in 1850 were Per Anderson and family, 218 Eric Norelius. Per Berg and family, Daniel Rättig and wife, and L. J. Stark and wife. Those who had immigrated in 1851 were Johan Smith, Jonas Anderson, Claus Dahlhjelm, and Magnus Olson.9 We have evidence that the Dahlhjelms did not come to Chisago Lake until late in the fall of 1851. It is possible that Stark and wife, Smith, Anderson and Olson had been there before July 21. We learn that Rättig was married. Thus we can probably account for a total of 23 persons. It is possible, meanwhile, that there were some Swedes at Chisago Lake in 1851 who were no longer there when Eric Norelius organized the Lutheran congregation there in 1854, or that there were some there at the time who did not join it. The story of the Anders Swenson family is given in a footnote in Unonius' memoirs: I recall among others a workingman from Östergötland who had been planning to settle in a certain place in Illinois where he had some relatives, but on his trip out west he was shipped to the wrong destination.

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