This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: janealogy50 Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.wisconsin.counties.walworth/2417.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Hi, I'll give you what I've written in my "book" thus far: No railroads had been built yet to transport Kari and her family from New York City to their final destination in Wisconsin. Instead, they traveled by steamship up the Hudson River to the town of Troy, a short distance above Albany, a trip that usually took less than ten hours. They disembarked there, and their baggage was weighed and loaded onto a canal boat on the Erie Canal. This flat packet boat was pulled slowly by teams of horses that brought them to Buffalo, on the shore of Lake Erie, eight to nine days later. [Photo is a modern re-creation of an 1840's packet boat on the Erie Canal near Rome, New York.] Whether Kari and family members stayed for awhile in Buffalo or departed immediately is not known. A delay may have been necessary if their Great Lakes steamship wasn't ready. According to Telemark to America, the cost of the ship at the time was $8 for adults, $4 for children under fourteen, and free for infants. Again, immigrants often fell prey to thieves an! d scoundrels who dared to take advantage of their naiveté. In the words of a Norwegian immigrant, written in December 1843, "If anyone thinks of coming here you must watch out for cheating and not pay passage for all the way, but from New York to Albany, from Albany to Buffalo, and from there to Cicago (sic) or Millevauci (sic)." From Buffalo, a large steamship ferried immigrants across the Great Lakes - Erie, Huron, and Michigan - to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The last leg of their odyssey was made using wagons driven by horses or oxen, unless they could not afford such a luxury, in which case they walked. From Milwaukee they journeyed southwest nearly 50 miles, until they arrived at the Skoponong settlement in the township of La Grange in Walworth County, Wisconsin. Along the way, they might have spent a night as guests in Even Heg's barn. Heg was a Norwegian who settled at Muskego, about twenty miles west of Milwaukee. His hospitality toward newly arrived Norwegian im! migrants was legendary. The first Norwegians had come to Skoponong in 1842. Others followed, including Kari and son Hans Frantssen, who probably arrived at the end of summer 1843. Skoponong was a small Norwegian settlement, one of several of its kind in Walworth County. Tucked into the northwest corner of La Grange Township, it was about five miles northeast of the town of Whitewater and extended north a bit into Jefferson County near the town of Palmyra [map]. Early in 1844, an urgent call from the Norwegian immigrants was sent to Bishop Sørenson of the Church of Norway. They requested that a minister be sent to the West as quickly as possible. But a young, university-trained clergyman, J.W.C. Dietrichson, had already arrived before the bishop received this request. The ever-confident Reverend Dietrichson furiously plunged into activity. On September 1, 1844, he preached his first sermon in a barn at Koshkonong settlement, several miles west of Skoponong. According to a Whitewater Register newspaper article published in September 1924, the minister came to Skoponong about a week later. Nearly twenty Norwegian families were located in the settlement at that time, and the first service was held in the home of one of these in September 1844. Reverend Dietrichson quickly organized the Skoponong congregation and, as he had done at Koshkonong, became its first pastor. The building of a church at Skoponong did not begin until 1! 849. It was made of logs, "hunted laboriously from the distant Bark woods," according to the article. The site for the church and cemetery comprised one acre, purchased from Tollef Graue, a member of the settlement. Among the twenty or so families of the congregation, each head of family paid Tollef ten cents. Given that he had paid $1.25 for the land, Tollef turned a bit of a profit. The log church served its purpose for twenty years, until it was replaced in 1869. Nobody could have foreseen how difficult the first years in Wisconsin would be. Imagine how challenging the differences in language, customs, climate, and landscape must have been for the new arrivals. And few were prepared for the sickness - especially the fever - that struck the settlements with a vengeance. In his book, Nordmændene i Amerika, Martin Ulvestad recalled a story told by a Norwegian who arrived at Skoponong in 1846. "From New York we went by canal boat to Buffalo and from there to Milwaukee by steamship. Milwaukee was a very small city at that time. There were only a few stores. From there we went by ox and wagon to the so-called Skoponong settlement at Whitewater. When we got here, nearly all the settlers were down with ague. It was a sad situation." Ague is marked by malaria-like symptoms - chills, fever, and sweating at regular intervals. Although it seldom resulted in death, it was debilitating. In many homes, entire families were down with th! e fever and unable to help one another. George Tobias Flom, in A History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States, wrote the following about the summer and fall of 1846 at Heart Prairie, a Norwegian settlement near Skoponong. ".(T)here was so much sickness here that there was hardly anyone well enough to bury those that died; and well I can remember that the men had to come down to our house and rest before they could finish the grave, and well I can remember that the cow stood outside bellowing to be milked and no one was able to milk her; everybody was thirsty as all had fever and ague and had to go a mile for water before we got to the well, and sometimes no one (was) able to go after it. I am sure a great many died for want of care, as there was none that understood the English language and (they) did not understand how to take their medicine. Those were hard times, and to many this account may seem incredible; nevertheless, it is true and I could write volumes! and tell true incidents of the trials and hardships that the old pion eers had to endure." I'm still trying to find photos online (using Google) of the cemetery. I'm sure it was pretty when you went. If you took digital photos and know how to email them, I'd love to have a jpeg copy. Good luck with your research! Jan Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.