Martin and Mattie Larson
Back row: Ella, Alma, Hannah
Middle row: Martin, Smith, Mattie
Front: Harriet and Rebecca
A civil marriage took place on January 20, 1879, in Shelden, Monroe County, Wisconsin, which joined farmer Mathias (Martin) Larson and Mathea (Mattie) Ellson as husband and wife. The marriage license states that both bride and groom were underage, and both fathers signed the covenant for permission to marry. This doesn't make sense to me, since Martin was born on October 22, 1857 which would mean he was already 21 in January of 1879, and Mattie was 18, but it's possible that the legal ages for marriage were different back then. Another point for research!
Mathias (Americanized to Martin) was born on a farm near Lillehammer, Norway to Christian Larson and Anne Olsdatter Saeterbakken. The 1865 census for Norway shows the family as living on the farm Nordhagen in the parish of Ringsager in Oppland County as follows: Christian Larsen, age 31, farmer; Anne Olsdatter, 34, his wife; Mathias Christiansen, 8, their son; and Maria Christiansdatter, 2, their daughter. Also a resident was Guri Olsdatter, 60, a lodger and spinster, who may have been an older relative of Anne.
Also in the Ringsager parish on the farm Saeterbakken were Anne's parents, Ole Engebretsen, 73; and his wife Marte Nilsdatter, age 64.
In the Digitalarkivet record of Emigrants from Oslo, on June 10, 1871, we find Christian Larsen Nordhagen, his wife Anne Olsen, and sons Mathias, 12, and Ole, one year. There is no daughter with them, which indicates that Maria had died and son Ole had been born since the 1865 census. The emigration record states that the family's destination was LaCrosse, Wisconsin.
Canadian Passenger lists show that the Larsons reached Quebec on 26 July, 1871 on the bark "Nathanael," after about a six week journey. A bark, (or barque), was a type of sailing ship with three masts which was rigged differently than a regular ship, thus enabling it to sail with fewer crew members. The bark Nathanael departed from Oslo carrying 294 passengers and there were no deaths on the voyage. When the ship reached the quarantine station at Grosse Ile on July 23, a required stop before entering the port of Quebec, there were seven sick passengers. There had been an outbreak of measles and some other unnamed disease, so the ship was not released from quarantine until July 26. Once the immigrants reached Quebec they would face another journey by boat through the Great Lakes and then overland to their ultimate destination in America.
Since Mattie Ellson and Martin Larson were born in close proximity to each other in Norway, it is not surprising that they would come together in America. Norway at that time was largely an agricultural and fishing based society with small rural villages surrounded by high mountains and fjords, which also made it a country of many different dialects and customs. It was natural for immigrants from the same area in Norway to congregate together in the new land, as often they couldn't understand their countrymen from other areas and they shunned some practices which were different from their own.
In the Federal Census of 1880 Martin and Mattie were living in Whitestown Township, Vernon County, Wisconsin. he was listed as a farm laborer, and their first child, Ella, was one year old. According to her birth records she was born November 29, 1878, in Westby, Wisconsin, which was two months prior to her parents' marriage. Hmmm! But who am I to judge?
At census time Mattie would have been pregnant again with my Grandma Hannah, as she was born October 27, 1880. The next year the young family left Wisconsin and settled in Hanley Falls, Minnesota. Four more children were born to Martin and Mattie in Minnesota: Alma, December 26, 1881; Melvin S, known as Smith, 1888; Harriet, 1890; and Rebecca, Nov. 21, 1893.
Back to the previous subject, early pregnancies and illegitimate births were not uncommon among Norwegians in Norway and in America in the pioneer days. In Norway a couple could live together as soon as they were engaged, and many times they would have their first child before the actual marriage to assure that the woman was not barren. (Of course it had to be the woman's fault!) Children were the lifeblood of a Norwegian family and the more the better, especially since many children died in infancy or childhood due to contagious diseases that we no longer have to worry about.
In Norway the rural communities were isolated by the landscape and harsh winter weather and the parish priest may get to a village only a few times a year to perform marriages, baptisms and other religous rites. At any rate, early pregnancies and illegitimate births were not considered a disgrace among the immigrants as they were later during the mid-20th century.
I was quite shocked when I first started doing genealogy research and discovered that Martin's father, Christian Larson, and my mother's grandfather, Hans Hanson, were both illegitimate sons at birth and Hans Hanson's mother never married. I have since learned that it was a common occurence and one reason why many of these children who were not recognized by their fathers emigrated as adults as they were left out of the family inheritance. A large number of immigrants were the younger children in a family as according to law the eldest son inherited everything, and he was to look after the rest of the family. As you might expect that didn't usually happen. Norway has a small percentage of arable land, and as the farms were divided up and became smaller and smaller, it became harder and harder for families to live off the land.
The third class of immigrants were those who contracted "America Fever", who had heard about the new land of opportunity and wanted a better life for themselves than they had in Norway. My great-grandfather Elling Enger was the oldest son in the family, but he immigrated to America as a young bachelor of 18 and reportedly tried his luck in the gold fields of California. It is my speculation that he came for the adventure.
As an aside, if you are going to research your ancestors in the Federal Census records, don't be thrown off by spelling and age differences. First, the accuracy depends on the census taker who took down the information in the first place, many of whom could not communicate well with the immgrants due to language barriers, and secondly, it depends on the accuracy of the transcriber who published the information on the web sites.
For instance, the 1880 census for the Larsons lists Martin, 23, Metta, 19, Ella 1, and Anna, mother, 80. I don't know who this person may have been. Martin's mother was Anne, but she wouldn't have been 80 years old when her son was 23 as he was born when she was 26. The census records are a great genealgocial resource, and you can glean valuable information from them, but some things you just have to take with a grain of salt!
I am looking forward eagerly to the release of the 1940 Federal Census which will be later this year or early 2012. For privacy reasons the census records are not published until 70 years after issue, so the latest we have right now in general circulation is 1930. The 1940 census is the first one where I will be able to find my own listing, as I was born November 27, 1939!
That's enough for today: Next time, more about Christian Larson, who on his death was the oldest resident of Westby, Wisconsin at age 97, and the entrance of the Enger clan into the mix with the marriage of Hannah Larson and Edward Ellingsen Enger in Hanley Falls, Minnesota in 1898.
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