Water and road © OpenStreetMap contributors · farms placed from Kartverket
Kjøntveit sits beside Kravik in Nore, about twelve kilometers up the valley from Veggli. Today's maps spell it Tjønntveit. The church books spelled it however the clerk heard it: Kiøntvedt, Kiøntved, Kjøntvedt.
How it came to the family isn't settled. The farm history says a Gunder Simensen Sandnes owned it in 1641, and that Lars Halvorsen of Hvåle owned it from the 1670s, with another man working the land. Lars's wife, Ragnild Poulsdatter, may be the link: the author thinks her mother was Gunder's daughter and that the farm came down through her. That's his reading. The deeds that would show it haven't been found.
What is on record is a fight over the line. In 1695 the court ruled on the boundary between Kjøntveit and Kravik, and the next spring Sten Kravik and Lars Waale, as the clerk wrote Lars of Hvåle, settled it by agreement. A generation later the neighbors were family: Lars's son Paul married Kari Halvorsdatter of Kravik in 1721, the Kravik farm history says.
Paul and Kari
By 1723 Paul was farming Kjøntveit himself, with a small mill for the household. He left his mark. A small storehouse carries the year 1726 and the letters P.L.S.K., Paul Larsen Kjøntveit, and was the oldest building on the farm when the farm history was written. A larger one, from about 1734, bears his and Kari's initials. The author thinks Kravik carpenters built it. Whether either stands today hasn't been checked.
The author thinks the building helped put them in debt. In 1739, the farm history says, Paul mortgaged the farm to Knut Fekjan for 300 riksdalerdaler The silver money Norway counted in before the krone of 1875: the riksdaler, and from 1816 the speciedaler. In the 1830s a farm in Veggli sold for a few hundred speciedaler. All the words. Kari died in 1741, and her estate was opened that March. Two years later the farm was sold out of it, to Tord Fekjan, for 361 riksdaler. Paul died in 1746; his estate opened on September 23. (The farm history says October. The estate says September.)
Lars and Groe
In 1746 the farm went to Halvor Halvorsen of Kravik, and his son Herbrand worked it until the family moved back to Kravik in the early 1750s. Then Paul's son Lars Povelsen had it again. The farm history doesn't know how he got it back, and no deed has turned up. He married Groe Tollefsdatter of Nordre Eie on June 20, 1756, and they had Kari, Tollev and Povel.
Lars drowned in the spring of 1763, the farm history says, trying out a horse on the ice of Kravikfjorden on the Friday before Easter. The church book buries "Lars Povels: Kiøntved" in May, with no day and no cause. His estate, opened on June 25, valued his share of Kjøntveit at 350 riksdaler. He was about thirty-one.
Groe stayed. In 1766 she married Nils Halvorsen of Ytre Teigen, and they kept house at Kjøntveit until about 1778, when they moved to Prestegarden.
Tollev
Her son Tollev Larsen took the farm after them. In 1801 he was there with his wife, Christie Anstensdatter, and their children; Kari, Carl's great-great-great-grandmother, was born on the farm two years later.
Tollev dealt in timber as well as land. With Gulbrand Larsen Sporan he made a purchase in 1803, leased forest to Christopher Narum in 1811, and spent years arguing over who could cut where, the farm history says.
In 1818 he sold Kjøntveit to his son Anstein for 500 speciedaler, with his own support on the farm for life written into the deed.
In 1836 he went to Hurum, on the Oslofjord. He was back by 1842, old and blind. He died in 1844, the farm history says; 1845, says the tree.
Kari, and after
Kari Tollefsdatter grew up here and married Steinar Halvorsen of Gladheim in 1832, the fiddler, and went with him to Kjemhus. That's where Clara Kjemhus's line runs from.
Kjøntveit stayed with her brother's family. Anstein and his wife, Joran Ellingsdatter, sold it to their son Elling in 1853; his son Anstein had it from 1883, and in December 1887 sold it to his uncle, Engebret Ansteinsen, for 38,000 kroner. When it finally left the family isn't known.
Who lived here
born or died at Kjøntveit · a pale bar is a life whose start isn’t recorded
The same, as a list, with what puts each of them here
- Kari Halvorsdatter –1741 · her estate, 1741 (probate register 5B)
- Paul Larsen –1746 · his estate, 1746 (probate register 6B)
- Lars Povelsen 1731–1763 · born here; died here
- Groe Tollevsdatter 1740–1783 · died here
- Kari Larsdatter 1756– · born here
- Tollev Larsen 1759–1845 · born here; died here
- Povel Larsen 1762–1826 · born here
- Anne Tollevsdatter 1793–1869 · born here
- Tollef Tollefsen Hvammen 1797–1871 · born here
- Kari Tollefsdatter Kjøntveit 1803–1887 · born here; named for it
The records
- 1695–1697. The Kjøntveit–Kravik boundary: the court's judgment of October 25, 1695, registered February 10, 1696, and the agreement of May 12, 1696 between Sten Kravik and Lars Waale, registered January 25, 1697. Tingbok I 27, folio 4b, and I 28, folio 6a: 1696, 1697.
- 1731. Lars, son of Povel Kiøntvedt, baptized September 30. Rollag ministerialbok I 2, p. 66: the page.
- 1741. Kari Halvorsdatter's estate, March 4. Probate register 5B, folios 576b–577a: the page.
- 1746. Povel Larsen Kjøntveit's estate, September 23. Probate register 6B, folio 80a: the page.
- 1756. Lars Povelsen Kiøntvedt and Groe Tollefsdatter of Nordre Eie married, June 20. Rollag ministerialbok I 3, p. 178: the page.
- 1763. Lars Povels: Kiøntved buried in May; his estate opened June 25. Rollag ministerialbok I 3, p. 215, and probate register 8, folio 80a: burial, estate.
The farm history: T. K. Loftsgard, Nore–Uvdal i forn og nye, part 1, vol. 3, pp. 1161–1173, at the National Library.