Tveiten

Tveiten is in Veggli, on a plateau at the north end of the church settlement, about half a kilometer north of Kittilsland and a little over a kilometer from Kjemhus. Tveit is an old word for a clearing or a hay meadow. The farm is first written down in 1468, and it's older than that: in 1928 a Viking-age axe turned up in a mound near the old farmyard, and iron-smelting sites dot its mountain pastures. Very early it was split into two farms, Øvre and Nedre Tveiten, upper and lower, their yards side by side.

Nedre Tveiten

The farm history follows the family on Nedre Tveiten back to Hellek, born in 1624, who owned and worked it from about 1640. He was a lay judge, and in 1657 the livestock tax found two horses, fifteen cattle, ten goats and twelve sheep. There was no useful forest, it was said. Hellek died in 1681.

His son Ingebret, born in 1656, started with a sixth of the farm and spent twenty years buying out his mother and his sisters. A sister's heirs fought it in court; he settled with them in 1700. He served as a lay judge and was lensmannlensmann A Norwegian rural official, usually one of the district's farmers, who served as sheriff. He assisted the bailiff and the court, witnessed probate, and made arrests. All the words, the district's sheriff, around 1713. The farm history calls him a man with a strong will to stand up for his interests, but no quarrel-monger: every case he brought was settled. He married Gro Toresdatter of Svalstuen and died in 1720.

Those two generations are the farm history's. The church and court records start with the next one. Ingebret's son Hellek, born about 1685, married Ragnhild Knutsdatter of Gardar around 1710, and they lived at Bakke until he took over Tveiten in 1720. Their son Ingebret was baptized in 1719 as the son of "Hellek Bakke." In 1733 the farmers further south took Hellek to court for building a summer dairy, Høybulie, out in the shared mountain pasture. That ended in a settlement too. Hellek died in 1745, and in 1752 Ragnhild divided the estate with her children. The court's record of it survives.

Their son Ingebret married Anne Gunnulfsdatter. The farm history thinks she was a sister of Harald Gunnulfsen of Vindegg, but has no record of it. In January 1784 Ingebret, over sixty and a widower, divided his estate among his children: Hellek, 27; Gunnulf, 24; Knud, 21; Bergit, married to Lars Halvorsen Valle; and Ragnild. Gunnulf took Nedre Tveiten, and Hellek moved to the small holding of Brekshaugen. Knud, the youngest, bought the farm next door.

Knud and Bergit on Øvre Tveiten

In 1795 Knud Ingebretsen bought Øvre Tveiten for 700 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 from the last of the family that had held it, with the deed registered February 17. That spring he married Bergit Persdotter, the sister, the farm history says, of Torkel Persson Brekke. The census of February 1, 1801 finds Knud, 38, and Bergit, 32, with Anne, 6, and Ambjør, 2. Birgit was baptized on March 7, 1802. Two more daughters followed, Ragnil and Mari: five girls, no sons.

Bergit Persdotter of Tveten was buried on March 22, 1812, at 43. Ambjør kept house for her father after that, and in 1821 she married Kittil Ingemundsen of Kittilsland, a carpenter and blacksmith. In 1823 Knud handed over the farm, split down the middle between his two eldest daughters and their husbands. By then each couple had already built on its own half. The division is dated October 10, 1823. Knud died about 1825.

Two halves, two sisters

The northern half went to Anne and Tor Olsen. It came to be called Mellom-Tveiten, the middle farm, and kept most of the old buildings. Tor fell into debt, and in 1836 he sold it for 600 speciedaler. In 1845 the family went to America, all but one daughter.

The southern half kept the name Øvre Tveiten. Kittil moved the smithy, the sauna and the stable up to a new site and built the rest himself. In 1837 he was elected to the first municipal council. In 1829 Birgit had married Kittil's brother Stener, the clockmaker, so two Kittilsland brothers had married two Tveiten sisters. Kittil and Ambjør had no children. Stener and Birgit's daughter Ambjørg, born in 1840, grew up largely with them, and in 1851 Kittil deeded her the farm, keeping a living from it for himself and his wife. He died that year. While Ambjørg was young, her sister Ingeborg and Ingeborg's husband, Anund Levorsen, farmed it; they left for America in 1868. Ambjørg married Ole Olsen Hov in 1864 and stayed. Her aunt Ambjør lived to 1880.

Birgit and Stener's son Ingemund was the father of Knud Ingemundsen, who went to America and became Knute Stenerson. Knute's daughter Bergit married Tollef Kjemhus, and their daughter was Clara.

The barn

A barn from Tveiten, from about 1770, now stands at Rollag bygdetun, the open-air museum. It has three rooms for the animals' winter feed, hay and dried leaves, and a threshing floor, where the grain was spread out and beaten with flails until the heads came off the straw. When threshing machines came in, a horse walking in circles below the barn bridge drove them. The museum doesn't say which Tveiten farm it came from.

The records

• 1719. Ingebret, son of Hellek Bakke, baptized December 24. Rollag ministerialbok I 2: the record.
• 1752. The widow Ragnild Knudsdatter divides the estate of Hellick Ingebretsen with their children, sons Ingebret and Knud and five daughters. Numedal and Sandsvær probate 6B, fol. 311a–311b: the agreement, the shares.
• 1763. Knut, Ingebret Tveten's son, baptized June 20. Rollag ministerialbok I 3, p. 89: the page.
• 1784. Ingebret Hellichsen of Tveiten, still living, divides his estate, January 16: his late wife Anne, and the children Hellich, Gunnulf, Knud, Bergith and Ragnild. Numedal and Sandsvær probate 11, fol. 93: the opening, the family.
• 1795. Knud Ingebretsen Tveten and Bergit Persdatter betrothed January 29, married April 6. Rollag ministerialbok I 5, p. 270: the page.
• 1801. The census, February 1: Knud, Bergit, Anne and Ambjør, with two servants. The page.
• 1802. Birgit, Knud Engelbretsen Tveten's daughter, baptized March 7. Rollag ministerialbok I 5, p. 118: the page.
• 1812. Bergit Pedersdatter Tveten, 43, buried March 22. Rollag ministerialbok I 5, p. 407: the page.
• 1817. Birgit Knudsdatter of Tveten confirmed. Rollag ministerialbok I 6, p. 242: the page.
• 1823. The estate of Knud's late wife, Birgith Pedersdatter Tveten, opened July 9 and closed July 11, 1824. It names their five daughters: Anne, married to Tor Olsen; Ambjør, married to Kittil Ingemundsen; Birgit; Ragnil; and Mari. It cites the division of October 10, 1823, Tor taking the northern half of Øvre Tveiten and Kittil the southern. Numedal and Sandsvær probate, skifteutlodningsprotokoll 2, fol. 802b–803b: the family and the division, the close.
• 1829. Stener Ingemundsen of Kittilsland and Birgit Knudsdatter of Tveten married February 12, their fathers named as Ingemund Tollefsen Kittilsland and Knud Ingebretsen Tveten. Rollag ministerialbok I 7, p. 169: the page.

The 1812 burial gives no family, and Birgit's baptism names only her father. The 1823 estate settles it: Bergit's own probate lists Birgit among her five daughters.

The farm history: Knut Hoff, Rollag bygdebokbygdebok (plural bygdebøker) A Norwegian local history, usually a few volumes per district, going farm by farm through who lived there and when. Compiled from church registers, censuses, probate, tax and court records. The Kjemhus line comes from the ones for Flesberg and Rollag. All the words, vol. 2 (1989), Tveiten, pp. 113–149, at the National Library.