Numedal, 1580–1887
October 23, 1580: Hølje Sevatson buys a third of Western Lehøvd in Flesberg, deserted land, for three dalerdaler 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. The 1580 deed
Hølgje Tørjerson married into Søre Haugen in Rollag; his son Knut takes it in the 1688 division. Lehøvd stays with the elder brother.
Knut Olsson, orphaned at Søre Haugen, buys half of Gladheim in Veggli for 800 riksdaler, and the other half in 1759.
Gladheim is split between two sons. Halvor Persson takes the northern half, Nordre Gladheim.
June 25, 1835: Steinar Halvorsen, peddler and fiddler, buys Nordre Kjemhus from Ole Knudsen for 300 speciedaler. His wife Kari is from Kjøntveit in Nore.
February 19, 1862: Knud Ingemundsen born at Lillehøiset. In 1867 his parents move to Helle, up the valley.
August 13, 1864: Steinar buried in Veggli churchyard under a cast-iron cross, still standing in 2014.
Hard years, and debts signed for other men. Halvor Steinarsen sells Kjemhus to Ole Larsen from Uvdal and moves the family to Nirigard.
January 31, 1887: Kari Tollefsdatter, Steinar's widow, dies at Kjemhus at 83, four months before her son's family leaves.
Knud Helle, 25, a laborer, leaves the valley. At Kongsberg the railway, sixteen years old, runs to Christiania.
May 16, 1887: the parish lists Halvor, 52, Kjersti, 43, Steinar, Tollef, Kari and Tosten out of Rollag. The same road, three weeks behind Knud.
At Møgstu, the next farm down from Kjemhus, Ragnild Tostensdatter, 24, has a daughter, Bergit. The register names the father: Knud Helle, “living in America.”
The crossings of 1887
Kongsberg to Christiania by train. Knud buys his ticket from J. Krantz, the Dominion Line's agent: 153 kroner, through to Edgerton, Wisconsin.
The Wilson Line's Rollo, Christiania to Hull by way of Kristiansand. Built in Hull in 1870, with 498 berths in steerage.
Across England by train, Hull to Liverpool, the way the Dominion Line moved its Norwegian passengers.
The Dominion Line's Montreal, Liverpool to Quebec, 260 in steerage. The list has him as “Knud Hills.”
On by rail to Edgerton, Wisconsin, and a year's farming in Dane County. Which trains he took isn't recorded.
Kongsberg to Christiania. Krantz sells the party, seven with Maren, a servant, their passage for 1,000 kroner, booked to “Montevideo.”
The Rollo again, two days after Bergit's birth. The clerk wrote Halvor 52 and Kari 4¾; she was eight.
Hull to Liverpool by train, and a few days in England between ships.
The Dominion Line's Toronto, twice the Rollo's size, Liverpool to Quebec by Belfast, 148 in steerage. The purser wrote them down as Stenerson.
West by rail toward Montevideo, Minnesota, a day's wagon ride from Halvor's brother Knut, in America since 1854. The way across Canada is unrecorded.
The plains, 1887–1899
Peder born at Dawson, Lac qui Parle County. Halvor dies that year, his niece wrote, or the next, says the farm history. His grave is not found.
Knud, now Knute Stenerson, to Pelican Rapids, Minnesota: harvest and threshing in Dakota, cordwood in winter, and from 1890 lumber yards with his brothers.
Steinar, 25, files on 175 acres in Fremont Township, Cavalier County, North Dakota, 285 miles north. The claim's top edge is the Canadian line.
Kjersti, 52, files on 160 acres in section 33, a mile south of the line, and brings Tosten, 13, and Peder, 9. Tollef was still at Dawson in 1895.
Kari, 18, marries at Morden, Manitoba, sixteen miles north of the farms, and becomes Carrie Nelson.
Tollef, 28, files on the southwest quarter of section 35, the day the last claimant's entry on it was cancelled.
The crossing of 1905
Bergit, 18, “living at home” at Møgstu, sails on the Wilson Line's Montebello, passage prepaid, 100 kroner in her pocket, bound for North Dakota.
Hull to Liverpool by train, the way her father went eighteen years before.
The White Star Line's Cedric, Liverpool to New York. Bergit in steerage, list 11, row 1. Her father Knud and his wife Lina in second cabin, list 1, rows 17–18, going home from a visit to Norway.
Steerage passengers went by barge to Ellis Island. The island's lists of those held have no entry for her.
By rail, ticket in hand, to a cousin at Fairmount, Richland County, North Dakota: “Herbrand Kravig” on the sheet, a Kravik family from Nore.
Knud and Lina home to Pelican Rapids.
Walhalla and Grand Forks, 1906–1909
Bergit is at Walhalla, six miles east of the Kjemhus farms. How she came the 215 miles from Fairmount, nobody has found.
Syttende Mai, the first in an independent Norway: Tollef, 35, and Bergit, 19 on the license, married at Grand Forks.
Home to Fremont Township. Clara born January 20, 1907.
Stenerson Bros. incorporated, headquarters at Moorhead: eight lumber yards and four banks across the Red River Valley. Knute Stenerson's story
The homesteads and the graves
Three claims along the line: Steinar's west half of section 27, Kjersti's in section 33, Tollef's southwest quarter of 35. The 1912 atlas puts the NumedahlNumedahl A Norwegian farming community in Cavalier County, North Dakota, named by its settlers after Numedal, the valley in Norway. Tollef Kjemhus farmed there, and his grandson Pete spent boyhood summers on his farm. Numedal and Numedahl → post office between them.
Steinar dies at 38, at twenty to eleven in the morning. Buried two days later in the Nore congregation's cemetery, the first of them in that ground.
Kjersti, 83, a widow for forty years, buried beside him. Peder follows in 1936 and Kari in 1964.
Tosten dies in Chicago.
Bergit dies April 10, 1962, Tollef the next year. One granite stone at Lebanon Cemetery, Langdon, reads KJEMHUS: Mother, Father.
Clara Kjemhus Amoth, 1907–1997, buried at Our Savior's in Moscow Township, beside the Amoth homesteads, where the next story begins. The Long Way to Langdon
Who moves
- The Kjemhus line, Hølje Sevatson (1580) to Halvor Steinarsen, ten generations on the land
- Knud Ingemundsen Helle, in America Knute Stenerson, 1862–1925
- Halvor Steinarsen Kjemhus, 1835–1887 or 1888
- Kjersti Tollefsdatter Kjemhus, 1844–1928
- Steinar (Stener) Halvorsen Kjemhus, 1869–1907
- Tollef Halvorsen Kjemhus, 1871–1963
- Kari Halvorsdatter, in America Carrie Nelson, 1878–1964
- Tosten Halvorsen Kjemhus, 1883–1943
- Peder Halvorsen Kjemhus, 1887–1936
- Bergit Knudsdatter, Bergit Kjemhus, 1887–1962
- Lina Stenerson, born Steen, married Knute in 1893
- Clara Kjemhus Amoth, 1907–1997
Where the places come from
Nothing on the map was placed by eye. The Norwegian farms, churches and towns are where Kartverket’s place-name register puts them. The ports and the American towns are Wikipedia’s coordinates. The three homesteads are drawn from the Bureau of Land Management’s survey of Township 164 North, Range 58 West, the same sections the land patents name. The cemeteries are where Find a Grave places them. The ground is OpenStreetMap’s water and roads for Numedal and Natural Earth’s coasts, lakes, rivers and state lines for the rest, and the ships’ tracks are the shortest sea routes, not their logged courses, which no record here gives.
Where a record and the map disagree, the record wins. Knud’s ticket was sold in Christiania on April 28, 1887, and the Rollo sailed the next day. Halvor’s party followed four weeks behind him on the same ship. How we know →