A history of Norwegian immigration to the United States, according to the Library of Congress:
Although Sweden sent more emigrants to the United States than any other Scandinavian country, Norway sent a greater percentage of its population — nearly 1 million people between 1820 and 1920. Indeed, some estimates suggest that during the great immigrations of the 19th century Norway lost a higher proportion of its people to the U.S. than any country other than Ireland.
Emigration from Norway to North America started more slowly, however. Some Norwegian adventurers accompanied Dutch colonists to New Amsterdam in the 17thcentury, and members of the Moravian religious sect joined German Moravians in Pennsylvania in the 18th.
Norwegian immigration’s Mayflower moment came in 1825, during a period of particularly fierce religious strife in Norway. In July of that year, a group of six dissenting families, seeking a haven from the official Norwegian state church, set sail from Stavanger in an undersized sloop, the Restaurationen. When it arrived in New York harbor after an arduous 14-week journey, the Restaurationen caused a sensation, and the local press marveled at the bravery of these Norwegian pilgrims. Local Quakers helped the destitute emigrants, who eventually established a community in upstate New York. Today, their descendants are still known as “sloopers”.
Word of the sloopers’ arrival, and of other Norwegians’ success in the U.S., soon reached their homeland, and America letters circulated as never before. In the 1840s, prospective emigrants could read a new magazine, Norway and America, that published stories of Norwegians in the New World, and successful emigrants toured Norway, some sponsored by financial concerns in the U.S. One emigrant, Andreas Ueland, described the effect that one homecoming emigrant had on his compatriots
“A farmer from Houston County, Minnesota, returned on a visit the winter of ’70-’71. He infected half the population in that district with what was called the America fever, and I who was then the most susceptible caught the fever in its most virulent form. No more amusement of any kind, only brooding on how to get away to America. It was like a desperate case of homesickness reversed.”
Immigration surged after the U.S. Civil War and followed many of the same patterns as the Swedish immigration that preceded it. By the end of the 1860s, there were more than 40,000 Norwegians in the U.S. More than one-ninth of Norway’s total population, 176,000 people, came in the 1880s. These immigrants, mostly rural families, made their way to the newly-opened lands of the Midwest, settling in Minnesota and Wisconsin, then moving west to Iowa, the Dakotas and sometimes the Pacific Coast. By the end of century, urban Norwegians had begun to arrive in substantial numbers as well, and formed lasting communities in the cities of the Great Lakes and East Coast.
Norwegian immigration dropped off dramatically after the Immigration Act of 1924, and quickly slowed to a few thousand a year — a rate that has remained largely unchanged to the present day.
A LOCAL TIMELINE
Beginning to 1855: The Suquamish people occupy the Kitsap Peninsula, including Poulsbo. The Suquamish have fishing, hunting and harvesting grounds throughout the region. A Suquamish village, ho-CHEEB, is located near the Liberty Bay estuary.
1849: Martin Toftezen, a Norwegian-born sailor “seeking a land of promise,” arrives on a sloop in Crescent Harbor with two other men and settles in what is now Oak Harbor. He is the first Norwegian to settle in the region.
1850s: Sawmills are established at Port Madison, Port Gamble and Port Blakely to harvest vast stands of virgin timber on Native lands.
Jan. 22, 1855: Suquamish leaders Si-ahl, or Seattle, and Kitsap are among the region’s indigenous leaders who sign the Treaty of Point Elliott in Mukilteo, making a vast swath of Western Washington available for non-native settlement. Indigenous leaders retain fishing, hunting and harvesting rights in their traditional territories, as well as land, including the Port Madison Indian Reservation.
1875: Ole Anderson Stubbhaug – aka Ole Stubb — of Naustdal, Fordefjord, Norway, settles near what is now Keyport, the first non-native person to settle at Dogfish Bay. He and his family had first immigrated to Stony Lake, Michigan; then Spink, Union County, South Dakota. He settles on Dogfish Bay after visiting the Norwegian community on Stanwood.
1883: Jorgen Martinus Eliason, of Ford, Sunnfjord, Norway, homesteads in what is now Poulsbo after visiting Stubb across the bay. He and his family are the first permanent non-native settlers here. He is followed a month later by Iver B. Moe, a sawyer from Paulsbo, Norway.
1883-86: Additional Norwegian families move to Poulsbo.
Sept. 9, 1886: Moe petitions the U.S. government to establish a post office here.
According to the late historian Rangvald Kvelstad: “In six places on the application, the name of the new post office is to be filled in. Iver Moe decided to use the name of his home community in Norway, but his handwriting was not too precise. Three times it looks like an ‘a,’ three times it looks like an ‘o.’ The Post Office Department chose the ‘o’ and thus Paulsbo became Poulsbo.
“In 1886, Adolph Hostmark had come to Poulsbo and opened a store. It was logical that the post office should be in the store, which was the central meeting place for the community, so in September 1887, Adolph Hostmark became the postmaster. His building still stands and is the oldest building in Poulsbo.” (That building today is the home of Thor’s Hammer and Needle.)
1895: The Sons of Norway lodge is established in Poulsbo to help member families, according to a history on the main lodge’s website, “from the financial hardships experienced during times of sickness or death in the family. Over time, the mission of Sons of Norway has expanded to include the preservation of Norwegian heritage and culture in our Society.”
1907: Poulsbo is incorporated on Dec. 18. Andrew Moe, a native of Paulsbo, Norway, is the first mayor.
Until World War II: People of Norwegian ancestry are the dominant population of Poulsbo until the war. The population of Poulsbo almost tripled over three years because of the war effort, and the population diversified.
1975: King Olav V of Norway visits Poulsbo on Oct. 22 as part of the celebration of 150 years of Norwegian settlement in the United States. His son, King Harald, and Queen Sonia visited Poulsbo 20 years later.
