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Hjalmar Holand, a Norwegian author published “History of Norwegian Settlements” in 1908. Holand wrote a smaller book in 1930. A combined version, translated to English, has many maps, illustrations and other additions.
Hjalmar Holand spent 13 years collecting the stories as he traveled to the Norwegian settlements in the Upper Midwest. He sold books and maps to pay his expenses and often slept in a hayloft, as accommodations were meager. This is a real treasure documenting the immigrants first years in America.
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Hjalmar Rued Holand
Hjalmar Rued Holand, the son of Johan Olsen (Fagermoen) and Maren Olsen (Rued), was born in Norway on October 20, 1872 in the parish of Høland in the southeastern corner of Norway. In his autobiography, My First Eighty Years, he recalls the beauty of his native land. “When the Lord created Norway…He made a land of running waters …fjords extending far inland… swift streams filled with boundless energy…[where] one waterfall is scarcely out of sight or hearing before another appears robed in beauty, and the mountains are symbols of peace and everlasting steadfastness.” (pp.11-12)
After his mother’s death in 1883, Hjalmar and a sister Helen immigrated to the United States and lived with his brother, Anders, in Chicago, Illinois. He attended school there and later entered Battle Creek College where he studied for several years. To earn money for attending school, Holand traveled through the countryside selling books and maps. One of the books he sold in large numbers was a book in Norwegian translated as The Home We Left and The Home We Found. This book was filled with Lithographs of Norway. He also sold some of the large Bibles which people liked to have on display in their homes.
When he decided to transfer to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he brought academic credits which made it possible for him to enter at an advanced level. He received a bachelor’s and later a master’s degree in 1889 from the University of Wisconsin.
While still a student in Madison, he traveled to Door County and was so impressed by the town of Ephraim and the surrounding area that he decided to purchase property there. The land he bought is now part of Peninsula State Park. Although he purchased the site primarily because of its beauty, he later learned of its agricultural potential. The Dean of Agriculture, Professor William Henry, told him that Door County had the ideal climate for growing apples, cherries and plums because of its proximity to Lake Michigan and Green Bay.
As a result of this encounter with Professor Henry, Holand decided to farm instead of working toward a Ph.D. In his autobiography he muses on this choice. “If one of my descendants in the third or fourth generation should happen …to wonder why I persisted in being a pioneer …[rather than] seek a respectable job with an adequate salary,” he states he could only tell them he pursued such a path because he was having “a delightful time.” (p.119).
In 1893 Hjalmar attended the World’s Fair in Chicago. This was the Columbian Exposition with many tributes to Columbus for his discovery of America. They had 72 statues of Columbus and feelings were expressed that the Vikings could not possibly have sailed in those small ships as they were not sea worthy. Magnus Anderson went back to Norway and made an exact copy of the Viking ship dug out of a mound at Gogstad in 1880. It sailed from Bergen with 12 men April 30th and sighted Newfoundland May 27th. It was on display during the World’s Fair to enlighten the world as to the first discovery of America.
Holand and his wife, Lillian Theresa Ingesoll, moved to Eagle Cliff, the name they gave to their home in Door County after they were married on June 13, 1900. In his autobiography, he recalls meeting his future wife. “Fate was very kind to me that fall, because I had my first meeting with Evelyn.. Her name was not Evelyn then, but Lillian Theresa Ingersoll.” (p. 78) They shared a determination to get an education and that created a strong bond between them. In many other ways, he recalls, they were different – he describes himself as brusque, while she was gentle; he saw himself as aggressive while she was restful.
To earn a living while the fruit trees were becoming established, he spent years as a traveling salesman selling books and maps in wholesale quantities for advertising purposes. Later he was able to devote all his time to growing fruit, and to his writing.
He was elected archivist and historian of a Norwegian cultural society established chiefly to preserve the history of the Norwegian pioneers. He had written many articles for newspapers and magazines and became engrossed in writing a saga of Norwegian immigration and settlements in North America. Although he received no salary in this position, he traveled throughout the Midwest to enroll members for the group and gather the settlers’ recollections, including a vast amount of statistical material, anecdotes and folklore that was an important part of pioneer life. To earn his living, he gave lectures.
In his autobiography he records his despair when he feared his manuscript-“a bulky package of almost 2,000 pages in longhand” - would never appear in print:
“I thought of my 13 years of struggling on foot in cold and heat to gather the
experiences of these conquerors of the wilderness. I admired the courage and
persistence of these pioneers and cheerfully slept in a different bed each night,
with a birth in a haymow now and then, for accommodations were meager. I
cheerfully accepted the hardships that came my way, because I felt I was doing
a work that would be greatly appreciated. But now it seemed that this was a
mere bagatelle. The big thing was not to write our pioneer saga, but to get it
printed.” (pp 168-169)
This rather large history of the Norwegian settlements in America, De norske settlementers historie (1908), was published in Norway through the financial support of John Anderson, head of the Norwegian newspaper Skandinaven. Holand had written this work in Norwegian because most of the old pioneers could not read English. Holand wrote about a dozen other books on Norwegian migration including four works specifically on Door County. His later books were written in English and, in his obituary, the Door County Advocate (August 8, 1963) calls these books the backbone of the county’s written history. History of Door County, Wisconsin in two volumes was published in 1917. Old Peninsula Days 1925 had eight editions, many with revisions and additions. Coon Prairie 1928 (two editions), The Last Migration (1930), Wisconsin’s Belgium Community (1931) and My First Eighty Years (1957).
One of Holand’s most intriguing contributions to history of the Norwegian influence in North America arose from his interest in the Kensington Rune Stone, which was found in November 1898 near Kensington, Minnesota, on the farm of Olaf Ohman. “The stone was an irregular rectangular slab of graywacke shaped somewhat like a tombstone, which weighed 202 pounds, about 2 ½ feet high, 3 to 6 inches thick, and 15 inches wide.” Holand became convinced that the Norsemen had ventured into what is now mid-America about 150 years before Columbus found his way to this continent. http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/webcourse/lost/projects97/kenstone.htm
This rune stone became Holand’s abiding interest. He says, “It has been my chief subject of study and meditation about which I have written four books and more than a hundred articles in various periodicals.” (Holand, p. 191) The Kensington Stone was published in 1932, Westward from Vineland, in 1940, America 1355-1364 was published in 1946 and Exploration in America before Columbus published in 1956 and A Pre-Columbian Crusade in America (1962).
Holand’s translation of the inscription on the stone reads “8 Goths and 22 Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vineland over the West We had camp by 2 skerries one days journey north from this stone. We were and fished on day. After we came home found 10 men red with blood and dead Ave Maria Save from evil.” The following lines appear on the edge of the stone: “Have 10 of our party by the sea to look after our ships 14 days journey from this island Year 1362.” (http://www.runestonemuseum.org/runestone_story.htm)
Holand claimed that there was an expedition led by Paul Knutson to Christianize the Vikings of the West, and that this story correlates with the dates given on the stone. According to Holand, the Vikings’ expedition led them through Hudson Bay, Lake Winnipeg and up the Red River to a place near present day Kensington, Minnesota….the stone is now on display at the Rune-Stone Museum of Alexandria, Minnesota. (http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/webcourse/lost/projects97/kenstone.htm)
For his work on the Rune Stone, Holand received the St. Olaf’s Medal. Olav V of Norway presented it to him on December 12, 1957.
Holand was not the only person who thought that Ephraim and the surrounding area was a place of exceptional beauty. The state thought so, too, and decided to create a park, which would include Holand’s home. This put Holand into a quandary. In his autobiography he says that although he thought the idea of a park was a good one because the beauty of the area was “too great to be monopolized,” (p.171), he was not happy about the thought of leaving his beloved Eagle Cliff.
At one point he tried to donate the land with its orchard to the state. In attempting this he was following a little recognized law, which makes it possible for the state to use property for park purposes while the property owner retains the rights to the land. He tried to convince the park board that it would save money by allowing him to keep his land. His well-reasoned argument, which appeared to be supported by the law, did not convince the authorities who felt they had to buy the land. He and his wife then built a large farm with the money they received for Eagle Cliff. They named the new place Cedar Hill. It burned in the late 1930s and was replaced by a house that still stands on Holand Road. (Burton, p. 75)
Lillian Holand died April 14, 1960, and H. R. Holand died August 6, 1963. They are buried in Blossomberg Cemetery, which is located within Peninsula Park. Although it seems Lillian was called Evelyn or Evy (see Ephraim Stories pp. 75 – 77) during her married life, Lillian T. is the name on the Holand gravestone she shares with Hjalmar R.
The Holand's had four children, Swanhild (1901–1974) married Thomas Johnson, Illinois; Harold (1906-1975) Milwaukee; Ivar (1908-1984) Waukesha, Wisconsin; and Vallee (1911-2004) married Phillip Ditchen British Columbia, Canada. At the time of his death, Holand had five grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. (Door County Advocate p. 3)
By Malcolm Rosholt and Mei Fei Elrick
Holand, Hjalmar R. My First Eighty Years New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1957
Holand, Hjalmar R. Norwegians in America: The Last Migration 1930 translated by Helmer Blegen Center for Western Studies, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 1978
Burton, Paul and Frances Ephraim Stories Ephraim: Stonehill Publishing, 1999
H. Holand, Noted Author and Historian, Dead at 90. Door County Advocate Thursday, August 8, 1963, pp. 1 and 3
Foreword by Hjalmar Holand 1930
In the course of less than a hundred years, so many Norwegians came to America that the combined numbers of those still alive and their descendants amount to approximately one and a half million. This amazing mass movement of people from Norway to America will be studied with increasing interest as time separates us more and more from the events connected with it.
The most remarkable feature of this great popular migration is the enduring capability displayed by these Norwegian men and women in domesticating a wilderness in a strange hemisphere. There is no finer proof of the Norwegian people’s viability than the way they—with very limited finances and absolutely no state aid—were able to transform a wilderness into a smiling garden and a temporary New Norway. In this experience and expenditure of energy, they found expression to the fullest extent for every human feeling and impulse that they possessed.
The history of their migration is a saga of distress and need, but not one of despair; a saga of toil without surrender; and a saga of struggle without defeat. Their motivating force was not a lust for power to dominate others, nor was it the passionate pursuit of personal glory or revenge. It was, rather, the love they felt for family and kin, combined with a joy in peaceful pursuits, that moved and sustained these Norwegian pioneers. And through all the vicissitudes of change, there gleams, like the gentle glow of a sunset, a love for the old fatherland and the home community.
The purpose of the following account is an attempt to throw some light upon this migration and to preserve the memory of a few of the typical experiences encountered by the Norwegian pioneers as they strove to tame a wilderness. I have collected this material during my many years of travel to visit and talk with these old pioneers.
Hjalmar Rued Holand
1872-1963
Grave
of Hjalmar R. and Lillian T. Holand. Blossomberg Cemetery, Gibraltar Township,
Door County, Wisconsin. Photo courtesy of David Elrick
Holand Photo Used with permission of Minnesota Historical Society
Sign at entrance to cemetery where Hjalmar Holand is buried in Door County, Wisconsin. Photo courtesy of David Elrick