roberg
Immigration
of Halvor Torsteinssøn Østerkil and John Torsteinssøn
Røberg,
other
relatives and early life in Dakota Territory
This
story is an excerpt of the history of Halvor Østerkil as written
by his daughter, Irene Malcom Ostund in 1941. John Røberg
was the brother of Halvor Østerkil that accompanied him on the journey
to Amerika with John's wife Sara and two daughters Marie and Lina.
Insertions of other notes into Irene's story are highlighted in lighter
text.
Background
Halvor
Østerkil was born 20 March 1855 in Stordalen by Trondheim, Norway.
He was the youngest to 9 children, 5 boys and four girls. His childhood
home was a log house on a farm. However, log houses in Norway were
considerably larger than the log houses used by pioneers in America.
Halvor Østerkil was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran faith
in Hegre Church, Stordalen. He attended common school until about
15 years of age. From then on he earned his living by working for
others, until he was 20 years old when he emigrated to American in 1875.
Voyage To America
With
a brother and his wife and two children (John,
Sara, Marie and Lina Røberg), Halvor
Østerkil took a boat for America sometime in April, 1875.
Their first stop was at Liverpool, England where their party of 50 people
was divided into two groups. Here Halvor and his party waited eleven
days for a vessel to cross the Atlantic, which trip took eleven days.
They landed in New York in May 1875. Then the party came directly
west and arrived in Sioux City, Iowa the first part of June. Sioux
City was then the nearest railroad center to Dakota Territory to which
region this party of travelers were bound.
Travel Into Dakota
Territory
This
immigration party consisted of many emigrants. As before stated,
Halvor Osterkil's group consisted of himself and his brother with his family.
Relatives who had previously come to America and settled in what was to
later be Minnehaha County met the newcomers at Sioux City with oxen team
and wagon to take the luggage and older members of the party, but Halvor
along with the rest of the younger folks had to walk the entire distance
to their new destination. So a 3 o'clock on the afternoon they arrived
in Sioux City, Halvor and party left the train car an immediately began
their 112-mile walk across the prairies northward to their new homes.
Halvor's new home to be was 12 miles north of "future" Sioux Falls.
They walked every step of the way.
During the trip they spent two nights out on the prairie. The first
night the travelers made camp someplace south of Elk Point, South Dakota
which had been established the year before. They all bedded down
right out on the open hillside with nothing but the clear, blue star studded
sky overhead. The second night after a full day's travel was spent
in an abandoned claim shanty - a sod shanty - a short distance south of
Canton, South Dakota. After an evening meal, everyone settled down
for a night's sleep. But a terrific thunderstorm arose during the
night, lightning flashed and thunder crashed, rain came down in torrents,
coming through the roof which had been made of hay and willow branches.
Everyone was soaked to the skin. This however did not affect the
younger people of the party - but and 80 year old lady (possibly
Sara Røberg's mother Maren Pedersdatter Røberg, b. 1795,
who accompanied John Røberg's family to America, per the Pioneer
History - Minnehaha County Norwegian Pioneers History from the year 1866
to 1896) who was also along suffered much
because of the cold and the hardships. Thus, Halvor spent the first
two nights in this new Land of Promise - the first night out on the open
prairie with nothing overhead but the heaven of blue and the second night
with only an open roof of hay and twigs of a sod shanty.
On the third day of this journey they arrived at the home of John Blastervold,
a relative by marriage, 12 miles north of Sioux Falls.
All of the party except for Halvor Osterkil had been sent tickets for the
trip from friends or relatives already here in America, but Halvor had
saved money for his voyage himself, so as he used to say - "He arrived
like Hitler - no one knew he was coming!"
Life and Work in
America
Halvor
immediately went to work, finding employment at the different farms about
the neighborhood.
He remembers clearly the winter of the great blizzard of 1880. He
remembers how the storm raged furiously for two days - the 15th and 16th
of October. He was living with his brother two miles west of where
now Dell Rapids is located. The storm was terrific with continuous
strong winds and blowing snow, but Halvor says they did manage to get out
and feed the cattle but no water could be gotten to them. No horses
were owned by settlers there at that time. Oxen were used for work.
Many cattle as well as people froze to death during the storm. Halvor
himself lost three head of cattle which meant quite a loss to a young man
trying to get a start in this new land in those early days. He also
told of a herd of 400 cattle or more that had been pastured for summer
and had not been taken home yet - that were caught out in this storm and
over half of them perished (among them the three head of young stock belonging
to Halvor, the young emigrant).
In the spring of 1881 Halvor left for Bismark, Dakota Territory where he
worked on the Northern Pacific Bridge - the first bridge to be built across
the Missouri River in Dakota Territory. He worked here until the
summer of 1883 when the bridge was completed. (Halvor's
nephews, Karsten Pederssøn and Torstein Pederssøn arrived
in Mandan, ND in 1882 and lived for one year with Halvor, per family history.
Karsten and Torstein were the sons of Halvor's brother Peder Torsteinssøn,
who arrived with his family in 1886. Karsten married John Røberg's
daughter Marie, his first cousin. Make sure to visit the picture
page and see Karsten and Torstein's picture taken in 1882 - the new emigrants.)
After this he worked one summer on the steamboat between Bismark and Fort
Benton, Montana (approximately 1300 miles) and also some time between Bismark
and Standing Rock (Sitting Bull's old home). This steamboat carried
mostly freight and food supplies, the majority of it to the Indians.
Halvor remembers that many times on their trips back they brought only
buffalo hides and these were shipped back by sports hunters from the East
who were hunting down the buffalo fast in those early days. Some
of the sports hunters, Halvor said, were English Lords who came over to
America to hunt buffalo. He tells of one herd of 4,000 buffalo that
were moved down at one time by these hunters. Halvor tells how when
the steamboat stopped at the Indian agencies with their food supplies,
the Indian squaws would always help unload the cargo while the Indian menfolks
stood on the river bank and watched. A steamboat trip between Bismark,
North Dakota and Fort Benton, Montana covered a distance of 1300 miles
by river and took from 28 to 30 days up and back. During the later
part of the summer no trips could be made because of the water level being
too low.
Later in the fall of 1883, Halvor went back to Minnehaha County (not yet
organized as a county) by way of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St.
Paul). This was the only way to get back and forth by train
as no railroads crossed Dakota Territory at that time. For
years from then on Halvor worked in the stone quarries at Sioux Falls and
Dell Rapids. (Our DeVaney ancestors
also worked in the same stone quarries. Many of the stone building
and churches in Dell Rapids and Sioux Falls were built by our maternal
and paternal ancestors.)
In December 1884, he went back to Norway for a visit arriving at his old
home three days before Christmas. This time he went back especially
to get his sister and her family (Margrete
Torsteindatter), coming back the next Spring
in 1885, bringing with him a party of 22 emigrants who came to make new
homes in this new and promising land across the sea. An important
incident on this second voyage to America over the Atlantic for Halvor
was getting caught in the ice in the North Atlantic. It took 24 hours
for the ship to get out of this ice pack. At first they noticed only
small amounts of drifting ice but finally found themselves amongst huge
icebergs, bigger than any building out on the Dakota prairie. He
also recollects that all the time they were in the ice jam and amongst
the icebergs, the ship's foghorn was kept at a continual blast which would
echo amongst the huge icebergs. He also recalled the intense cold felt
while there.
The party finally landed at Quebec, Canada and then came over the Grand
Trunk Railroad via Chicago to Dell Rapids, South Dakota.
Halvor then found work at various jobs - work at the stone quarry and mason
work.
A memorable winter was that of 1888 when another great blizzard paralyzed
life on the prairies. This storm began the 12 of January lasting
three days. Much human life succumbed to the elements again, also
countless numbers of livestock perished. Halvor tells of saving three
human lives which would have perished in the storm if he had not taken
them into his home, thawed their frozen faces and hands and kept them until
the storm abated. These three men were Welsh paving cutters who had
work in the stone quarry located at the edge of town in Dell Rapids, South
Dakota and not too far from Halvor's home.
The morning of the 12th, being a beautiful day, the three men decided to
walk into town and spend some time. They were very thinly clad -
no overshoes, mittens nor overcoats as the weather was extremely mild and
balmy. In the afternoon about 3 o'clock the storm struck like lightning.
The men told of starting home from town but soon discovered they'd never
reach their boarding place. They knew of Halvor Osterkil's place
on the way and tried to find it, missing it twice. However, the third
time they tried, they passed so close to the windows of the house that
Halvor noticed shadows and going to the back door to check he found the
three men standing there, their hands and faces frozen. Before taking
them into the fire Halvor thawed their frozen faces and hands after which
they spent the next three days by Halvor's fireside. There was no
doubt in their minds but that they would have frozen to death had they
missed the house a third time. A school teacher and two of her pupils
did freeze to death during that same blizzard. Her school was located
about 5 miles from Dell Rapids.
These weather conditions (blizzards in winter, hail and rain devastation
in summer) along with the grasshopper hordes in 1876 and 1879 are but a
few of the hardships and tribulations the early pioneer remembers clearly.
The grasshoppers came in such numbers that they would darken the light
of the sun as they flew by. They destroyed all growing crops so the
settlers were left destitute. Despite all this, hard work, illness
and often death took their toll. But with hope for the future, joy,
love of life and a faith in God the pioneers survived.
In 1905 Halvor and his family moved to Grant County where he purchased
and lived on a farm near Troy, South Dakota with exception of eight years
spend back in Minnehaha County at Dell Rapids. He lived his last
years in the village of Troy, fairly well and quite active. He was
86 years old at the time of this interview and passed away three years
later at the age of 89 years.
Although he reached a ripe old age he had not escaped illness and suffering
throughout the years. Fairly early in his career he broke a leg while on
construction work. Because of improper setting of bones in the ankle
and foot he was left with a limp and years of rheumatism for the rest of
his life. At another time he lost his right eye while blasting rock
in the stone quarries at Dell Rapids. In another accident he was
severely burned about his body. Misfortunes like these seemed a part
of life for the early pioneers. Coming from a stock of exceptionally
hardy, industrious and frugal people, he learned early in life to accept
what life had to offer and make use of time and circumstances.
Halvor Osterkil had always worked had and even in his declining years could
not sit still and idle time away without something to do. He had
several hobbies that kept him busy after he retired from active work.
His wife, Anne, enjoyed making quilts and soon Halvor was helping her by
cutting out quilt blocks and often he would be at the sewing machine putting
them together. He also enjoyed making articles from wood such as
small tables, cupboards, doll beds, pedestals, etc. He liked gardening,
tending the flower beds especially the gladiola bed which was his specialty.
In spite of his years (86 when interviewed for this report), he was very
alert and took a great interest in the affairs of the time. He read
books and newspapers and enjoyed the radio. He kept u to the minute
on the European War and never missed his favorite newscasts and news commentators.
Halvor Osterkil passed away 23 March 1944 at his home in Troy, South Dakota
and was laid to rest in Troy Cemetery where years before he had made his
own monument on his family plot. ( A
newspaper article was published about the family monument. The monument
beared the inset inscription - "Osterkil" and was erected in the cemetery
a mile north of Troy by Halvor Osterkil, about 80, whose farm land adjoins
the cemetery property. The base of the monument is built of reinforced
concrete and is 20 by 40 inches, while the monument tapers to a peak.
It is about 38 inches high, 16 inches wide and 34 inches long.
It is built of stones and petrified wood picked up by Mr. Osterkil on his
farm land and arranged in the monument in such a manner to be very attractive.
Red mortar was used to cement the small stones in place. The back
of the monument is constructed of gray granite also found on the farm.
With the exception of the natural stone decoration this monument is simple,
being in front a cement panel with the family name deeply inset.)
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