A Pioneer Diary from Wisconsin

Abstract

by MALCOLM ROSHOLT 7 A Pioneer Diary from Wisconsin Knut I was Halverson a boy. A passed small man our house with a many short, times full beard, when I was a boy. A small man with a short, full beard, he was then living in retirement north of the Rosholt millpond . On his trips for groceries he followed the path along the gravel road running south into the village. When he had more groceries than he could carry for Berthe - his serene partner in marriage - he pushed a small wooden wheelbarrow , but with the wheelbarrow or without it he walked with short, shuffling steps, head slightly askew and shoulders hunched forward as if at any moment he might stumble on a pebble and fall. Yet he never did. In retrospect it seems likely that this posture of his marked a certain dogged persistence . He was a pioneer settler in our county and in his younger days he had kept a diary which may be the most significant early document relating to Portage County, Wisconsin, in the Norwegian language.** In the ordinary humdrum of life a man who starts a diary seldom finishes it. Knut Halverson, who emigrated to Wisconsin from Norway in 1865, kept on with his. Perhaps he was turning a page in time that should be recorded. And yet * Through the courtesy of Mr. Rosholt, the Halverson diary has been presented to the Norwegian- American Historical Association. k. o. b. 198 A PIONEER DIARY in all he wrote he seldom made any significant comment about his adopted country, its politics, or its economic opportunities . For example, at various times in 1876 he mentions that he attended a town meeting or a fall election, or had a visit from the town assessor, but he does not remark on whether the meeting was interesting, whom he voted for, or whether the assessment was a fair one. On the Fourth of July, 1876 the centennial year of American independence - he mentions "America's Independence Day," but makes no reference to its significance. He had spent the day clearing land with a Polish neighbor. He makes no special comment about the Seventeenth of May, the Norwegian national holiday, but writes, as usual, about the weather and having finished sowing the oats and harrowing. The first entry in the diary, kept in a ledgerlike book, is dated May 6, 1872, but it begins on page 79, which suggests that earlier entries are missing. The last entries were made in 1878, and here too it appears that a number of pages are lost. The years between 1872 and 1878 lack many pages; nevertheless, the remnants make up a fairly comprehensive picture of pioneer farm life on the Wisconsin frontier through at least one year - 1876 - and, to some extent, for the entire six-year period. If Halverson kept a diary in the 1880's after he moved east into Alban Township, Portage County, there is no record of it, but one for portions of 1889 and of the early 1890's does exist. Excerpts from it first appeared in translation in my Town 25 North ( [Rosholt, Wisconsin,] 1948). At that time none of the surviving members of the Halverson family knew that their father kept a diary in the 1870's. This was discovered in 1953 when Mrs. Nellie (Halverson) Peterson found a ledger in her home in Ironwood, Michigan, and, knowing of my interest in local history, sent it to me. What, then, is there about this diary, that we should take the time to translate its almost illegible Norwegian into English ? At first glance it appears to be primarily concerned with the daily weather report, which, to a later generation inter199 Malcolm Rosholt ested in tomorrow's weather, not yesterday's, is scarcely worth reading. But the comments and information that often follow the weather report do interest us, for here we learn, not what effect the diarist has on the weather, but how this weather and his new American environment influence him. Probably the parents of Knut Halverson, Halver and Margit Brekke-Pladsen of Lower Telemark, had considered emigrating to America with their seven children for some time. The Civil...