The Kendall Settlement Survived
    by Richard L. Canuteson (Volume 27: Page 243)

The history of the 1825 Slooper colony of Norwegian immigrants in New York State reveals that these settlers found conditions in their new home not entirely to their liking. This writer has pointed out in an earlier essay that the Kendall area, where they first bought land, has been known for generations as "the Black North" because of a stand of timber so dense that at times it cut off the rays of the sun. {1} This growth had to be cut down and the stumps grubbed out to make possible the planting of crops. In common with many early settlers, the Sloopers found that swampy areas near slow-moving streams tended to breed mosquitoes which spread the "fever and ague" reported in so many early "America letters."

Because of these unfavorable conditions, Cleng Peerson, leader of the immigrants, set forth in 1833 on a walking journey that led him to the area southwest of Chicago; there he found available land lacking the thick forests of Orleans County. {2} After he reported on his journey, six families sold their New York holdings and in 1834 moved to Illinois. {3} In that state they founded the Fox River Settlement. Here, at the hamlet of Norway, is a marker embedded in a boulder erroneously stating that the Illinois colony was the first Norwegian settlement in America. This memorial disregards the fact that the Sloopers had first settled at Kendall nine years before.

Professor Blegen evaluates in broad terms the effect of this move on the Kendall Settlement: "The year 1834," he wrote, "marks the beginning of the break-up of the New York colony." He also asserts that by 1836 the Kendall colony "had practically run its course." {4} In researching two earlier essays on the Kendall Settlement, this writer has found ample evidence in federal and state census reports to cast doubt on both of Blegen’s statements.

Unfortunately, not all of the official documents were fully available in the early stages of this investigation. The file of microfilmed census reports in the courthouse at Albion, New York, begins with the year 1850. But that indefatigable traveler and researcher, J. Hart Rosdail, found the 1830 records and reported them in his volume, The Sloopers: Their Ancestry and Posterity. {5} Later, the census reports for 1830 and 1840 were found on microfilm in the state library at Albany. This writer - originally informed that the census returns available to the public ceased in 1905 - eventually found the 1915 and 1925 records; these bring us up to the virtual end of Norwegian settlement in Orleans County. But this fact does not eliminate the interest and pride in the Slooper story, which is shown even today by the people of the Kendall area, few of them Norwegian.

Irked by the erroneous historical marker placed on the Norway Road in Kendall in the 1920s by the State of New York, the author enlisted the assistance and financial support of the Edvard Grieg Lodge, No. 433, of the Sons of Norway in Rochester, in a plan to put an accurate plaque in the area. Solid support was given by the Kendall school authorities and the town government. The result is that, in the fall of 1974, a properly worded marker was placed on the grounds of the new Kendall junior-senior high school.

Given editorial permission to plead his case against the Blegen statements, this writer believes that the proof presented should go further than reference to statistical tables showing the number of people of Norwegian birth or descent in the area during the century following the migration to Illinois. In this report, families will be listed quite completely with comment enabling interested readers to trace personal and psychological changes in the families.

The report will also show a long-continued tendency in farming communities such as Kendall of having a "hired man" to assist in field work and chores, with one or two temporary "hands" during haying and harvest. This practice survived until it was altered by the impact of war upon the labor situation in the present century. In some homes with sizable families and in an era of many large and imposing farm houses, there would also be found at least one "hired girl," sometimes listed in the census reports as a "housekeeper."

Not found in the census returns is any indication of the personal experience of such hired help, nor the social influences affecting them. The author in his youth had frequent unpleasant - as well as some more pleasant - experiences as a hired hand on farms in summer. The granddaughter of a young girl, listed in one report as living in a family in the Kendall colony, had several comments to offer concerning the unpleasant habits of her employers as they affected their "hired girl." For example, after they sent the girl to bed, they used the kitchen leaving dirty dishes to be washed early the next morning.
The census records are difficult to use, for the original schedules are faded and oftentimes badly written; at all times the enumerators had trouble with the Norwegian names. The tendency in Norwegian nomenclature for the same name to appear over and over again complicates the study of the records. Ages of individuals are hard to correlate from one census to another; evidently the persons being questioned did not always know the correct ages of family members.

The first census used as a source, that of 1830, is a classic example of the trouble the English-speaking collectors of census data had with the Norwegian-speaking settlers. {6} In the following summary for that year, the results of their struggle with the foreign language, as clarified by Rosdail, are shown in parentheses. In this tabulation, as in others to follow, the name of the head of the household appears in the left column, and the wife’s name is the first in the listing of dependents in the right-hand column, where variations are shown in parentheses.

CENSUS of 1830

The number of people of Norwegian birth or descent in Kendall in 1830 was 51.

CENSUS OF 1840

The number of persons found for this year, 20, is the smallest of all reports. This total could very well be incomplete, as the handwriting was certainly the least legible of all records examined; some of the few items found required careful study with a reading glass. As in the 1830 census, only names of the heads of household were reported. Diagonal marks (/) in the columns of the schedule indicate only the number of male and female inhabitants in each of several age groups.

Ole Orsland (Aasland) was not found, unless he was the person with whose name the census taker struggled and came up with what we have interpreted as "Harbenson." Orsland had arrived in 1838 with a party of 20, "whose passage he paid," according to the Norway Road marker. The total in Kendall for 1840 was 20.

CENSUS OF 1850

The total for 1850 was 44.

CENSUS OF 1855

The total for 1855 was 42. The three shoemakers are particularly indicated, evidence of the importance of this trade in the community at the time.

CENSUS OF 1865

The total for 1865 was 51.

CENSUS OF 1870

The total for 1870 was 41.

CENSUS OF 1875

The total for 1875 was 35 (36 if John Johnson proved to be Norwegian).

CENSUS OF 1880

The total for 1880 was 38.

CENSUS OF 1892

The total for 1892 was 48.

CENSUS OF 1905

The total for 1905 was 33.

CENSUS OF 1915

The total for 1915 was 40.

CENSUS OF 1925

The total for 1925 was 23.

The foregoing listings from the state and federal census records indicate that there was still a continuous, though varying population, which justifies our contention that Professor Blegen was wrong in his assumption that the migration to Illinois spelled the doom of the Kendall colony. This is true despite the fact that the population of Norwegian birth or descent in the Kendall area is always less than the peak figure of 85 reported by Rosdail. We have shown that for ninety years there has been a continuing population at least of Norwegian descent in the community, although it is evident that, at the very end of our study, there were left only a very few people of Norwegian birth (Lars Anderson, Fred Larson, Charles Lind, Sr., and Claudine Anderson). Kendall may now be near its end as a Norwegian settlement, but its demise has been nearly a century in coming to pass. If it was a dead settlement after the migration to the Fox River, it was certainly a very lively corpse! A bit of Norwegian spirit still exists; when this writer was discussing with the Kendall school board his request to place a correct marker for the Sloopers on the school grounds, one member remarked with obvious satisfaction, "My neighbor is a Norwegian."

Careful perusal of the census results will also point out the well-known fact that the Kendall Settlement, during this entire period, has served the purpose of so many Norwegian immigrant centers: as a temporary place of residence for immigrants, who "work out" while getting adjusted to American ways and to learning the language. The continuation of the Norse flavor in Kendall has been due in considerable part to these individuals who were absorbed into the community, either as Norwegian women marrying American men or as Norwegian men marrying American women.

We should at least recognize that a core of immigrants - with remarkable powers of survival - remained for about a hundred years in the Kendall Settlement in New York and established there a true Norwegian "island."

Notes

<1> Richard Canuteson, "A Little More Light on the Kendall Colony," in Norwegian-American Studies and Records, 18:83 (Northfield, Minnesota, 1954).

<2> J. Hart Rosdail, The Sloopers: Their Ancestry and Posterity, 63-65 (Broadview, Illinois, 1961).

<3> Rosdail, The Sloopers, 66.

<4> Theodore C. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America, 1825-1860, 61, 80 (Northfield, Minnesota, 1940).

<5> Rosdail, The Sloopers, 54-55.

<6> Rosdail, The Sloopers, 54-55; census records for 1830 and 1840 are in the New York State Library.

<7> Rosdail, The Sloopers, 37.