Celebration of the decennial anniversary of the founding of New Sweden, Maine

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1870 1880

NEW SWEDEN

DECENNIAL

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CELEBRATION

DECENNIAL ANNIVERSARY

OF THE

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J U L Y 23, 1 880,

PUBLISHED UNDER THK DIRECTION OF

ANDREW WIREN, NILS OLSSON, AND N. P. CLASE,

Committee on PuBLICATIO^^

1881.

B. THUESTOISr & CO., PRINTERS, PORTLAND, ME.

NEW SWEDEN DECENNIAL

1870 JULY 23 1880

Friday, July 23, 1880, was a notable day in the history
of New Sweden. It was the tenth anniversary of the
founding of the Swedish settlement in the woods of Maine,
and the Swedes had long been making preparations to
commemorate the event with fitting ceremonies.

The day dawned gloomily. A dull rain fell from a
leaden sky. But the rain soon ceased, and at an early
hour people began to gather together in the great central
clearing of New Sweden, where stand the capitol, the
church, the store, and the parsonage. The first comers
were Swedes, but their American and Canadian friends
soon came flocking in from the surrounding country. The
main road into the town soon became crowded with an
almost continuous line of carriages. To New Sweden
everybody was going, and in every sort of vehicle. There
were wagons and hay-racks, coaches and carts, drags and
buck-boards. There were Swedish teams from the colony,
French vehicles from the upper St. John, Bluenose turn-
outs from Canada, and Yankee wagons from everywhere

4 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

around. Mingled with these were elegant carriages,
drawn by noble spans of horses, for which Aroostook
county is justly celebrated.

For hours the steady stream of vehicles poured along
the road from Caribou to New Sweden. A Miss Brown,
of Woodland, sat at the window of her house, and with
slate in hand kept tally of the passers-by. She counted
492 carriages containing 1448 persons, that drove past her
house that morning into New Sweden. Add to these the
number of foot travelers, those who came by other roads
or through the woods, the Swedes from outside the colony
who came in the day before, and the 787 members of the
colony itself, and it is certain that over 3000 persons were
present and took part in the decennial celebration at New
Sweden.

Four hundred invited guests had started the day before
by rail from the older sections of the state outside of
Aroostook county. Their goodly numbers overtaxed the
capacity of the New Brunswick Railway. They were
kept up all night in crowded cars, while the good peo23le
of Caribou sat up all night waiting to receive them. At
last in the gray dawn, the train of four hundred belated
travelers was hauled in sections into the depot at Caribou,
and sulky and grim, in a drizzling rain they drove to their
lodgings.

At ten o'clock, however, after a nap and a cup of coffee,
these visitors forgot the fatigues of the night, and were
joining the long procession driving into the Swedish
woods.

By this time New Sweden, from the capitol to the
church, was literally full of people in gala-day attire,
among whom the Swedish girls, with their national head-

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 5

dress of a deeply fringed silk kerchief, formed a striking
and picturesque feature.

A triumphal arch of evergreen had been erected across
the road in front of the church. On each side of the arch
was a flagstaff, likewise decorated with evergreen; while
to the right was drawn up the company of Swedish cadets
under command of Captain Lars Nylander. Everybody
was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the guests of the day.

Among the honored guests who joined in the celebra-
tion, and were now driving toward New Sweden, may be
mentioned

Hon. Daniel F. Davis, Governor of Maine.
Hon. RoscoE L. Bowers,
Hon. FiiEDERiCK Robie,
Hon. Joseph T. Hinkley,
Hon. William Wilson, )>

Hon. James G, Pendleton,
Hon. Lewis Barker,
Hon. Samuel N. Campbell,
Hon. Hannibal Hamlin, United States Senator.
Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain, Ex-governor of Maine.
Hon. Thomas B. Reed, Member of Congress.
Hon. Llewellyn Powers, Ex-member of Congress.
Col. James M. Stone, Ex-speaker Maine House of Reps.
Hon. Sumner J. Chadbourne, Secretary of State.
Hon. C. A. Packard, State Land Agent.
Hon. William Senter, Mayor of Portland.
Hon. W. W. Thomas, Senior, Ex-mayor of Portland.
Gen. Henry G. Thomas, United States Army.
George A. Thomas, Esq., of Portland.
Prof. F. A. Robinson, of Kents Hill.
Albert A. Burleigh, Esq., of Houlton.

The entire

Executive Council.

6 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

Jacob Harbison, Esq., of Caribou.

Hon. L. R. King, of Caribou.

Hon. John S. Arnold, of Caribou.

W. A. Vaughan, Esq., of Caribou.

JuDAH D. Teague, Esq., of Caribou.

Hon. Jesse Drew, of Fort Fairfield.

Rev. Daniel Stickney, of Presque Isle.

Rev. G. M. Parks, of Presque Isle.
The press was represented by

Hon. Isaac H. 'Bailey, of the Shoe and Leather Re-
porter, New York.

Stanley T. Pullen, Esq., of the Portland Press.

Capt. C. A. BouTELLE, and Howard Owen, Esq., of
the Bangor Whig and Courier.

Dr. W. P. Lapham, of the Maine Farmer.

C. CouiLLiARD and Winfield S. Nevins, Esqs., of the
Boston Herald.

J. SwETT RoWE, Esq., of the Boston Journal.

Benjamin D. Hell, Esq., of the Boston Traveller.

Albert C. Wiggin, Esq., of the Bangor Commercial.

E. L. Warren, Esq., of the Kennebec Journal.

S. W. Mathews, Esq., of the Aroostook Republican.
Nearly all these gentlemen were accompanied by

ladies.

At last the carriage of Hon. W. W. Thomas jr., the

founder of the colony, followed by the carriages of the

Governor, the Council, and other distinguished guests,

drives across the boundary line from Woodland into New

Sweden ; a salute is fired by the Swedish cadets, the stars

and stripes and the yellow cross of Sweden sail proudly

into position at the top of the flagstaffs on either side of

the evergreen arch, and the sweet tones of the church

FOUKDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 7

bell float out for the first time over the woods and clear-
ings of New Sweden.

At tlie triumphal arch the guests of the day are re-
ceived by the Swedish cadets and escorted under the arch
and down the road to the capitol.

That was a strange sight in the woods of Maine. First
came the band, playing a martial air, next the Swedisli
cadets marching like veterans, then the carriage of the
founder of the colony, followed by a long line of carriages
containing the Governor, Council, and distinguished visit-
ors. Three thousand people, Swedes, Americans, Cana-
dians, and French, filled the great central clearing and
cheered on the procession, the flags of Sweden and Amer-
ica floated loyally side by side, the church bell rang a merry
peal, all around stood the primeval forest in silent, ma-
jestic lines, while the sun, breaking forth from between
the clouds of morning, shone down upon us like a happy
augury, and gave tone and color to the scene.

The procession halts in front of the capitol. The cadets
draw themselves up on either side of the way, present
arms, and shout

'■''Lefve Konsul Tliomas^''

(Long live Consul Thomas),
'-''Lefve Koloniens VaJgoraren,'''

(Long live the benefactor of the colony),
^'Lefve Koloniens Grrundlaggaren^^

(Long live the founder of the colony),
'•'■Lefve Governoren of Maine,''''

(Long live the Governor of Maine).
A cheer goes up from the great throng of Swedes
crowding around. Then Nils Olsson, one of the first col-
onists and the first lay preacher of New Sweden, steps out

8 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

into the open space between the two lines of cadets and
welcomes the gnests of the day in a short speech in Swed-
ish, of wliich the following is a translation :

ADDRESS OF WELCOME OF NILS OLSSON.

In behalf of the Swedish people, men, women, and chil-
dren, I bid 3'ou, Consnl Thomas, and all the gentlemen
and ladies in your company, a cordial welcome to New
Sweden, upon this tenth anniversary of the day when you
led us into these woods. We Swedes feel grateful and
not a little surprised that we are deemed worthy of a visit
from so many of the most honorable citizens of Maine.
For this visit, and for the many acts of kindness extended
to us Swedes — although strangers in a strange land — by
the State of Maine and its citizens, ever since we first
crossed your borders, we now return our heartfelt thanks.

The guests now alight from their carriages and pass be-
tween the files of Swedish cadets. Then Mr. Thomas
replies to the address of welcome from the threshold of the
capitol. • The cadets march forward, form a line directly
in front, and present arms. The colonists crowd around
with eager interest. Mr. Thomas spoke in Swedish. The
substance of his remarks translated into English is as
follows :

RESPONSE BY HON. W. W. THOMAS JR.

Swedish colonists^ my comrades in the ivoods of Maine^
my countrymen, — from my heart I thank you for this royal
reception to your guests of to-day. I am proud of you and
of the great work you have done in these forests. You
little band that entered these woods with me ten years ago

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 9

this veiy hour, and all you that have followed after, I know
your trials, your toils, your hardships, and your privations.
I know, too, your courage, your hope, your industry, and
your perseverance, and to-day I see your victory. And
not I alone, but the Governor and Council of our State,
and many of the most distinguished citizens of Maine, are
here to-day to see and bear witness to the great results of
your labors.

And you. Captain Nylander ; and you, Swedish soldiers
on American soil, I thank you for the part you have so well
taken in the observances of this day. In your veins flows
the blood of the vikings. Yonder float the flags of Swe-
den and America. Should ever foes without or foes within
threaten this free land of ours, let the old beserker rage
fire your hearts, and may you fight in defense of the stars
and stripes as gallantly as the soldiers of Sweden have ever
fought for the yellow cross of the Northland. My Swedish
brethren, one and all, again I thank you.

Mr. Thomas' remarks were received by the Swedes with
loud and long-continued applause. As soon as order was
restored, Mr. Thomas introduced Gov. Daniel F. Davis,
who spoke as follows :

ADDRESS OF HON. DANIEL F. DAVIS, GOVEENOR OP
MAINE.

Fellow-citizens of New Sweden^ — I assure you that it
gives me great pleasure to visit your beautiful town, and
to meet you all as 1 do to-day ; to see what I have long
known about, but have never viewed with my own eyes
before. It is an occasion of the greatest importance to
you. For the many blessings and privileges which you

10 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

enjoy, for your fertile farms and happy homes, you must
thank the country and the gentleman who has just spoken
to you in your own language. To him you owe it all.
Now, my countrymen (for I greet you as such, and I was
particularly impressed, as I rode along and saw the colors
of Sweden and of the United States blending together in
graceful harmony) it is the boast of our institutions that
we are able to make citizens with a common reverence for
the stars and stripes, out of all kinds of material. Over
every foot of our territory the stars and stripes wave over
a people with equal rights before the law. I congratulate
you upon the success which has attended your efforts, and
has greeted your industry and perseverance since you
came to Maine, and also for your good behavior. I want
to say one word more in regard to our country. We have
our state government to which we owe our allegiance, but
over that and grander than that we owe an allegiance to
the great nation of which the state is only a part. I want
to impress upon you one other point, — our law gives to
your boy an equal chance with my own. In this land of
liberty of ours there is resting upon every individual,
whether of native or foreign birth, burdens commensurate
with our liberties. See that the state and the nation
suffer no Avrong from your hands. I wish you joy and
happiness upon this occasion, and a prosperous future.

Three cheers were given for Gov. Davis. The proces-
sion then reformed, and escorted by the band and the
Swedish cadets, countermarched to the church.

EXERCISES IN THE SWEDISH CHURCH.

The church was filled to overflowing. The aisles and

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 11

every foot of standing room were crowded. The windows
were all thrown wide open, and hundreds of people were
accommodated with seats out of doors, on long benches of
plank, which flanked the church on either side, while a
still larger number stood around. The governor, council,
speakers, and their ladies were seated in front to the right
of the pulpit. To the left on a raised platform was placed
the Swedish choir, led by Mrs. Gottlieb Piltz, while
immediately below was Jones' band, of Caribou.

At twelve o'clock the exercises in the church opened
with the singing of a Swedish song by the choir,

"Our land, our land, our foster-land."

Prayer was next offered by Rev. G. M. Park, of
Presque Isle.

A selection was played by the band.

Then the Swedish pastor. Rev. Andrew Wtren, said :

I will now introduce to you the father of the children in
the woods, the Hon. W. W. Thomas jr., of Portland.

After the applause which greeted Mr. Thomas had sub-
sided, he delivered the following oration :

HISTORICAL ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS JR.,
FOUNDER OF NEW SWEDEN.

Ten years ago New Sweden was an unbroken wilder-
ness.

The primeval forest covered all the land, stretching
away over hill and dale as far as the eye could reach. No
habitation of civilized man had ever been erected in these
vast northern woods; through their branches the smoke
from settler's cabin had never curled ; in their depths the
blows of settler's axe had never resounded. Here roamed

12 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

the moose, and prowled the bear, and here the silence of
midnight was broken by the hooting of the arctic owl.

To-day New Sweden is the happy home of nearly eight
hundred industrious, contented people.

We are now convened within its borders, not in the
forest gloom, but in this Christian church. All around us
are pleasant fields, where the tall grain waves in the sum-
mer breeze. Sleek cattle and heavy-fleeced sheep graze in
the pastures. Beyond, cut out of the solid woods, great
clearings open to the sun on every hand. They are dotted
with the cottages of the pioneer, and checkered into green
and golden squares with the varying crops. School-houses
open their doors for the children, and from the tower above
us, the sound of the church-going bell floats over clearing
and cottage, and echoes through the aisles of the forest.
Here are free schools, free church, free speech, and the
free worship of God.

And those who have wrought this great change — the
hardy pioneers, whose hands we have taken and into
whose honest faces we now look — are not " to the manner
born," but came to us from another continent, four thou-
sand miles away over the ocean.

Truly the story of New Sweden forms an unique chap-
ter in the history of Maine. This story it is my purpose
briefly and faithfully to narrate upon this day, which we,
both Swedes and Americans, have met together to cel-
ebrate— the decennial anniversary of the founding of New
Sweden in the woods of Maine.

Maine is a state of great, but largely undeveloped, re-
sources. Our sea-coast, notched all over with harbors,
invites the commerce of the globe ; our rivers offer- suffi-
cient power to run the factories of the nation, while our

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 13

quarries can supply the world with building material.
There is also within our borders a wilderness domain,
whereon is not a settler, larger in area than the State of
Massachusetts, covered with a stately forest of valuable
trees, possessing a soil of unusual depth and fertility, and
watered by plentiful streams. Indeed the entire Common-
wealth of Massachusetts could be dropped into our north-
ern forests without hitting a human being, and no soul of
us would be aware we had received so important an addi-
tion to our state. On this vast and fertile territor}^ Maine
for many years has offered everybody a farm, virtually as
a gift.

And yet, notwithstanding all these advantages, Maine
decreased in population from 1860 to 1870; and that, too,
when every other state in the Republic, with the single
exception of New Hampshire, increased in numbers.

In that decade, the United States gained twenty-five
per cent, or over seven and a half millions, while Maine
fell off from 628,279 to 626,915 in population, making a net
loss of 1,364 in the number of her citizens.

Yet what element of empire do we lack? Fertile lands,
exhaustless quarries, noble rivers, colossal water power,
and harbors countless and unrivaled, all are ours. We
lack labor to utilize the resources lying waste around us.
Men are the wealth of a state. We lack men.

The necessity of Maine was the cause of New Sweden.

In locality, Maine is an Eastern state ; in her needs she
is like a state of the West. Yet while the Western states
were advancing in population hundreds of thousands,
Maine had paused and gone backward. Was this a mo-
mentary halt in our advance, or was it the beginning of
our decline ? This was a question of grave import. States,
like men, cannot stand still, they must grow or decay.

14 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

Immigration was evidently our remedy. Immigration
was building up the West, and had long been one of the
chief sources of wealth to our country. Since the war,
there had arrived in the United States more than three
hundred thousand immigrants a year. What a grand
army of labor, three hundred thousand strong — a regiment
a day — which every year sailed over the ocean to our
shores, to help subdue our forests, reclaim our wild lands,
open our mines, build our cities and railroads, and in every
way develop the great resources of our own broad land.

It is estimated that these immigrants are worth one
thousand dollars each to our country as a producing force.
Three hundred millions of dollars will thus represent the
yearly tribute paid by the monarchies of the Old World to
the republic of the New. And this valuable stream of
immigration was all flowing past Maine to enrich the broad
fields of the great West.

Could any portion of this immigration be secured for
Maine? and, if so, which nationality could furnish immi-
grants best adapted to the climate and soil of our state ?

It is an interesting fact, that with few exceptions, as the
French in Canada, immigrants from Europe take up the
same relative position in America they occupied in the
continent of their birth. In fact there seem to be certain
fixed isothermal lines between whose parallels the immi-
grants from the Old World are guided to their homes in
the New. Thus the Germans from the center of Europe
settle in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and our other middle states ;
the French and Spanish from southern Europe and the
shores of the Mediterranean, make their homes in Louis-
iana, Florida, and all along the Gulf of Mexico ; while the
Scandinavians from the wooded north, fell the forest and

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 15

build tlieir log-cabins in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Michigan,
Minnesota — in our northern range of states — the Pine-tree
state forms one of this northern, wooded range ; Scandi-
navian immigration flows naturally to us.

Would they make good citizens, these men of the
North? Yes, no one doubted that. A tall, stout, hardy
race are these Northmen ; inured to hardship, patient of
labor, economical, religious, honest.

The matter found its first official utterance in 1861, in
the message of Gov. Washburn, wherein the general sub-
ject of Scandinavian immigration was briefly presented to
the attention of the leoislature. This recommendation was
followed by no immediate result. In 1864 an attempt was
made by a company of Maine gentlemen to procure labor-
ers from Sweden, but the undertaking proved a complete
failure. The company shipped several hundred Swedes
from Sweden, but not one of them ever arrived in Maine.
The idea then slumbered until Gen. Chamberlain was
called to the gubernatorial chair. He eloquently and per-
sistently pressed the subject upon the attention of the
legislature and the people. Interest in the question grew
apace. It was a fruitful theme of discussion both in and
out of legislative halls.

The desirability of Scandinavian immigration was at last
quite generally conceded. But could we obtain it ? and
how? These were unsolved problems, and the doubters
were many. For at that time a Swede was about as rarely
to be met with in Maine as a Chinese.

The question was discussed by the Legislature of 1869,
and on the twelfth of March of that year, a resolve was
passed entitled : "A resolve designed to promote the set-
tlement of the public and other lands in the state." It

16 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

provided for the appointment of three commissioners, a
part of whose duty was "to ascertain what measures, if
any, shoukl be adopted by the state to induce settlements
upon its unpeopled townships." The persons appointed
on this commission were Hon. Parker P. Burleigh, your
historian, and Hon. William Small.

This commission made a tour of observation and inquiry
through Aroostook county in October of the same year,
and presented a report to the legislature of 1870.

This report contains the first definite, practical plan for
securing Scandinavian immigration to Maine. The plan
was this :

1 Send a commissioner of the state of Maine to Sweden.

2 Let him there recruit a colony of young Swedish
farmers — picked men — with their wives and children. No
one, however, was to be taken unless he could pay his own
passage and that of his family to Maine.

3 A Swedish pastor should accompany the colon}-, that
religion might lend her powerful aid in binding the colony
together.

4 Let the commissioner lead the colony in a bod}-, all
together, at one time, and aboard one ship, from Sweden
to America. Thus would they be made acquainted with
one another. Thus also would they have a leader to fol-
low and be prevented from going astray.

5 Let the commissioner take the Swedes into our
northern forests, locate them on Township No. 15, Range
3, west of the east line of the state, give every head of a
family one hundred acres of woodland for a farm, and do
whatever else might be necessary to root this Swedish col-
ony firmly in the soil of Maine.

Then all state aid was to cease, for it was confidently

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 17

expected when once the colony was fast rooted in our soil,
it would thrive and grow of itself, and throughout the
future draw to Maine, our fair portion of the Swedish im-
migration to the United States.

In founding the Swedish colony of Maine this plan thus
presented has been carried out in every detail to the letter.

This enterprise, though presented with confidence, was
presented only as an experiment. The legislature enter-
tained it only as such. The merits of the experiment, and
its probable advantages to Maine, were placed before the
House of Representatives by Col. James M. Stone, chair-
man of the committee on immigration, in an eloquent and
exhaustive speech. Something ought certainly to be done.
Nothing better was offered. So on March 23, 1870, an act
was passed authorizing the experiment to be tried.

The act established a Board of Immigration, consisting
of the governor, land agent, and secretary of state. On
March 25, two days after the passage of the act, this board
was pleased to appoint me commissioner of immigration.
The fate of the Swedish experiment was thus placed in my
hands.

Having successfully arranged all preliminary matters, I
sailed from the United States April 30, and landed at
Gothenburg, Sweden, on the 16th of May.

The problem now to be solved was this ; — could a colon}'
of intelligent, industrious Swedish farmers be induced to
pay their own passage, and that of their wives and children,
to a comparatively unknown state, four thousand miles
away ? I believed the problem admitted of a satisfactory
solution, and went to work accordingly. .

A head office was at once established at Gothenbursf.
Notices, advertisements, and circulars, describing our state

18 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

and the proposed immigration, were scattered broadcast
over- the country. Agents were employed to canvass the
northern provinces, and as soon as the ball was fairly in
motion, I left the office at Gothenburg in charge of Capt.
G. W. Schroder, and traveled extensively in the interior
of Sweden, distributing documents, and talking with the
people in the villages, at their homes, by the roadside, and
wherever or whenever I met them.

A previous residence of three years in Sweden had ren-
dered me familiar with the language, customs, and tradi-
tions of the Swedes. Without this knowledge I could
have done nothing. With it, I was enabled to preach a
crusade to Maine. But the crusade was a peaceful one, its
weapons were those of husbandry, and its object to recover
the fertile lands of our state from the dominion of the
forest.

To induce the right class of people to pay their way to
settle among us, seemed indeed the most difficult part of
the whole immigration enterprise. I therefore deemed it
expedient to take this point for granted; and in all adver-
tisements, conversations, and addresses, to dwell rather on
the fact that, as only a limited number of families could be
taken, none would be accepted unless they brought with
them the highest testimonials as to character and profi-
ciency in their callings.

The problem which was thus taken for granted soon
began to solve itself. Recruits for Maine began to ap-
pear. All bore certificates of character under the hand
and seal of the pastor of their district, and all who had
worked for others brought recommendations from their
employers. These credentials, however, were not consid-
ered infallible, some applicants were refused in spite of

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 19

them, and no one was accepted unless it appeared clear
that he would make a good and thrifty citizen of our good
state of Maine. In this way a little colony of picked men,
with their wives and children, was quickly gathered
together. The details of the movement, the arguments
used, the objections met, the multitude of questions about
our state asked and answered, would fill a volume. I was
repeatedly asked if Maine was one of the United States.
One inquirer wished to know if Maine lay alongside Texas,
while another seeker after truth wrote, asking if there were
to be found in Maine any wild horses or crocodiles. This
ignorance is not to be wondered at, for what had Maine
ever done prior to 1870 to make herself known in Sweden.

Neither was the colony recruited without opposition.
Capital and privilege always strive to prevent the exodus
of labor; and sometimes are reckless as to the means they
use. It is sufficient, however, to state that all opposition
was successfully silenced or avoided.

On June 23, the colonists, who had been recruited from
nearly every province of Sweden, were assembled at Goth-
enburg; and on the evening of that day, — midsummer's
eve, a Swedish festival, — I invited them and their friends
to a collation at the Baptist hall in that city. Over two
hundred persons were present, and after coffee and cake
had been served, according to Swedish custom, addresses
were made by S. A. Hedlund, Esq., member of the Swedish
parliament, Capt. G. W. Schroder, the leader of the Bap-
tist movement in Sweden, and your historian. The exer-
cises were concluded by a prayer from pastor Trouvd. At
this meeting the colonists were brought together and made
acquainted, their purpose quickened and invigorated, and
from that hour the bonds of common interest and destiny

20 DECENNIAL CELEBKATION.

have bound all the mdividuals hito a community. Such a
knowledge of Maine and its resources was also imparted
by the speakers, that the very friends who before had
sought to persuade the colonists not to desert their father-
land, exclaimed, "Ah, if I could only go too ! "

In August, 1637, the Swedish ship of war " Key of Cal-
mar," accompanied by a smaller vessel, the " Bird Griffin,"
set sail from Gothenburg for America, with a Swedish
colony on board, which founded the first New Sweden in
the New World, on the banks of the Delaware. Two hun-
dred and thirty-three years later, at noon of Saturday, June
25, and just forty days after the landing of your historian
in Sweden, he sailed from the same Gothenburg in the
steamship "Orlando," in company with the first Swedish
colonists of our state, who now left home and country and
faced the perils of a voyage of four thousand miles, and
the hardships and toils of making a new home in the wil-
derness of a strange land, without the scratch of a pen by
way of contract or obligation, but with simple faith in the
honor and hospitality of Maine.

The colony was composed of twenty-two men, eleven
women, and eighteen children ; in all fifty-one souls. All
the men were farmers ; in addition, some were skilled in
trades and professions; there being among them a lay
pastor, a .civil engineer, a blacksmith, two carpenters, a
basket-maker, a wheelwright, a baker, a tailor, and a
wooden-shoe maker. The women were neat and industri-
ous, tidy housewives, and diligent workers at the spinning-
wheel and loom.

All were tall and stalwart, with blue eyes, light hair,
and cheerful, honest faces ; there was not a physical defect
or blemish among them, and it was not without some feel-

FOUNDING or NEW SWEDEN. 21

ings of state pride that I looked upon tliem as the}' were
mustered on the deck of the "Orlando," and anticipated
what great results might flow from this little beginning
for the good of Maine.

A heavy northwest gale, during the prevalence of which
the immigrants were compelled to keep below, while the
hatches were battened down over their heads, rendered
our passage over the North Sea very disagreeable, and so
retarded our progress that we did not reach the port of
Hull till Monday evening, June 27. The next day we
crossed England by rail to Liverpool. Here was an un-
avoidable delay of three days. On Saturday, July 2, we
sailed in the good steamship "City of Antwerp," of the
Inman line, for America.

The passage over the ocean was a pleasant one, and on
Wednesday, July 13, we landed at Halifax. The good
people of this city fought shy of us. Swedish immigration
was as novel in Nova Scotia as in Maine. No hotel or
boarding-hoase would receive us, and our colony was
forced to pass its first night on this continent in a large
vacant warehouse kindly placed at our disposal by the
Messrs. Seaton, the agents of the Inman steamships. Next
day we continued our journey across the peninsula of Nova
Scotia and over the bay of Fundy to the city of St. John.

July 15 we ascended the St. John river to Frederieton
by steamer. Here steam navigation ceased on account of
the lowness of the water, but two river tow-boats were
chartered, the colony and their baggage placed on board,
and at five o'clock on the morning of Saturday, July 16,
our colony was en route again. Each boat was towed up
the St. John river by two horses. The boats frequently
grounded, and the progress up stream was slow and toil-

22 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

some. The weather was fine, and the colouists caught fish
from the river, and picked berries along the banks.

Near Florenceville the first misfortune befell us. Here
on Tuesday, July 19, died Hilraa C. Clas^, infant daughter
of Capt. Nicholas P. Clase, aged nine months. Her little
body was properly embalmed, placed in a quickly con-
structed coffin, and brought on with the colony. " We
cannot leave our little one by the way," said the sorrow-
stricken parents, " we will carry her through to our new
home."

On the afternoon of Thursday, July 21, the tow-boats
reached Tobique Landing. Six days had been spent in
towing up from Fredericton. The journey is now accom-
plished by railroaH in as many hours. All along our route
from Halifax to Tobique the inhabitants came out very
generally to see the new comers, and there was an uni-
versal expression of regret, that so fine a body of immi-
grants should pass through the Provinces, instead of
settling there. At Tobique the colonists debarked, and
were met by Hon. Parker P. Burleigh, land agent and
member of the board of immigration. We obtained lodg-
ings for the colony on the hay in Mr. Tibbit's barn, and
Mr. Burleigh and I, driving round from house to house,
buying a loaf of bread here, a loaf there, a cheese in an-
other place, and milk wherever it could be procured, got
together supplies sufiicient for supper and breakfast.

Friday morning, July 22, teams were provided for the
Swedes and their baggage, and at eight o'clock the Swedish
immigrant train started for Maine and the United States.
The teams were furnished by and under the charge of Mr.
Joseph Fisher of Fort Fairfield. Mr. Burleigh and your
historian drove ahead in a wagon, then came a covered

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDflN. 23

carriage, drawn by four horses. This contained the wom-
en and children. Next were two three-horse teams with
the men, followed by a couple of two-horse teams contain-
ing the ba2fCTao:e. So we wound over the hills and at ten
o'clock reached the iron post that marks the boundary
between the dominions of the queen, and the United
States.

Beneath us lay the broad valley of the Aroostook. The
river glistened in the sun, and the white houses of Fort
Fairfield shone brightly among the green fields along the
river bank. As we crossed the line and entered the
United States, the American flag was unfurled from the
foremost carriage, and we were greeted with a salute of
cannon from the village of Fort Fairfield. Mr. Burleigh
stepped from the wagon and in an appropriate speech
welcomed the colony to Aroostook Count}', Maine, and
the United States. I translated the speech and the train
moved on. Cheers, waving of handkerchiefs, and every
demonstration of enthusiasm greeted us on our way.

Shortly after crossing the line an incident occurred
which showed of what stuff the Swedes were made. In
ascending a hill the horses attached to one of the immi-
grant wagons became balky, backed the wagon into the
ditch, and upset it, tipping out the load of baggage. The
Swedes instantly sprang from the carriages in which they
were riding, unhitched the horses, righted the wagon, and
in scarcely more time than it takes to tell it, reloaded their
ton and a half of baggage, and then ran the wagon by hand
to the top of the hill. This was the first act of the Swedes
in Maine.

At noon we reached the town hall at Fort Fairfield.
A gun announced our arrival. Here a halt was made. A

24 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION".

multitude of people received us. The Swedes got out of
the wagons and clustered together by themselves, a little
shy in the presence of so many strangers. The assembly
was called to order by A. C. Gary, Esq., and a meeting
organized by the choice of Hon. Isaac Hacker as chairman.
Mr. Hacker after some pertinent remarks introduced Judge
William Small, who welcomed the Swedish immigrants in
a judicious, elaborate, and eloquent address. He was fol-
lowed by the Rev. Daniel Stickney of Presque Isle in a
stirring and telling speech. The remarks of these gentle-
men were then given to the Swedes in their own tongue
by your historian, after which at the request of the Swedes
I expressed their gratitude at the unexpected and generous
hospitality of the citizens of Aroostook. The Swedes were
then invited to a sumptuous collation in the town hall.
The tables groaned with good things. There were salmon,
green peas, baked beans, pies, pudding, cake, raspberries,
coffee, and all in profusion.

At two o'clock the Swedes resumed their journey, glad-
dened by the welcome and strengthened by the repast so
generously given them by the good people of Fort Fairfield.
The procession passed up the fertile valley of the Aroos-
took— the stars and stripes still waved "at the fore."
Many citizens followed in wagons. Along the route every
one turned out to get a good look at the new comers. A
Swedish youth of twenty struck up an acquaintance with
an American young man of about the same age. It mat-
tered not that the Yankee did not speak a word of Swe-
dish, nor the Swede a word of English, they chattered
away at each other, made signs, nodded and laughed as
heartily as though they understood it all. Then they
picked leaves, decorated each other with leafy garlands,

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 25

and putting their arms around one another marched along
at the head of the procession, singing away in the greatest
good fellowship, as good friends as though they had known
each other for a lifetime, and perfectly regardless of the
little fact that neither of them could speak a word the
other could understand. Youth and fraternity Avere to
them a common language, and overleaped the confusion of
tongues.

As the immigrant train halted on a hill top, I pointed
out the distant ridges of this township rising against the
sky. '•''Bet utlofvade Landet" — "The promised land" —
shout the Swedes, and a cheer goes along the line.

Late in the afternoon we reached the bridge over the
Aroostook river. A salute of cannon announced our ap-
proach. Here we were met by a concourse of five hun-
dred people with a fine brass band of sixteen pieces, and
escorted into the picturesque village of Caribou. Hon.
John S. Arnold delivered an address of welcome, and the
citizens invited us to a bountiful supper in Arnold's hall,
where also the settlers passed the night. At this supper
one of the good ladies of Caribou happened to wait upon
our worthy land agent, and getting from him a reply in a
language she understood, was overjoyed and exclaimed,
" Why, you speak very good English for a Swede ! "

Next morning the Swedish immigrant train was early in
motion accompanied by some one hundred and fifty cit-
izens of the vicinity. One farmer along the route put out
tubs of cold water for our refreshment. I thanked him for
this. "Oh, never mind," he replied, "all I wanted was to
stop the Swedes long enough to get a good look at them."
We soon passed beyond the last clearing of the American
pioneer and entered the deep woods. Our long line of

26 DECENNIAL CELEBKATION.

wagons slowly wound its way among the stumps of the
newly cut wood road, and penetrated a forest which now
for the first time was opened for the abode of man.

At twelve o'clock, noon, of Saturday, July 23, 1870, just
four months from the passage of the act authorizing this
enterprise, and four weeks from the departure of the im-
migrants from Sweden, the first Swedish colony of our
state arrived at its new home in the wilds of Maine.
We called the spot New Sweden, a name at once com-
memorative of the past and auspicious of the future. Here
in behalf of the state of Maine I bade a welcome and God
speed to these far travelers, our future citizens, and here
at the southwest corner of these cross roads, within a
stone's throw of where we now sit, under a camp of bark
and by the side of a rill of pure spring water, Swedes and
Americans broke bread together, and the colonists ate
their first meal on this township in the shadow of the forest
primeval.

I believe there is no better town in Maine for agricul-
tural purposes than New Sweden. On every hand the
land rolls up into gentle hard-wood ridges, covered with a
stately growth of maple, birch, beech, and ash. In every
valley between these ridges flows a brook, and along its
banks grow the spruce, fir, and cedar. The soil is a rich,
light loam, overlying a hard layer of clay, which in turn
rests upon a ledge of rotten slate, with perpendicular rift.
The ledge seldom crops out, and the land is remarkably
free from stones.

New Sweden lies in latitude 47° north, about the same
latitude as the city of Quebec. The boundaries of this
township were run by J. Norris, Esq., in 1859. It was
then designated as Township No. 15, Range 3, west of the

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 27

east line of the state, which name it bore for twenty-one
years, until the advent of the Swedes. Subsequently the
township was set apart by the state for settlement, and in
1861 the best part of the town was run out into lots for
settlers. These lots contained about 160 acres each. The
state surveying party consisted of Hon. B. F. Cutter, of
Standish, surveyor, A. P. Files, Esq., of. Gorham, chain-
man, Hon. L. C. Flint, of Abbot, explorer, and three
assistants. The work was commenced the last of August,
1861, and finished October 22 of the same year. This
surveying part}* found a cedar tree marked by J. Norris in
1859 as the southeast corner of the town, and the lotting
of the town was begun at a cedar post standing two links
southwest of this cedar tree, which post was marked " T.
No. 15, R. 3, Lot 144, B. F. Cutter, 1861, ^ " (the latter
character being Cutter's private mark).

Thus in 1861 the state of Maine offered to everybody
his choice of the lots in this township, each lot containing
160 acres. The offer was made under our settling laws,
which did not require the payment of a dollar, only the
performance of a certain amount of road labor and other
settling duties, which made the lot virtually a gift from
the state to the settler. This offer of the lots in this town
virtually for nothing remained open to everybody for nine
years. Yet not a single lot was taken up. For nine long
years no one was found willing to accept a lot of land in
this town as a gift, provided he was required to make his
home upon it. Can any citizen of Maine complain that a
colony from over the ocean took possession of the very
land, which he for nine years had refused to accept as a
gift?

28 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

And this is not all. Not only was New Sweden without
a settler on the morning of July 23, 1870, but several of
the lots in the northern portion of Woodland plantation,
lymg nearest to New Sweden, which lots had, years before,
been taken up by settlers, and on which clearings had been
made, houses built, and cro|)s raised, were now deserted by
their owners, the houses with windows and doors boarded
up, and the clearings commencing to grow up again to
forest. Such was the condition of the last clearings the
Swedish colony passed through on its way into thet e
woods. These clearings are now settled by Swedes and
smile with abundant harvests.

The American pioneer, who abandoned the clearing
nearest New Sweden is happily with us to-day, and joins
in these festivities with wondering eyes. Within an hour
Mr. George F. Turner has told me of his attempt to settle
in these woods. He came from Augusta in the spring of
1861, and took up lot No. 7, in Woodland. Here he lived
for seven years, built a house and barn, and cleared thirty-
five acres of land. But there were no roads. If his wife
wished to visit the village he was forced to haul her
through the woods on a sled even in summer. No new
settlers came in. His nearest neighbors, Dominicus Har-
mon and Frank Record, left their places and moved out tcT
Caribou. Still he held on for two years more alone in the
woods. At last in the fall of 1868 he abandoned the clear-
ing where he had toiled for seven long years, and moved
out to civilization.

"I left," says Mr. Turner, "because in the judgment of
every one, there was no prospect for the settlement of this
region. The settlers around me were abandoning their

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN.

29

clearincrs. Every one said I was a fool to stay, and I at
last thought so myself, and left. Little did I expect to
live to see this day."

The tide of settlement was ebbing away from these
woods, when a wave from across the Atlantic turned the
ebb to flood. It has been flood tide ever since.

The Board of Immigration of 1870 very prudently re-
frained from making any preparation for the proposed
colony until it knew the result of my mission to Sweden.
When, however, it appeared from my letters that this mis-
sion was a success, and that a Swedish colony would surely
come to Maine, the Board at once set about making suit-
able preparations for the reception of the Swedes. This
dutv devolved upon Hon. Parker P. Burleigh of the
Board, and it is fortunate the work fell to such tried and
able hands. In the latter part of June, 1870, Mr. Burleigh
proceeded to Aroostook county. Here he instituted a re-
lotting of this township, reducing the size of the lots from
160 acres, which for nine years had been offered to Amer-
icans, with no takers, to lots of 100 acres each for the
Swedes. The surveying party was under the charge ot
that old and experienced state surveyor, the Hon. Noah
Barker Mr. Burleigh contracted with Hon. L. R. Ivmg
and Hon. John S. Arnold, of Caribou, to fell five acres of
forest on each of the twenty-five lots. He also cut a road
into the township and commenced building twenty-five log-
houses. In addition, Mr. Burleigh bought and forwarded
to the township necessary supplies and tools for the colony,
and in many ways rendered services indispensable to the
success of the enterprise.

The Swedes had arrived much earlier than Mr. Burleigh
anticipated. Only six of the log-houses had been budt,

30 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

and these were but partly finished, only two of them hav-
ing glass in the windows. On our arrival, the supplies
and the commissioner of immigration were stowed in one
house, and the Swedes and their baggage packed in the
other five. So the colony passed its first night in New
Sweden.

The next day was the Sabbath. The first religious serv-
ice on the township was a sad one — the funeral of Hilma
C. Clase. The services were held at the bark camp at
the corner, and were conducted by Rev. James Withee,
of Caribou, an American Methodist. All the Swedes, and
many families from Caribou attended the funeral of this
little Swedish girl. We buried her north of the capitol on
the public lot, in a spot we were forced to mark out as a
cemetery on the very first day of the occupancy of this
town. So peacefully slept in the wild green wood the only
one who had perished by the way.

I had anticipated some difficulty in assigning homes to
the settlers. Some farms were undoubtedly better than
others. To draw lots for them seemed to be the only fair
way of distribution ; yet in so doing, friends from the same
province, who had arranged to help each other in their
work, might be separated by several miles. Every diffi-
culty was finally avoided, by dividing the settlers into
little groups of four friends each, and the farms into clus-
ters of four, and letting each group draw a cluster, which
was afterward distributed by lot among the members of
the group. The division of farms was thus left entirel}^ to
chance, and yet friends and neighbors were kept together.

The drawing took place Monday afternoon, July 25.
With but two exceptions, every one was satisfied, and
these two were immediately made happy by exchanging

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 31

with each other. When this exchange was effected, every
Swede was convinced that just the right lot had fallen to
him, and was enabled to find something or other about his
possessions which in his eye made it superior to all others.
So surely does ownership beget contentment.

After the homesteads were thus distributed, Mr. Bur-
leigh, Mr. Barker, and myself, took the Swedes to a hillside
chopping, northeast of the cross roads, and showed them
the vast woodland wilderness of Maine stretching away
unbroken to the horizon, and awaiting the ax and plow of
the settler. " Here is room enough for all our friends in old
Sweden," said the Swedes.

Tuesday morning, July 26, the Swedes commenced the
great Avork of converting a forest into a home, and that
work has gone happily on, without haste and without rest,
to this day.

Much remained to be done by the state. The Swedes,
too, must be supplied with food till they could harvest
their first crop. To put them in the way of earning their
living by their labor was a natural suggestion. I therefore
at once set the Swedes at work felling trees, cutting out
roads, and building houses, allowing them one dollar a day
for their labor, payable in provisions, tools, etc. The prices
of these necessaries were determined by adding to the first
cost the expense of transportation, plus ten per cent for
breakage and leakage.

Capt. N. P. Clase, a Swede who spoke our language,
and could keep accounts in single entry in English, was
then placed in charge of the storehouse. He opened an
account with every settler, charging each with all goods
received from the store. Every Swedish working party
was placed under a foreman, who kept in a book furnished

32 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

him the time of each man. These time-books were handed
in once a week to Capt. Chase, the store-keeper, and the
men credited with their work at the rate of one dollar a
day. The Swedes thus did the work which the state would
otherwise have been compelled to hire other laborers to do,
and were paid in the very provisions which otherwise the
state would have been compelled to give them. By this
arrangement, also, all jealousy was avoided with regard to
the distribution of rations ; and in their consumption the
rigid Swedish economy was always exercised, which could
hardly have been the case if food had fallen to them like
manna, without measure or price.

All through summer and fall there was busy work in
this wilderness. The primeval American forest rang from
morn till eve with the blows of the Swedish axe. The.
prattle of Swedish children and the song of Swedish
mothers made unwonted music in the wilds of Maine.
One cloudless day succeeded another. The heats of sum-
mer were tempered by the woodland shade in which we
labored. New clearings opened out, and new log-houses
were rolled up on every hand. Odd bits of board, and the
happily twisted branches of trees were quickly converted
into needed articles of furniture. Rustic bedsteads, tables,
chairs, and the omnipresent cradle, made their appearance
in every house; and Swedish industry and ingenuity soon
transformed every log-cabin into a home.

One hundred acres of forest were granted each settler ;
a chopping of five acres had been made on each lot. In
nearly every instance, the trees were felled on the contig-
uous corners of four lots, and a square chopping of twenty
acres made around the point where four lots met, five acres
of which belonged to each of the four farms. The largest

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 33

possible amount of light and air was thus let into each
lot, and the settlers were better enabled to help one an-
other in clearing. As the choppings had not yet been
burnt over, the houses were built outside them, and being
placed in couples on the opposite sides of the road, every
household had a near neighbor. Nearly every habitation
was also within easy distance of a spring of living water.

The houses built by the state in New Sweden were all of
uniform pattern. They were designed by our able and
efficient land agent, Hon. P. P. Burleigh, and erected
under the immediate superintendence of Jacob Hardison
and Judah D. Teague, Esqs. They were built of peeled
logs; were 18x26 feet on the ground, one and a half stories
high, seven feet between floors, and had two logs above
the second floor beams, which, with a square pitch roof,
gave ample room for chambers. The roofs were covered
with long shaved shingles of cedar, made by hand on the
township. The space on the ground floor was divided off,
by partitions of unplaned boards, into one general front
room 16x18 feet, one bedroom 10 feet square, and pantry
adjoining, 8x10 feet. On this floor were four windows;
one was also placed in the front gable end above. In
the general room of each house was a second-size Hampden
cooking stove, with a funnel running out through an iron
plate in the roof. On the whole, these log-cabins in the
woods were convenient and comfortable structures; they
presented a pleasing appearance from without, and within
were full of contentment and industry.

It was of course too late for a crop. Yet I wished to
give the Swedes an ocular demonstration that something
eatable would grow on this land. There was a four acre
3

34 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

chopping on the public lot ; this had been partially burnt
over by an accidental spark from the camp fire at the cor-
ner. On this chopping seven Swedes v^ere set at work on
July 26 junking and hand-piling the prostrate trees. Mr.
Burleigh with axe and hands assisted in rolling up the first
pile. Good progress was made, and the next day, Wednes-
day, July 27, we set fire to the piles and sent a young lad.
Master Haines Hardison, on horseback, out to the Ameri-
can settlements in quest of English turnip seed and teeth
for a harrow.

On July 28 we explored with the surveying party an old
tote road running from the Turner place (one of the aban-
doned American farms in Woodland) out to Philbrick's
corner, on the road to Caribou. We found the tote road
cut off three-quarters of a mile of the distance to the vil-
lage, saved a hard hill and a long pole bridge, and gave a
good level route. We at once put the tote road in repair
and used it exclusively. The present turnpike to Caribou
follows substantially the route of this road from the Tur-
ner place, now occupied by Jonas Bodin, across Caribou
stream to Philbrick's.

Friday, July 29, we sowed two acres on the public lot
to English turnips. This was the first land cleared and
the first crop sowed in New Sweden. The land was hand-
piled, burnt, cleared, and sowed Avithin six days after the
arrival of the colony. The turnips were soon up, and
grew luxuriantly, and in November we secured a large
crop of fair size, many of the turnips being fifteen inches
ill circumference. I am well aware that the turnip is re-
garded as a very cheap vegetable, but to us who were
obliged to haul in everything eaten by man or beast eight
miles over rough roads, this crop was of great assistance.

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 35

Furthermore it gave the Swedes a tangible proof of the
fertility of the soil.

On this day the first letters were received ; two from
old Sweden, directed to Oscar Lindberg. Four basket
bottomed chairs for headquarters were hauled in on top of
a load of goods — the first chairs in New Sweden, and Har-
vey Collins, the teamster, brought in word that a Swedish
immigrant was at Caribou on his way in.

July 30, Saturday, Anders Westergren, a Swede thirty-
nine years of age, came in and joined the colony. He
sailed as seaman in a vessel from Philadelphia to Bangor,
there he took up a paper containing notice of New Sweden,
and immediately came through to us. He was the first
immigrant after the founding of the colony. A stalwart
man and skilled in the use of the broad-ax he rendered
valuable aid in building hewed timber houses. ,

On this day Mr. Burleigh left us, after a week's efficient
help. The fame of the colony was spreading. I received
a letter of inquiry from seven Swedes in Bloomington,
Illinois.

On July 31, the second Sabbath, Nils Olsson, the Swe-
dish lay preacher, held public religious services in the
Swedish language at the corner camp.

Tuesday, August 2, the immigrants wrote a joint letter to
Sweden, delaring that the State of Maine had kept its faith
with them in every particular; that the land was fertile,
the climate pleasant, the people friendly, and advising
their countrymen emigrating to America to come to the
New Sweden in Maine. This letter was published in full
in all the leading journals throughout Sweden.

The only animals taken into the woods by the colony
were two kittens, picked up by Swedish children on our

36 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

drive in from T()l)ique. On Wednesday, August 3, a cock
and three hens were brought in to Capt. Clas^. These
were the first domestic fowl on the township. They soon
picked up an acquaintance with two wild squirrels, who
became so tame that they ate meal out of the same dish
with the fowl.

Friday, August 12, the second immigrant arrived in the
colony. He was a native American, a good sized boy baby,
born to Korno, wife of Nils Persson, the first child born in
New Sweden. The youngster is alive and well to-day. He
rejoices in the name of William Widgery Thomas Persson,
and is happy in contemplation of the constitutional fact
that he is eligible to the office of President of the United
States.

On Friday, August 19, Anders Malmqvist arrived from
Sweden via Quebec and Portland. He was a farmer and
student, twenty-two years of age, and the first immigrant
to us direct from the old country.

Sunday afternoon, August 21, Jons Persson was united
in marriage to Hannah Persdotter by your historian. The
marriage ceremony was conducted in the Swedish language,
but according to American forms. In the evening was a
wedding dinner at the Perssons. All the spoons were of
solid silver. This was the first wedding in New Sweden.

Thus within one month from the arrival of the colony,
it experienced the three great events in the life of man —
birth, marriage, death.

Between August 10 and 20 nearly all the choppings
were fired. On some, good burns were obtained, and
nothing but the trunks and larger branches of the trees
left unconsumed on the ground ; the fire merely flashed
over others, leaving behind the whole tangled mass of

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 37

branches, trunks, and twigs to fret the settler. From this
time forward till snow fell, every Swede that could be
spared from the public works was busily engaged from
sunrise to sunset with axe and brand on his clearing,
"junking," piling, and burning the logs — clearing the land
for a crop. New Sweden became a land-mark for twenty
miles around. From her hills arose "a pillar of cloud by
day" and "a pillar of fire by night."

By September 15 large patches of land were successfully
burnt off and cleared, and the Swedes commenced sowing
an acre or half-acre each -with winter wheat or rye. Six-
teen acres in all were sowed with rye and four with wheat.

Meanwhile the colony steadily increased. Now and
then a Swedish immigrant dropped in, took up a lot, re-
ceived an axe and went to work. September 14 a detach-
ment of twelve arrived, and October 31 twenty more
followed, direct from Sweden. There were two more
births, and on November 5 your historian saddled his
horse, rode through the woods and stumps to the West
Chopping, and officiated at the second marriage, uniting
in the bonds of matrimony Herr Anders Frederick Johans-
son to Jungfru Ofelia Albertina Leonora Amelia Ericsson.

The spirit of colonization possessed even the fowl. Al-
though at an untimely season of the year, one of Capt.
Clase's hens stole a nest under a fallen tree in the woods,
and on September 24, came back proudly leading eleven
chickens. Game was plenty. Your historian caught
hundreds of trout in the lakes beyond the northwest cor-
ner of the township, and shot scores of partridges while
riding through the woods from clearing to clearing. This
game was divided among the Swedes and made an agree-
able diversion from the salt-pork diet of our camp life.

38 DECENNIAL CELEBKATION.

Every Sabbath, divine service was held by Nils Olsson,
the Swedish lay minister, and a Sunday-school was soon
started, which is still in successful operation.

By the wise forethought of Hon. Noah Barker, the survey-
or of the township, a lot of fifty acres was reserved for public
uses at the cross roads in the center of the settlement.
Here, on the 20th of September, we commenced digging
the cellar for a public building on a commanding slope of
land at the cross roads. We began hewing out the frame
and shaving shingles for the roof the same day. On Fri-
day. October 7, we raised the frame. Work was pushed
rapidly forward, and on Friday, November 4, four weeks
from the raising, the house was finished with the exception
of lathing and plastering, and the vane was placed in po-
sition on top of the tower 65 feet from the ground.

From the first, this structure has been called the " Cap-
itol " by the Swedes. It is 30x45 feet on the ground ; has
a cellar walled up with hewed cedar 7 1-2 feet in the clear,
is 20 feet stud, and divided into two stories each 10 feet
high ; in addition to which the upjDer story or hall gains
five feet extra out of the roof. The first floor contains a
storeroom 30 feet square, and two offices 15 feet square
each. The second story is a hall 30x45 feet on the floor,
10 feet stud on the sides, arching up to 15 feet in the clear
in the center.

This building stands on state land and is the property
of the state of Maine. It was built in great part by
Swedish labor in payment for food. In the large room be-
low were stowed provisions and tools for the colony. The
offices became the headquarters of the commissioner of im-
migration, and the hall has been used for ten years as a
church, school-house, and general rallying place for the

rOIJNDING OF NEW SWEDEN". 39

colony. In the spring, too, when the immigrants flocked
in, it served as a " Castle Garden," where the Swedish
families slept, cooked and ate under a roof while they
were selecting their lots and erecting a shelter of their
own. The building was indispensable. It has been the
heart of the colony. It at once gave character and stabil-
ity to the settlement, encouraged every Swede in his labors,
and has been of daily need and use.

The dwelling-houses erected by the state were built of
round logs piled one on the other, with the spaces between
open to wind and weather. On the eighteenth of October
there raged a fierce storm of wind, sleet and rain. The wind
whistled through the open log-houses, and all night long we
could hear the crash of falling trees blown down by the gale.
In the morning I found myself barricaded by a tall spruce
that had fallen across my door-way, and my nearest neigh-
bor arrived to tell me there were eight trees down across
the road between his house and mine. Two good chop-
pers soon cut out tlie fallen trees from the roads ; but the
storm warned us that winter was coming. So the Swedes
ceased for a time clearing their land, and went to
work fitting up their houses for winter. They first split
out plank from the nearest spruce trees, and taking up
the floor nailed a tight planked ceiling underneath the
lower floor beams. The spaces between the beams were
then compactly filled with dry earth and the floor-boards
planed and re-placed. An upper ceiling of matched boards
was now put on overhead, and the room made perfectly
tight above and below. The walls of round logs were
then hewed down inside and out, the interstices first
" chinked up " with moss and then filled in with matched
strips of cedar. The walls were thus made as even and

40 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

perpendicular as those of a timber house, and every build-
ing completely defended against the cold and blasts of
winter.

Early in November, I secured places for the winter,
among the farmers and lumbermen of the vicinity, for all
the Swedes who wished to work out ; thirty were thus
supplied with labor at from ten to twenty dollars a month,
including board and lodging. Supplies were hauled in for
those families who were to pass the winter in the woods,
and they were made as comfortable as possible.

On November 13 was held the first meeting at the cap-
itol, and here the commissioner distributed to the colonists
the certificates of their lots. They received them with
eager eyes and greedy hands.

The state of Maine extended a helping hand to this
infant colony and guarded it with fostering care. But in
so doing the state only helped those who helped them-
selves. The Swedes did not come among us as paupers.
The passage of the colony of the first year from Sweden
to Maine cost over four thousand dollars, every dollar of
which ivas paid hy the immigrants themselves. They also
carried into New Sweden over three thousand dollars in
cash, and six tons of baggage.

Let this one fact be distinctly understood. The Swedish
immigrants to Maine from first to last, from 1870 till to-day,
have all paid their own passage to Maine. The state has
never paid a dollar, directly or indirectly, for the passage
of any Swede to Maine.

At the close of 1870, in reviewing the work already
accomplished, it was found that every Swede that started
from Scandinavia with your historian, or was engaged by
him to follow after, had arrived in Maine and was settled

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 41

in New Sweden. No settler had left to make hiui a home
elsewhere, but on the other hand our mimigrants had
already bought, paid for, and sent home to their friends
across the water, five tickets from Sweden to Maine.

So healthy was the climate of our northern woods, that
for the first year there was not a day's sickness of man,
woman, or child, in New Sweden. The results of this en-
terprise to our state, which were thus achieved in 1870,
the year of its inception, were briefly summed up in an
official report as follows:

RESULTS IN 1870.

"A colony of one hundred and fourteen Swedes — fifty-
eight men, twenty women, and thirty-six children — have
paid their own passage from Sweden and settled on the
wild lands of Maine.

"Seven miles of road have been cut through the forest;
one hundred and eighty acres of woods felled ; one hun-
dred acres hand-piled, burnt off and cleared ready for a
crop, and twenty acres sowed to winter wheat and rye.
Twenty-six dwelling-houses and one public building have
been built.

" A knowledge of Maine, its resources and advantages,
has been scattered broadcast over Sweden ; a portion of
the tide of Swedish immigration turned upon our state,
and a practical beginning made toward settling our wild
lands and peopling our domain with the most hardy, hon-
est and industrious of immigrants."

The winter of 1870-71 was safely and comfortably pass-
ed by the Swedes in these woods. They were accustomed
to cold weather and deep snow. Their fires crackled

42 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

brightly and the festivities of Christmas time were observ-
ed as joyously in the Maine woods as in Old Sweden.

In the meantime, active and efficient measures were
taken to increase the stream of immigration thus happily
started. A circular was printed in Old Sweden describing
the voyage of the first colonists, their generous and honor-
able welcome at the American border, the attractions,
healthfulness and fertility of their new homes, the loca-
tion, extent and productiveness of the settling lands of
Maine, the advantages our state offered to settlers, inter-
esting letters from the Swedish colonists already on our
soil, and every other fact and suggestion which seemed ap-
propriate or advantageous. This circular was issued early
in December, 1870 ; a month in advance of the circulars
of any other state or association. Five thousand copies
were distributed, and the information they contained read
and discussed at thousands of Swedish firesides during the
most opportune time of all the year — The Christmas holi-
days.

Capt. G. W. Schroder was appointed agent in Old, and
Capt. N P. Clas6 in New Sweden. Large editions of cir-
culars were struck off and distributed in the old country
in quick succession ; two columns of the "Amerika," a
Aveekly emigrant's paper, were bought for six months and
filled every week with new matter relating to Maine and
her Swedish colony; advertisements were also inserted in
all the principal newspapers taken by the agricultural and
other working classes, and a brisk correspondence carried
on with hundreds intending to emigrate to Maine.

A special agent was employed to travel and distribute
information in the most northern provinces of Sweden,
their population being deemed best fitted for our northern

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN.

43

state ; and another agent, Mr. Carl Johan Ek, one of our
first colonists, was sent back from New Sweden to the old,
well equipped with maps, plans, specimens of Aroostook
wheat, rye, corn and potatoes, also maple sugar made by
the Swedes in New Sweden ; for many in the old country
had written " if one could only return to us, and with his
own lips tell us what you narrate on paper, we would be-
lieve." This last agent was sent out without expense to
the state, he charging nothing for his services, and the In-
man Steamship Line generously furnishing him with a free
passage out and back. A condensed circular was printed
in Swedish at Portland, placed in the hands of the pilots
of that harbor, and by them distributed on board the
trans-Atlantic steamers, while yet miles away from land.

Seed thus well and widely sown was soon followed by a
harvest. With the first opening of navigation, Swedish
innnio-rants beg-an to arrive in New Sweden ; first, hi little
squads, then in companies of twenty, thirty and forty, till
the immigration of the year culminated in the last week
of May, when one hundred Swedes arrived via Houlton
and Presque Isle, followed within five days by two hun-
dred and sixty more by the St. John river.

Provisions and tools for the colony and its expected ac-
cessions, were shipped in March direct to Fredericton, New
Brunswick, and thence with the first opening of naviga-
tion up the river St. John to Tobique landing. From this
latter place tlie goods were hauled into New Sweden, a
distance of but twenty-five miles. Seed, consisting chief-
ly of wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, beans and potatoes,
was early purchased in the neighborhood of the colony
and hauled in on the snow. A span of young, powerful
draught horses was ])0ught in the early spring to help on

44 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

the work. Tliey were employed in harrowing in the crops,
grubbing out and plowing the roads, hauling logs and tim-
ber, until November, when they were sold for $425, the
exact sum paid for them in the spring.

A stable, thirty by forty feet, was erected on the public
lot, one hundred feet in the rear of the capitol ; the capi-
tol itself painted, the first floor, comprising the store-house
and offices, lathed, plastered, finished and furnished, and
the hall above lathed and provided with benches and a
pulpit. The stable was erected and the capitol completed
before the snow was off. This work was almost exclusive-
ly done by Swedes, at the rate of one dollar a day, in pay-
ment of supplies already furnished them by the state.

The snow lingered late. Weeks after it had disappear-
ed in the nearest villages, it still covered our new clearings
in the woods. As soon as the black burnt ground showed
itself in considerable patches, we commenced putting in
wheat, sowing it partly on the melting snow. The first
wheat was sowed May 12, rye followed, then came oats
and barley. The state horses harrowed in the grain.
Then men, women and children were busy from morning
till night hacking in potatoes among the stumps ; and last
of all, each Swede cleared still a little piece more of land
and put in turnips.

Saturday, May 14, Jacob Hardison and I rode into New
Sweden on horseback, through a storm of sleet and rain,
with nineteen young apple-trees lashed on our backs.
With these we set out the first orchard in the town on the
public lot, just west of the capitol. The trees flourished,
and for some years have borne fruit.

In the spring of 1871, one hundred and sixty-five acres
of land were cleared and put into a crop, including the

rOUNDIXG OF NEW SWEDEN. 45

one hundred and twenty-five acres on which the trees were
felled the year before by the state.

The song birds found us out. The year before the for-
est was voiceless. This spring, robins, sparrows and chick-
adees flew into our clearings, built their nests among us,
and enlivened the woods with their songs. The birds evi-
dently approved of colonization.

All this while the immigrants with their ponderous
chests of baggage were pouring in. They filled the hall
of the capitol, the stable, and one squad of fifty, from
Jemptland camped under a shelter of boards at the corner.
Albert A. Burleigh Esq., took the place of Mr. Barker
as surveyor. Mr. Burleigh, with an able corps of assis-
tants arrived at New Sweden as soon as it was practicable
to commence surveying in the woods, and pushed on his
part of the work with vigor and ability throughout the
season. Roads were first laid out in all directions from
the capitol, then lots laid o& to face them. Straight lines
were not deemed essential to these ways, an easy grade
was everywhere maintained, and hills and swamps avoid-
ed. Working parties of newly arrived immigrants, each
in command of an English speaking Swede, were detailed
to follow the surveyors and cut out the roads. Thus ave-
nues were opened up in all directions into the wilderness.
Bands of immigrants eagerly seeking their farms followed
the choppers, and lots were taken up as fast as they were
made accessible. Some enterprising Swedes did not wait
for the working parties, but secured choice lots by ranging
the woods in advance; the principal of "first come first
served " having been adopted in the distribution of these

prizes of land.

Thus the stream of immigration that poured into the

46 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

capitol, was continuallj^ disappearing in small rills through-
out the forest. A party of one hundred crowding our ac-
commodations on Monday, would vanish before Saturday
night. A walk along any wood road soon revealed them ;
the blows of the axe and the crash of falling trees led to
the men, and the smoke curling from a shelter of poles
and bark near by, to the women and children.

Our main road to the outside world for three miles from
the capitol was simply a passage way cut through the
woods a year ago, to let in the first colony. The heavv
immigrant wagons and supply teams had since then rapid-
ly worn away the earth ; and protruding stumps and deep-
ening ruts rendered the road almost impassable, yet not a
day's labor could be spared to it, till the crops were all in.
June 26, however, a force of fifteen men and four horses
were put upon this important highway. We commenced
work at the edge of the center, chopping about a stone's
throw south of the capitol, and until October, whatever
hands could be spared from their own clearings were kept
at work on this road. The entire three miles were grub-
bed out full width of thirty feet through a heavy growth
of standing trees ; two miles of this turnpiked in as thor-
ough a manner as any county road in the state, and a sub-
stantial bridge of hewn cedar thrown across the east
branch of Caribou stream. The road is three-quarters of
a mile shorter than the old one by which the first colony
entered New Sweden, curves around, instead of over the
hills, and maintains an easy grade throughout. It was
built under the immediate supervision of Jacob Hardison
Esq., than whom no man in Aroostook is better acquainted
with everything that pertains to frontier life in the woods
of Maine, and who in one capacity or another has assisted

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 47

the Swedish colony from its foundation. In settling New
Sweden, my right hand man was always Jake Hardison.
It does me good to look into his honest face to-day.

Meanwhile, branch roads were being cut through the
woods by smaller parties of Avorkmen. One road was
made west four miles through Woodland into Perham, an-
other east toward Lyndon, a third northeast four and one-
quarter miles to the Little Madawaska river, a fourth sev-
en and one-half miles to the northwest corner of New
Sweden, beside still other shorter connecting roads.

Every working party, Avhether on branch roads, main
road, public buildings, or other public works, was in charge
of its own special foreman. Each foreman called the rcll
of his crew every e/ening, and entered the time of each
man in a book provided for the purpose. These time books
were handed in once a week to the state store-keeper, and
each workman credited with one dollar for every day's
work, payable in the provisions and tools he was receiving
from the state.

Thus the money appropriated by our state, in aid of the
Swedish colony, accomplished a two-fold good. It first
supplied the Swedes with food and tools, enabling them to
live until they harvested their first crop. Second, It was
worked out to its full value by the Swedes, on the roads
and other public works, which are a permanent public ben-
efit and worth to the state all they cost. State aid to the
Swedes was thus a temporary loan, which they repaid in
full, the state gaining hundreds of new citizens by the tran-
saction.

June 6, Anders Herlin died, the first death in New
Sweden. June 20, Jacob Larsson, a newly arrived immi-
grant, was killed in his chopping by a falling tree.

48 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

Fricla}- evening, June 23, the young people observed
" Midsommars a/ton:' They erected a May pole at the
center, decorated it with garlands, festoons of flowers, and
green leaves. From the top of the pole floated the Amer-
ican and Swedish flags. They sung ring songs, played
ring games, and danced around the May pole to Swedish
music, till far into the night.

In June, arrived an important addition to the colony,
the Rev. Andrew Wiren, a regularly ordained minister of
the Lutheran church. His ministrations have continued to
this day, and long may they continue in the future. He has
ever been not only a pastor, but the "guide, counselor and
friend " of his little flock, whose love and confidence he
has always possessed.

On Sunday, June 25, Pastor Wiren held the first Luth-
eran service in the hall of the Capitol. This was the first
anniversary of our sailing from Old Sweden, and the op-
portunity was improved by the commissioner to speak words
of praise and encouragement.

All summer and fall new choppings opened out on every
hand ; the old clearings were rapidly enlarged ; shelters of
poles and bark gave way to comfortable timber houses ;
barns were built near the growing grain, and everywhere
trees were falling and buildings rising throughout the set-
tlement.

So many people flocking into the woods soon created a
demand for various trades and crafts. A variety store was
opened in August by a Swede, in a commodious timber
building near the center. A blacksmith, a shoemaker, a
tinman, and a tailor, set up shops near by, and were over-
run with business. A saw-mill was commenced at a good
water power on Beardsley brook, four miles from the cap-

POTJNDIlSrG OF I^EW SWEDEN. 49

itol, and on December first, was nearly completed. The
foundations for a grist-mill were also laid.

Quite a speculation in real estate arose. Several farms
changed hands at high figures, and one lot of only one
acre was sold for $50 cash. It was the corner lot next
south of the capitol, and was sold to build a store on.
This store has now been altered into a dwelling-house for
Pastor Wiren.

The crops grew rapidly. Wheat averaged five and rye
over six feet in height. One stalk of rye, which I meas-
ured myself, was seven feet and five inches tall. A man
stepping into any of our winter rye fields in August, dis-
appeared as completely from view as though he were lost
in the depths of the forest. Many heads of wheat and rye
were over eight inches in length. Harvest time came ear-
ly. Winter rye was ripe and cut by the middle of August ;
wheat, barley and oats early in September.

Crops were raised by thirty families. These arrived the
year before. The new comers could only clear the land of
its trees this first season. Of the thirty families, seven-
teen had built barns in which they stored their grain.
The crops of the others were securely stacked in the field,
and though the autumn was rainy, the harvest was unin-
jured.

As soon as the grain was dry a machine was obtained to
thresh it. Three thousand bushels of grain were threshed
out, of which twelve hundred were wheat, one thousand
barley, and the remainder principally rye and oats. Wheat
averaged twenty, and yielded up to twenty-five, and rye
averaged thirty-five and yielded up to forty-two bushels
to the acre. The season was late and wet, and much of
the wheat was nipped by the rust. In an ordinary year a
4

50 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

maximum yield of forty bushels of wheat to the acre has
been attained.

An unusually heavy frost the middle of September,
which prevailed throughout New England, killed the
potato tops and stopped all further growth of the potatoes,
diminishing the yield one-third. Three hundred bushels
to the acre of those earliest planted was nevertheless ob-
tained, and five thousand bushels of potatoes secured, be-
sides several hundred bushels of beets, turnips and other
roots.

On September 30, all those who had harvested a crop
were cut off from further receipt of state supplies. These
colonists became not only self supporting, but delivered
to the state, in part payment of their indebtedness, five
hundred bushels of potatoes, which were sold to the later
arrived immigrants.

On November 15, state aid was also cut off from every
immigrant of this year who had not wife or children with
him. For all such, work for the winter was provided
among the farmers, in the lumber woods, at the tanneries,
quarries, or railroads.

A free public school was opened in the hall of the capi-
tol, November 13, 1871. Pastor Wiren was teacher. He
had acquired our language during a four years' residence
in the west. There were seventy-seven scholars. The
chief study was the English language. To learn to read,
write, and speak English was of more importance than all
else. Pastor Wiren also opened an evening English school
for adults.

Divine service continued to be held in the public hall
both forenoon and afternoon, every Sunday throughout
the year; and the Swedish Sunday-school kept up its

FOUNDIlSrG OF NEW SWEDEN. 51

weekly meetings without the omission of a single Sunday.
The attendance on these religious exercises was almost
universal.

As soon as the earth could be made to produce grass or
fodder, the Swedes began to provide themselves with cat-
tle, horses, sheep, and swine.

They bought, however, no faster than they could pay.
If a Swede could not afford a span of horses, he bought
only one ; if he could not afford a horse, he provided him-
self with an ox ; if an ox was beyond his purse, he got a
steer, and if a steer was more than he could afford, he
placed a home-made harness on his only cow, and worked
around with her till he could do better.

Americans driving in laughed at these nondescript
teams, but all the while the Swedes were teaching us a
lesson — to live within our means.

On Thursday, September 5, Bishop Neely visited New
Sweden and conducted religious services in the public hall.

On Tuesday, September 26, Hon. Sidney Perham, Gov-
ernor of Maine, and Hon. P. P. Burleigh, land agent, ac-
companied by friends, made an official visit to the colon3^
The Swedes, to the number of four hundred, met at the
capitol, and gave the official party a warm reception. The
commissioner, in behalf of the colony, delivered an ad-
dress of welcome, to which Governor Perham eloquently
replied. Swedish songs were sung, speeches made, and
every Swede shook hands with the Governor. A collation
was then served in the store-room of the capitol, and in
the afternoon, the roads, buildings and farms of the Swedes
were inspected by the Governor and land agent, who ex-
pressed themselves highly gratified with the progress of
the colony.

52 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

One great cause of the rapid success of this colony has
been the active help the Swedish women have rendered
their husbands. Ever}^ Swedish wife was indeed a help-
mate. She not only did all the house work, but helped
her husband in the clearings amid the blackened stumps
and logs. Many of the Swedes cut their logs into lengths
for piling with cross-cut saws. Whenever this was the
case, you would see that the Swedish wife had hold of 'one
end of the saw ; and she did her half of the work too.

Once ridino- out of the woods, I met one of our Swedish
women walking in with a heavy sack on her back. As she
passed, I noticed a commotion inside the sack.

" What have you got in there ? said I.

"Four nice pigs," she replied.

" Where did you get them ? "

" Down river, two miles beyond Caribou."

Two miles beyond Caribou was ten miles from New
Sweden. So this good wife had walked twenty miles ; ten
miles out and ten miles home, with four pigs on her back,
smiling all the way, to think what nice pigs they were.

Another wife, when her husband was sick, with her own
hands, felled some cedar trees, sawed them up into butts,
and rifted out and shaved these butts into shingles, one
bunch of which she carried three miles through the woods
on her back, to barter it at the corner store here for neces-
saries for her husband.

By such toil was this wilderness settled.

This Swedish immigration enterprise advertised Maine
throughout the union, and called public attention to our
wild lands and new settlements. The files of the land of-
fice show that in addition to the Swedish immigration,
American immigration upon our wild lands increased in
1871, more than 300 per cent.

rOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 53

One special instance among many may be given of the
outside effect of New Sweden. Mr. Alba Holmes was in-
duced to visit Aroostook county by reading a newspaper
notice of New Sweden. He put in operation the first po-
tato starch factory in Aroostook, at Caribou. These fac-
tories quickly increased ; there are now twenty-two in the
county, which consume 3,000,000 bushels of potatoes a
year, and the manufacture of potato starch has become
one of the leading industries of Aroostook.

As illustrating how favorably the New Sweden of Maine,
is regarded by the old country, from which it sprung, I
call attention to the following admirable letter, written to
the Governor of Maine, by S. A. Hedlund of Gothenburg,
Sweden. Mr. Hedlund is editor of a prominent Swedish
newspaper, a member of the Swedish parliament, and
one of the first writers and thinkers of Sweden.

To the Honorable Giovernor of the State of Maine :

Sir, — You must not wonder, sir, that a Swedish patriot
cannot regard without feelings of sadness the exodus of
emigrants, that are going to seek a better existence in the
great republic of North America, leaving the homes of
their ancestors, and giving their fatherland only a smiling
farewell. It will not surprise you, sir, that this must be a
very melancholy sight to the mind of the Swedes, and that
it must become yet more so on the thought that many of
these emigrants are meeting destinies far different from
the glowing prospects that were held forth to their hope-
ful eyes. Not only Sweden will lose her children, but
they will be lost to themselves in the distant new field.

The sons and daughters of old Sweden, will they main-
tain, among your great nation their national character ?

54 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

Will they retain, at least, some remembrance of tlieir na-
tive land?

We know well, sir, that every nationality, strong as it
may be, will be gradually amalgamated in the new, com-
mon, all-absorbing nationality of the new world, and it
would certainly not be of any advantage, either to Amer-
ica or to civilization, if the different nationalities of Europe
were to continue their individual life, with their peculiari-
ties and enmities, on the soil of their adopted country.
We regard it, on the contrary, as a special mission of
America to absorb and amalgamate all these different Eu-
ropean elements.

But, sir, will they lose also, these American immigrants,
the remembrance of their fatherland ? Must the Swedish
inhabitors of your country necessarily forget the language
and customs of their ancestors ? Will they forget the
struggles and victories of their native land, its good times
and hard times ? Will they forget the mother who has
borne her children with heavy and self-denying sacrifices,
and will they have no feelings left for her love and regret ?

No, sir, they will not do so, and the great people of
America will not require it. You have not received the
children of Sweden as outcasts, who will be adopted into
the new family only at the price of denying their father
and mother. On the contrary, sir, you have given a spec-
ial impulse to the Swedes, whom you have invited to col-
onize your state, to hold their native land in honor and re-
membrance, by giving the new colony, founded in the
northern part of your state, the name of "New Sweden; "
you have given them also, in Swedish books, opportunity
for recalling their fatherland.

Your commissioner, Mr. W. W. Thomas jr., one evening

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 55

last Slimmer, assembled his little colony of immigrants to
partake of a collation, where good wishes and kind words
were exchanged. We, the remaining friends, left with
confidence our brethren and sisters in his care ; his last
and firm assurance was, "All that has been promised will
be kept."

Yes, sir, these promises have been kept ; but not only
that, they have been far surpassed by your generosity.
The poor immigrants, landing on your shores, have been
received and greeted with the most friendly welcome.
Their homes established, their future secured, they have
not been disappointed in their hopes by the difficulties and
grievances of the real state of things.

The young colony will probably be the nucleus of an ex-
tended colonization, and you will not, sir, I feel sure, find
the hardy Swedes ungrateful and unworthy of your kind-
ness ; they would then, surely, be unworthy of their origin.

The colony of " New Sweden " has requested and au-
thorized the writer of this letter to convey to you, Honor-
able Governor of the State of Maine, the expression of
their sentiments of deep gratitude, and you will kindly al-
low me, sir, to add thereto, the expression of the same sen-
timents of many other Swedes, who have followed the im-
migrants with sympathies.

Allow me, at the same time, to express to the people of
Maine, who have received their new brethren with so much
cordialty, the thanks of the colonists, who have mentioned
more especially two gentlemen, Mr. W. W. Thomas jr.,
and Mr. P. P. Burleigh, land agent, as objects of their
gratitude and high esteem.

May the young colony of " New Sweden " grow and
flourish, not only in material strength, but even in devel-

56 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

oping their moral and intellectual faculties. And may the
new population thus add to your state and to your great
republic a good and healthy element of moral power from
the old world, and, becoming imbued with the spirit of
your free institutions, reflect that spirit on their native
land I

What we have lost, at present, in the old fatherland, will
then not have been lost to humanity ; on the contrary, the
trees have only been transplanted on a fresher soil, where
they will thrive better and give richer and more abundant
fruits. God bless the harvest ! God bless your land !

I am, sir, with the highest esteem,

Your obedient servant,

G. A. Hedlund,

Chief Editor of Gothenburg Shipping and Mercantile Gazette.
Gothenburg, March 25, 1871.

In January, 1872, a weekly newspaper, " The North
Star," was started at Caribou. Every issue of this paper
contained one column, printed in the Swedish language.
This column was edited by Mr. E. Winberg, one of our
Swedish immigrants, and was extensively read in New
Sweden.

This was the first paper, or portion of a paper ever pub-
lished in a Scandinavian language in New England, al-
though the Scandinavians sailed along our coast, and built
temporary settlements on our shores, five hundred years
before Columbus discovered the islands of our continent.

The examination of the first common school, took place
March 15, 1872, after a session of four mouths. The
scholars had made wonderful progress in learning our lan-
guage. Many could speak and read English well, and

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 57

some had made considerable advance in writing. These
school privileges were highly prized. Some of the schol-
ars came to school five miles through the woods, slipping
over the snow on sJcidor — Swedish snow shoes.

Two steam mills were erected and put in operation in
the spring of 1872. A large quantity of shingles and
some boards were sawed. These mills, however, were an
unprofitable investment for their owners.

The Swedes early became experts in manufacturing
shaved shingles by hand. It was soon admitted by Aroos-
took traders that the Swedish shingles were the best made
in the county. Shopping in New Sweden was almost exclu-
sively barter. Bunches of shaved shingles were the curren-
cy which the Swedes carried to the stores of the American
traders, and with which they bought their goods.

The last mile of our main road was turnpiked in 1872,
giving the colony a good turnpike to Caribou. Branch
roads were improved.

In the matter of government. New Sweden presented
an anomaly. It was an unorganized township, occu-
pied by foreigners, furthermore, no legal organization could
be effected for years, for there was not an American citi-
zen resident in the township, through whom the first step
toward organization could be taken. The first two years
of the colony the commissioner found time to personally
settle all disputes between the colonists, organize the labor
on roads and buildings, and arrange all matters of general
concern.

As the colony increased, it became impossible for one
man to attend to all the details of this work. A commit-
tee of ten was therefore instituted to assist the commis-
sioner. Nine of this committee were elected by the colo-

58 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

nists, the Pastor was the tenth, ex officio. Three went out
of office every six months, and their places were filled at a
general election. New Sweden was also divided into nine
highway districts, and each one of this committee had
charge of the roads in his own district. This decemvirate
satisfactorily managed all the municipal affairs of the col-
ony, until New Sweden was legally organized into a plan-
tation.

Many and strange were the experiences of life in these
woods.

One evening Svensson came running up to my office in
the capitol, crying out, "My daughter is lost."

His daughter Selma was a little girl, twelve years old,
well known and loved in the colony.

He had taken her with him in the morning to a new
chopping, where he was at work, three miles into the woods
toward the Madawaska river. At noon he had sent her to
a woodland spring to draw water for their dinner, but slie
did not return. Becoming alarmed, he hurried to the
spring. There were the tracks of her feet in the moist
earth, but the girl was nowhere to be seen. He hallooed
and received no answer, and then searched the woods in
vain till night-fall.

I at once sent out a messenger on each road in the town-
ship, warning the men to meet at the capitol next morning
at sunrise. Over fifty came, bringing with them all the
dogs and all the guns in the colony. We followed Svensson
to his clearing, formed a line north and south along the
Madawaska road, and at a signal, advanced into the woods,
moving west. Each man was to keep in line with and in
sight of his next neighbor. Thus the men advanced
through the forest for hours, shouting and firing guns.
But there came no answer.

FOUNDING OF NEAY SWEDEN. 69

At noon two guns were fired in qnick succession. This
was the preconcerted signal. The girl was found. She
was standing in the bottom of a dense cedar swamp, on all
sides the trunks of fallen trees were piled up in inextri-
cable confusion. How the child ever got in there was a
mj-stery. She still held the pail, half full of water, in
her hand. But she had clasped the bail so tightly in her
terror, that her finger nails had cut into the palm of her
hand, and blood was dripping from her fingers into the wa-
ter in the pail.

" Why, where have you been ? " joyfully asked the
Swedes.

" I don't know," she murmured in a broken voice.
" What have you been doing ? "
" I don't know."

" Where did you pass the night ? "

" There hasn't been any night," she cried with a wild
glare. She was mad. The terrors of that long night
alone in the woods had taken away her reason. She was
taken home, tenderly nursed, and after a period of sick-
ness, was fully restored to health of mind and body. She
then said, that she went to the spring, filled her pail with
water, and was just starting back through the woods, when
suddenly she saw in the path before her, a bear and a cub.
She turned and ran for life. When she dared to look
around, she found the bear was not following her. She
then tried to walk around to the clearing, where her father
was. She kept on and on, crying for her father, till it
grew dark, then she recollected no more.

The government of the United States recognized this
colony at an early day, by establishing a post-office here,
and appointing Capt. N. P. Clas^ post-master. The road

60 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

to Caribou was subsequently made a post route, and week-
ly paid postal service commenced July 1, 1873. Sven S.
Landin, one of the colonists, was mail carrier, although,
when pressed with work on his farm, his wife not unfre-
quently walked with the mail to Caribou and back again,
a distance of sixteen and a half miles.

On October 14, 1873, Ransom Norton Esq., clerk of
courts for Aroostook county, visited the colony for the
purpose of affording the Swedes an opportunity of taking
the first step toward naturalization. On that day one
hundred and thirty-three men came forward and publicly
renounced all allegiance to the " King of Sweden and Nor-
way, the Goths and the Vandals," and declared their in-
tention of becoming American citizens.

In the fall of 1873, the condition of the colou}^ was
excellent. The little settlement of fifty had increased
to six hundred, and outside of New Sweden there were
as many more Swedes located in our state, drawn to
us by our Swedish colony. The settlement of New Swe-
den had outgrown the township of that name and spread
over the adjoining sections of Woodland, Caribou and
Perham. The trees on 2200 acres had been felled. 1500
acres of this were cleared in a thorough and superior man-
ner, of which 400 acres were laid down to grass.

The crops had promised abundance, but an untimely
frost that followed the great gale of August 27, pinched
the late grain and nipped the potatoes. Still a fair crop
was harvested. 130 houses, and nearly as many barns
and hovels had been built. The colonists owned 22 horses,
14 oxen, 100 cows, 40 calves, 33 sheep and 125 swine.
. The schools were in a flourishing condition. Such an
advance had been made in English, that most of the chil-

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 61

clren above ten years of age, could read and write our lan-
guage tolerably, and speak it well. An American visiting
the colony had no need of an interpreter, for every child
that talked at all, could speak English.

Your historian then felt that all the conditions of the
plan on which this experiment was made, had been fulfill-
ed. The colony had been recruited in Sweden, transplant-
ed to Maine, fast rooted in our soil, and made self-sustain-
ing. The experiment was an experiment no longer. New
Sweden was successfully founded, the stream of Swedish
immigration was successfully started. The infant colony
was now strong enough to go alone.

On Sunday forenoon, October 19, 1873, the commission-
er of immigration met the Swedes at the capitol. Nearly
the whole colony, men, women and children were there.
The commissioner recounted the history of the colony,
since the first adventurous little band had met together m
old Sweden, spoke such words of friendly counsel as the
occasion suggested and justified, and then took leave of the
colony he had recruited in the Old World and founded

in the New.

In his annual report, at the close of 1873, the commis-
sioner recommended that all special state aid to New
Sweden should cease. He further took pleasure in recom-
mending that the oihce he held be abolished, since the ac-
complishment of the undertaking rendered the ofdce no
longer necessary ; and thus laid down the work, which for
four years had occupied the better portion of his life and

endeavor. • g«o

One thousand years ago the great Scandinavian Sea-
King Rollo sailed out from the Northland with a fleet of
viking ships.

62 DECENNIAL CELEBEATIOK.

Landing on the coast of France, he subjugated one of
her fairest provinces. Here the Northmen settled, and
from them the province is called to this day Normandy.

Eight hundred years later the descendants of these
Northmen, speaking French, sailed from Normandy to
this continent and settled Acadia. When driven from
their homes by the British fleet, a detachment of Acadians
came up the St. John river and settled on the interval,
where now stands the city of Fredericton.

Expelled from their homes a second time by the English,
they followed up the St. John to Grand Falls.

British ships cannot sail up these falls, said they, so
nearly a hundred years ago they built their cottages along
the fertile valley of the upper St. John, some twenty miles
north of New Sweden. There to-day dwell thousands of
Acadian French.

Ten years ago, a little company of Swedes sailed forth
from the same Scandinavia, whence issued RoUo and his
vikings, and settled New Sweden.

So these two branches of Scandinavian stock, separated
in the ninth century, are now brought together again after
the lapse of a thousand years, and dwell side by side in
the woods of Maine.

Early in March, 1876, some thirty of the first comers in
the colony were naturalized by the Supreme Court sitting
in Houlton, and on April 6, 1876, New Sweden was legally
organized into a plantation. An election was held, and
officers chosen the same day. The following were the first
officers of the plantation of New Sweden :
Nils Olsson, -v

Gabriel Gabeielson, ( Assessors.

Pehr O. Juhlen, )

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 63

Carl J. Toenqvist, Clerk.
Truls Persson, Treas., Collector and Constable.
John Boegeson, \

John P. Jacobsson, ( School Committee,

Pettee Petteesson, )

In the spring of 1878, the foundations of this, the first
church in the colony were laid.

In September, 1878, the Editorial Association of Maine
visited the colony. The brethren of the quill penetrated
everywhere and interviewed everybody. A meeting was
held in the hall of the capitol, and the editors, without
distinction of party or creed, were outspoken in their
praise of the Swedes and the work they had accomplished.
At the September election in 1879, New Sweden cast 80

votes.

Our Swedish colony by no means represents the total
Scandinavian immigration to Maine, during the last dec-
ade. All over our state may be found Swedes who have
been attracted to us, and are still held within our borders
by the influence of New Sweden. For this Swedish com-
munity, with its Swedish customs, its Swedish church and
its Swedish pastor, is looked upon as a home by every
Swede in Maine.

Some of our Swedish immigrants who came to us in in-
dependent circumstances, purchased improved farms, on
which they are now settled, in Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield,
Limestone, Maysville and other towns. Many Swedes are
at work in the great tanneries of Penobscot and the quar-
ries of Piscataquis counties, in the mills and lumber woods
of the Penobscot and the Aroostook, and on the farms of
Cumberland and York.

A considerable number of the young men are employed

64 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

in the stores and workshops of Portland, Bangor, Houlton,
Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield, Caribou and otlier cities and
villages, while the young women furnish needed and valu-
able help in our families in all sections of Maine.

Everywhere the Swedes have proved themselves to be
intelligent, trustworthy workers, and everywhere they are
praised and prized by their employers.

From the day of her founding, to this hour, New Swe-
den has continued to grow and thrive. She has never
taken a step backward, she has never made a halt in her
progress.

The colony of New Sweden soon outgrew the township
of that name, and extended over the adjacent portions of
the adjoining tov\^ns. The colony now occupies the whole
of New Sweden plantation, the northerly half of Wood-
land and a corner of both Caribou and Perham. But
though situated on four townships, the colony is compact,
and the territory occupied by it forms one solid block of
about 35,000 acres in extent.

The following statistics embrace the entire colony :

Maine's Swedish colony to-day

Has a population of 787 Swedes, divided as follows :

New Sweden plantation, 517

Woodland, .-....-- 210

Caribou, -- 36

Perham, 24

Total, 787

More than fifteenfold the little band of pilgrims that
entered these woods ten years ago to-day.

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 65

An increase of 1474 per cent in a single decade. Can
tliis be equalled by any town in New England ?

MARRIAGES, BIRTHS AND DEATHS.

There have occurred 27 marriages, 216 births, and 65
deaths. The births exceed the deaths in the ratio of
3.32 to 1. This alone proves the vigor of the Swedish
race and the healthfulness of the climate of northern
Maine.

CLEARINGS.

The area of land cleared on each lot in the colony va-
ries with the strength, skill and circumstances of the set-
tlers, and the length of time since their arrival. The first
colonists have of course, larger " felled pieces " on their
lots than the later comers ; and the few, who were for-
tunate enough to bring with them the means of hiring
help, have made more rapid progress in clearing their
farms of the forest, than the great majority who have been
compelled to rely exclusively on the labor of their own
hands. Scarcely any of the Swedes, however, have cleared
less than 15 acres, most have cleared from 20 to 40 acres,
some from 40 to 50, while a few are the happy owners of
over 50 acres of cleared land. One farm in the colony,
with a clearing of 50 acres, and good buildings thereon,
was sold for $2000 to a newly arrived immigrant.

The Swedes have cleared their land in a superior man-
ner, all the old soggy logs being unearthed, smaller stumps
uprooted, and the larger knolls levelled. In many of the
earlier clearings, the stumps have been entirely removed,
and the fields plowed as smoothly as in our oldest settle-
ments.

66 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

In the aggregate, these Swedes have cleared and put in-
to grass or crops, 4438 acres of land, that one decade ago
was covered with a gigantic forest.

BUILDINGS.

The colonists have erected the capitol, this church,
5 school-houses, 3 mills, 163 dwelling-houses and 151 barns ;
324 buildings in all.

ROADS.

They have built 11 miles of excellent turnpike road,
and grubbed out and put in passable condition, 31i miles
additional, making a total of 42^ miles of road built in
the settlement.

LIVE STOCK.

The Swedish settlers now own 164 horses. They also
possess 92 working oxen, 283 milch cows, and 282 other
cattle ; in all 657 head of cattle.

They have 309 sheep and 221 lambs ; total, 530 — and
175 swine ; while the little flock of 4 hens brought in the
first year has been so rapidly added to, that the Swedes
can reckon up to-day the goodly number of 1920 poultry.

DAIRY.

In 1879, the dairy product of the colony amounted to
13,604 pounds of butter and 2,000 pounds of cheese ; or in
other words, 1 ton of cheese and nearly 7 tons of butter.

WOOL.

The colonists clipped 309 fleeces, which weighed 1,393

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 67

pounds. This was largely carded, si^un and woven at their
own homes, and for their own use. *

EGGS.

The egg product of 1879 amounted to 9,715 dozen of
eggs.

CROPS.

In 1879, the Swedes cut and cured 982 tons of hay.
They harvested 1,364 bushels of wheat, 5,256 bushels of
rye, 2,861 bushels of buckwheat and 8,501 bushels of oats ;
making a total of 17,982 bushels of grain. They raised
also 25,007 bushels of potatoes, besides thousands of bush-
els of other roots.

VALUES.

The valuation of all the farms in the Swedish

colony is $ 99,350

Value of farming implements and machinery - 6,998

Value of live stock 22,485

Total value of Swedish farms, tools and stock, $128,838

The value of the farm product of the entire colony for
1879, was 124,011.

And this was raised where not the worth of a dollar was
produced ten years ago.

These figures alone are eloquent. They speak for them-
selves. They tell the story of difficulties surmounted, of
results accomplished, of work well done. But, my friends,
those of you who have never lived in the backwoods, can
have no adequate conception of the vast labor and toil un-

68 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

clergone on this spot to create the results I have enumer-
ated, and which you see all around 3-0U. A settler's first
years in the woods are a continual fight, hand to hand with
savage nature, for existence. It is pleasant to look out upon
these broad fields waving with grain, but do we know, can
we calculate, how many blows of the axe, how many drops
of sweat have been expended in turning each one of these
4,400 acres of cleared land from foresr to farm ?

To-day, New Sweden gives an account of her steward-
ship, and shows you the results of ten years' hard work —
results achieved by the never flagging industry, the rigid
economy, the virtue, faith and hope of our Swedish breth-
ren.

To you American visitors — to the State of Maine, these
Swedes may proudly say, " Si monumentum requieris, cir-
cumspicey New Sweden stands to-day a monument of
what cai;i be accomplished on a wilderness township of
Maine, by strong arms and brave hearts in the short space
of ten years. And all this is but seed well sown, the har-
vest is in the future.

The great obstacle to the growth of New Sweden is the
fact that the state no longer owns our wild lands. In
large part, she has squandered them, and the private own-
ers into whose hands they have fallen are, for the most
part, rigidly opposed to the settlement of their timber
townships. Had the state continued to own its lands, the
neighboring townships to the north and west of us would
have been settled by Swedes before this, and Aroostook
county alone, would to-day, number more than 3,000
Swedes.

But the lands are here ; the colony is here ; the Swedes
are coming, and the tide of immigration cannot be turned

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 69

back. The first hard years of this colony's life are now
over. The work of the decade has placed New Sweden
upon vantage-ground. Henceforward, not only its suc-
cess, but its happiness and comfort are assured. The past
is secure, the future is plain.

This Swedish colony will go on and accomplish its mis-
sion. It will push out into these forests and convert tract
after tract of our wilderness, into well tilled farms and
thriving villages. It will continue to draw to all sections
of our state the best class of immigrants — the countrymen
of John Eriksson, and the descendants of the vikings,
and the soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus — and through-
out the future, it will confer upon Maine those numerous
and important advantages, which a steadily growing in-
dustrial population is sure to bestow upon a common-
wealth.

The oration occupied over two hours in its deliver}^ yet
it was listened to by both Swedesand Americans, with un-
abated interest throughout, and frequently interrupted
with applause.

At its conclusion, a hymn was sung by the Swedish
choir.

Mr. Thomas then said, — It is our good fortune to
have with us to-day, one who has achieved renown,
both as a scholar and a soldier, the man who occupied
the gubernatorial chair of Maine, when this colony was
founded, the constant and chivalric friend of this enter-
prise from its inception ; one, who in fact, stood by and
rocked the cradle of New Sweden, the gallant General
Chamberlain.

70 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

The general was warmly greeted as lie advanced to the
pulpit, and spoke as follows :

ADDRESS OF GEN. JOSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN.

Members and friends of the colony of Neiv Sivedeii^ — The
figure of speech under which it has pleased our friend
to introduce me, you must take for pleasantry and not
history. I don't know exactly what his meaning is.
But surely we may be thankful that so many Swedish
cradles have been rocked ; and I almost wonder that my
good friend himself has not done something better in that
way than he has !

But his figure of speech, however intended, has brought
some agreeable and some amusing thoughts to my mind.
It may be known to some here, that I happened to be Gov-
ernor at the time the enterprise of establishing a Swedish
colony in Maine, was brought forward. It is not perhaps
any better known, that the measure was not carried
through without some opposition.

I cannot justly claim the gentle office of nurse, so gra-
ciously apportioned to me. While this enterprise was be-
ing matured, I was not sitting in-doors with spectacles and
knitting, cradle-rocking ; I was outside, taking another
kind of " rocks."

Some gentlemen and some papers were pretty soundly
abusing me for recommending the measure to the Legisla-
ture, whom I now see with pleasure arraying themselves
as first and foremost champions of the cause. It puts me
in good humor, too, to be thought worthy of this good
company to-day. Some were surprised: "What, are you
going with us ! " exclaimed one of the honored officials on

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 7^1

his way to mingle his triumphs with youi^s, as I joined the
party on the train.

I rather thought I was going; for, friends, I was not
going to have my rights of citizenship taken away just
when yours were being conferred. So I am here with " us."
But, pleasantry aside, whoever may have been nurse or
godfather of the enterprise now so happily betokened
here, the thought of Swedish immigration to Maine had
no novel nor narrow birth. Many thoughtful citizens had
lono- revolved in mind the question why Scandinavian mi-
mig^ration in America should leap so far beyond the sea-
board, and settle down in so distant regions of the coun-
try; and one of my predecessors in ofdce, a man of pat-
riotic and sagacious mind, had brought the subject for-
mally to the attention of the state.

But in the eventful years which followed, the matter
was passed over, and was well-nigh forgotten. I can only
claim to be guardian of the thought. It was at the close
of a bloody and costly civil war that this matter engaged
my attention. Twenty-five thousand of the strength of
our youth that went forth to the country's defence, had
perished in the conflict. There were broken ranks all over
our state-vacant chairs, desolate homes, neglected fields
wide and rich lands with none to occupy; many too, ot
our native-born people were carried elsewhere by the cur
rents of business and trade. Inducements offered to ou
own people were insufficient to draw them to these fert^^^^^^
and beautiful lands. The harvest seemed plenteous, but

";:rr:^ngsthethoughtrecurred.brh^
here the friends from over sea, _ who, bemg of k^r wo^d
mingle kindly with us in working and livmg. We had

.72 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

ready here, and made welcome, people of the Celtic race,
the French and the Irish, to give vivacity and fervor to
our social character. Now we thought to bring a people
nearer yet of kin.

We have a saying, " Blood is thicker than water." You
may have something like it in Swedish. It means, kinship
is a strong, natural bond. So we sought our cousins from
over sea to fill the place of our sons. The water was not
so wide but that the blood should bring us together.

For we are of one blood, friends, and but little removed
from each other in traits and temper, though you have •
kept nearer to the original stock. The same may be said
of language. Of our two forms of speech the soul is the
same and the features too, if not the flesh. Word answer-
ing to word, as the face of a friend. Habits of life and
work are alike with us. You have the snows and the
forests, the fields and the rivers, the lakes and the sea.
What you know well how to do, you can do here. What-
ever we do that is well, 5^ou can do.

In ideas and sympathies also our minds flow in one
stream. You comprehend our principles, your hearts beat
toward the same ideal ends, you enter naturally into our
institutions, and take hold with us heartily in carrying
forward all noble works which it is man's duty and glory
on earth to achieve.

Thoughts like these, running on before, drew us to
you, and I trust drew you to us.

Happily, and indeed as a singular good omen, we were
able to avail ourselves of the rare qualifications and indis-
pensable services of my good friend whom you call
" Consul Thomas," putting more affection into that word, I
know, than it has often borne before, — who had just come

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 73

home from you, full of heart aud full of vigor, and who
from the first moment until now has given both to this en-
terprise now so worthily crowned.

He was a good man to send for you. I don't wonder
that you followed him and that you love him. Why, he
looks like a Swede ! I leave it to you if he does not. The
very breezes that stir the tree-tops of Norrland seem to
play across his features as he smiles back upon you now.

I know him for a viking too, sweeping our coast with
his foragers and his gleemen. He must be a Scandinavi-
an. His honored father beside him here knows more about
it than I do — descended, it is easy to see, from I know not
what sea-king or king of men !

But another man I must not pass by, — and must even
name him, as he is not here, — who you must grant me was
a good man to meet you. I mean Mr. Burleigh, — as good
an American as Mr. Thomas is Swede, — a man of firm
mold, who, when he has set his hand to a thing does not
go back till it is done.

And here you are now, settled and firm in your new
home ! I rejoice with you in it. You have brought with
you what makes home and makes for heaven — these
women, honored and blessed in both lands and bringing
honor and blessing now to this. You have brought what
makes a community and a people strong. With your
workers, and of them indeed, you have your pastor, your
teacher, your magistrate, your soldier. For I took notice
of that too, as I am bound and prone to do. Your young
soldiers here, with their leader, who has the born soldier
in him, they speak of serious things, of needful things
sometimes. God grant we be not called to that lesson too
soon again !

74 DECEKNIAL CELEBRATIOX.

As I speak I catch sight of those two flags by the en-
trance which the winds now set waving, and in the vista
they seem to wreathe and blend together, the Swedish and
the American flags, that were never set against each other
in mortal strife, and which now bringing here all their
rich and stirring historic associations, smile on us with
peace and good-will to men.

We welcome your flag, your history and yourselves. It
will do us good to take into the life-blood of the Republic
something of the spirit of Gustaf Vasa, Gustavus Adol-
phus, Charles the XII, and Oxenstjerna and Ericsson, and
the sweetness of Tegn^r and Jenny Lind.

And it will do you good to come here where you can
work out freely your best work and your best thought.
Hereafter we are one. All that is ours is yours. All that
is open to us of light and liberty and truth, and the tri-
umph of right ; all that is noble in duty, and high in station,
and great in achievement, is open to you.

Your children and our children shall walk that onward,
upward way together, now, henceforth, forever.

And so again I bid you greeting and good-bye.

Gen. Chamberlain's admirable remarks were received
with profound attention.

At their close, the president said, — While Gen. Chamber-
lain, in the executive chamber, by his model state papers
and efficient action, rocked one side of the cradle of New
Sweden, there was another man, who, standing up in the
house of representatives, by his eloquent speech, rocked the
other side of this Swedish cradle. That man is Col. James
M. Stone, of Kennebunk, whom I now introduce to you.

Col. Stone spoke as follows :

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. '^^

ADDRESS OF COL. JA^IES M. STONE, OF KENNEBUNK.

3fr. Chairman,— This decennial celebration, here in the
woods of northern Aroostook to-day, vividly recalls to
my mind, the inception of this grand enterprise, by the
action of the legislature of our state, in the year 1870.
It wa^ my friend Mr. Thomas, who has jnst now so elo-
qnently addressed us, who first, in a private conversa-
tion, called my attention to the subject of Scandinavian
immigration into the state; and I well remember the
interest which the presentation of that subject awaken-
ed in me. It was at a time of great commercial and
financial depression. Many of our leading citizens, I
well remember, were leaving the state, and turning their
faces and footsteps toward the virgin lands of the
west. Something I felt should be done, or attempted, it
possible, if not to arrest this western movement, at least
to counter-balance it; and I promised my friend, as a mem-
ber of the house, that I would carefully consider the sub-
ject. I knew too, that this measure had been most earn-
estly and ably urged uponthe state, by both Gov. Wash-
burn and Gen. Chamberlain.

A committee on Scandinavian immigration was appomt-
ed by the legislature of that year, of which I had the hon-
or to be appointed chairman on the part of the hoase.
The subject was very carefully and fully investigated by
that committee, and a bill in favor of the measure reported,
which it devolved on me to present and support.

The first thing, sir, for one to do who would satisfy oth-
ers by speech, is to convince himself. This I ---- ^^ -
doing, and it was for this reason, I suppose, that I satisfied

the house. , . . ^ £^^

For without egotism, I think I may claim this much for

76 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

myself. Indeed, 1 doubt if there were in both branches of
the legislature, a dozen members, who were in favor of the
measure when it was first presented for discussion. Many
of the leading members were, I know, opposed to it. The
bill proposed a new policy for the state, in relation to the
public lands, if the course hitherto pursued can be called a
policy, that of preserving them for settlement, and of at-
tempting to induce immigrants to occupy them. We had
been giving these lands away in the past, with a lavish
hand, both to individuals and to corporations, and in the
year 1864, we had given to a single railroad corporation,
735,943 acres of land, at once, and without discussion or a
division of the house — almost territory enough across the
water to constitute a empire.

It was for the interest of private parties and of corpo-
rations holding these lands, to preserve them as they were
for wood and timber, and thus withhold them from settle-
ment ; it was for the interest of the state to open them to
immigrants. There was thus opposed in interest to this
measure, not only many individuals and corporations hold-
ing wood and timber lands in the state, but also, all that
class of men who were casting their eager and expectant
eyes on what yet remained, as well as the many every-
where to be found, slow to learn and believe in anything
new.

And yet, sir, so strong were the reasons in favor of this
measure, that when the discussion was finished, there were
but three votes in the house, I think, in opposition to it.
I shall not detain you by attempting to recapitulate the
results already accomplished in a single decade. What I
saw, nay, much more than what I saw, by the eye of faith,
and afar off, is before me in these woods of northern Maine

FOUNDING OF NE"S\' SWEDEN. 77

to-day. I can only say that I am most happy to be pres-
ent here, and to participate in these festivities, and to wit-
ness and wonder at this developement and this prosperity ;
that I reflect with pleasure on the humble part I bore in
the inception of this enterprise ; that I most heartily con-
gratulate the state, not only on the results already accom-
plished, but also, on the larger promise of ampler and more
glorious fruitage in the future.

Music by the band followed.

The president said, — There is an honored gentleman pres-
ent, whom I would point out to the Swedish lads as an ex-
ample of what they may become by courage and industry,
one who, by his own strong arm and stout heart has worked
his way up from a farmer's boy to the Vice-presidency of
this great Republic — the Hon. Hannibal Hamlin.

Mr. Hamlin said :

ADDRESS OF HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN, UNITED
STATES SENATOR.

I have come up here, Mr. Chairman, to testify by my
presence the interest I feel, and have always felt, in this
colony.

More than two hundred years ago Deane Swift said that
he is a public benefactor who makes two blades of grass
grow where but one grew before. But what praise shall
be awarded to him who enters the unbroken forests and
makes fields smile with beauty, creating wealth, which,
but for his hands, would never have existed.

Every inhabitant of the state is worth one thousand
dollars to the commonwealth in the value of his produc-

I

78 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

tions, and each of you who are subduing the forest is
"vyorth more than that to jNIaine.

We welcome you, not only as tillers of the soil, but we
invite you, as friends and as equals, to a participation with
us in our system of government.

Undoubtedly, geograjjliical position and climate have
much to do in forming the character of a people. Moun-
tainous countries produce heroes ; where the mountains
point to heaven, there the lovers of freedom have alwaj^s
dwelt.

The men of Northern Europe are braver and more
hardy than those born under the smiling sky of Italy. For
a thousand years the Scandinavians have a noble history,
and we knew that in the Scandinavian peninsula we should
find a people who would more readily assimilate with our
institutions than the citizens of sunnier climes.

The countrymen of St. Olaf, Gustavus Adolphus and
Charles XII, have much in common with the countrymen
of Washington, and we invite you to partake with us of
our advantages. We hold out our arms and bid you
welcome to the broad acres of our beloved state.

The orator of the day has said you could drop down the
whole of Massachusetts and its people into the lap of
Aroostook, and you would hear no sign. I would qualify
that somewhat. I think that some of those nice Massa-
chusetts people, who believe in Immaculate Conception,
would grumble at nature, and find fault because they did
not have a hand in making the world.

My Swedish countrymen, when I see what has been
done by Scandinavian labor up here in this remote cor-
ner of my native state, I rejoice to welcome you.

I know, too, if ever a conflict arises here, that the land

f

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 79

of Charles XII will furnish its descendants for the defence
of liberty in the New World.

The eloquent speech of Senator Hamlin was loudly ap-
plauded.

The choir then sang " America,"

"My countiy 'tis of thee,
\ Sweet land of liberty."

It is the National air of Sweden as well as of the United
States. The audience all rose, and Swedes and Ameri-
cans, each in their own language, but to the same music,
sang their national anthem.

As the sweet volume of sound arose and floated out
over the summer fields, one could not but deeply realize
that God has made of one blood all nations of the earth.

Capt. Charles A. Boutelle was called upon to speak in
behalf of the Press of Maine.
Mr. Boutelle said :

ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN CHARLES A. BOUTELLE, EDITOR
OF THE BANGOR WHIG AND COURIER.
3Ir. Chairman and friends of New Sweden,— I am very
glad to be able to participate with you in this decennial
anniversary celebration of the foundation of your col-
ony, and have been much impressed by the interesting
exercises, and by the evidences of the intelligence,
thrift and progress of this community. As a journalist, it
has been my duty to take note of this public enterprise
from its inception, and it has also been a pleasure to offer

80 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

words of encouragement and cheer to those who were
seeking to build up happy homes on the virgin soil of
our state.

I am glad to see for myself, the success which has been
achieved, and to join in welcoming to the fraternity of fel-
low-citizenship, so industrious and excellent a people. The
state of Maine cannot regret that it invited to our shores
these worthy men and women who have made the wilder-
ness to blossom, and I congratulate them upon becoming
entitled to all the benefits and blessings of the freest and
best government on the earth.

Rev. Daniel Stickney, of Presque Isle, was then called
upon as the chronicler of New Sweden.

Mr. Stickney facetiously remarked that he never knew
Mr. Thomas to make but one mistake, and that was when
he called upon him to make a speech. So to save that
gentleman from mortification, he would respectfully de-
cline to utter a word.

At this point, the president, looking through the open
door-way, caught sight of Mr. Barker standing outside,
and called his name. Everyone inside the church and out
caught up the refrain, and shouted Barker, Barker.

There was no resisting such a tide of invitation, and
that gentleman pressed his way through the crowd up the
aisle to the pulpit, and said :

ADDRESS OF HON. LEWIS BARKER, OF THE
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.

I did not mean to speak here. It is not fair for your
chairman, Mr. Thomas, to ask me to speak here. My ov-

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 81

ercoat is on my back, my hat in one hand, my whip in the
other, my horse is at the door, and my wife is out there in
the carriage waiting for me. Is it fair to catch me this way ?

And yet, and yet, who can resist Thomas ? especially
amid these surroundings, which, but for him, had never
been.

And now, once on my feet, what shall I say fitting this
occasion.

One who was as dear to me as the ruddy drops of blood
which warm my heart once wrote :

" Had I this tough old world to rule,
My cannon, sword and mallet
Should be the dear old district school,
God's Bible and the ballot."

As I drove into this charming new town of yours to-day,
while every log-house, and barn and hovel indicated a
brave beginning in your municipal life, the one thing that
gladdened me above all signs of industry, economy and
material prosperity, was the little red school-house by the
roadside. When I saw that, I said to myself, " you are all
right up here in your little Scandinavia." It shew me
that you would easily melt into our New England civiliza-
tion— that you would be no measles in our blood. And
my thought was strengthened when I reached this humble
house of God, where the Bible lies open on the altar.

Free schools and the open Bible you have. Two of that
brother's agencies I have met here, and with these in ac-
tive play, I have no fears for the third — the ballot. Thank
God you are beginning to know the value of the ballot.
It is as holy as your Bible ; it is as sacred as a soldier's
grave.

6

82 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

Mr. Scandinavian, up here in your ultima thule, this
little piece of paper is the telephone which placed to your
lips shall speak your will at the national capitol.

And, should ignorance, or barbarism, or crime, ever
again attempt to dismember this republic, of which you
have now become a part, your military organization, which
I have seen to-day, shows that you will be ready to respond
to that brother's other suggestion,

" If Bible, ballot, and the school

Should fail me all in turn, then let
Me have, instead of rabble rule,

The EDUCATED BAYONET ! "

Especially if j^ou can have such a leader as he who
graces this occasion by his presence, our own blue-eyed
boy of the Penobscot, who, when the hour of peril came
to the Republic, left his college _halls, and led an intelli-
gent citizen soldiery through many a bloody field, till at
last, mid the whizzing of shot and the screaming of shell he
turned the tide of battle at " Little Round Top."

But we are not to have recourse to the bayonet while
we have a ballot free to all.

The doctrine of excluding any race or class from the
ballot is abhorrent to me. I have but one rule. Show
me the man that God did not make, and for whom Christ
did not die, and from him I will consent to take the ballot.

Armed with the ballot, the humblest man amongst you,
clad in his homespun, is the peer of our vice-president
you have heard to-day — the equal of the mightiest in the
land. It is the Magna Charta of your liberties.

So I bid you welcome to my native land. I give the

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN. 83

same welcome to all peoples and all nationalities. I invite
all to this splendid figlit of life, with equal chances for all.

" Equal voice in making laws;
Equal peers to try each cause;
Peasant's liomestead, mean and small,
Sacred as tlie monarch's hall!"

And now regretting only that my picture cannot hang

■ upon the walls of this church by the side of the portrait

of Mr. Thomas, and that my name cannot go down with

your history like his, I forgive him the wrong he has

done me, and bid you goodbye.

No report can do justice to the impromptu speech of
Mr. Barker. Its effect was electrical. It was received
with the greatest applause and enthusiasm. Several min-
utes elapsed before silence was restored.

Col. Frederic Robie was then called upon, and spoke in
substance as follows :

ADDRESS OF HON. FREDERIC ROBIE OF THE
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.

The lateness of the hour, after the completion of so sat-
isfactory a programme, which has already demonstrated
the importance and interest of this occasion, furnishes no
desire on my part to proceed, or perhaps inclination on the
part of this large audience to continue the exercises by
further remarks. I must say that I am delighted with
what I have seen, and exceedingly interested m what 1
have heard. The town of Gorham, where I was born and

84 DECENNIAL CELEBEATION.

now reside, one hundred and forty years ago was a fron-
tier town. The early written history of that town recalls
to my mind the privations and difficulties which then sur-
rounded the commencement and slow progress of a new
settlement. The dangers from the savage Indian, the fear
of famine, the entire absence of the church and school-
house, and in lieu thereof the fort, and the deprivation of
all of the substantial enjoyments of social and civil life,
were the experiences of our ancestors. What a contrast
when compared with the speedy development of this pros-
perous settlement — very little, if any progress was then
made during a period of ten years.

A like comparison of the settlement of this township
with the early days of any of the older towns in Maine,
furnishes an interesting lesson for our contemplation. The
result shows a marked difference in what can now be done
in ten years, in comparison with early times, as seen in
these neat and comfortable cottages, and the extended and
fertile clearings of New Sweden, now luxuriant with grain
and other farm productions. Such a comparison measures
the march of civilization. It seems to me that our early
ancestors should be particularly remembered on an occa-
sion like this, and as the descendants of a hardy and wor-
thy race of agricultural laborers, we especially welcome
to our state the honest Swede, the true representative of
that type of character which early gave the district of
Maine a name for virtue and intelligence. There must be
an end, and I feel that we are anxiously waiting for the
sound of the horn for dinner, but I cannot close without
thanking the distinguished orator of the day for his ap-
propriate and very interesting address, and this generous
people for their hospitable entertainment.

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN.

85

John Borgesoii, the first school supervisor of New Swe-
den, next returned the thanks of the Swedes for the pres-
ence and kind words of their American guests.

The exercises at the church then closed with music by
the band.

The line of march was now taken up to the capitol.

In the hall overhead a sumptuous collation was served
by the ladies of the colony.

Divine blessing was invoked, after the Swedish custom,
by a little girl nine years old, Elizabeth White Goddard
Thomas Clase, named for the mother of the founder
of the colony, and baptized in the presence of Gov.
Perham, on the occasion of his first visit to New Sweden

in 1871.

The tables were loaded down with good things, m the
greatest profusion, and every one was sumptuously en-
tertained.

Late in the afternoon, as the declining sun of this hap-
py day illumined with his level rays our little sanctuary
in the forest, the First Swedish Lutheran church of Mame
was dedicated, with appropriate ceremonies, to the service
of Almighty God.

The church is 30x40 feet on the ground, 20 feet stud,
with a steeple rising to the height of 80 feet. The inte-
rior of the church is prettily tinted and frescoed by a Swe-
dish painter. To the left of the pulpit, on a raised plat-
form, is an organ, the gift of Hon. William Widgery
Thomas senior, of Portland.

86 DECENNIAL CELEBRATION.

The church bell bears the following inscription written
by pastor Wiren :

PRESENTED

TO THE

FIRST SWEDISH EV. LUTH. CHURCH OF MAINE,

BY

WILLIAM W. THOMAS JR.,

THE FOUNDER OF NEW SWEDEN.

COLONY FOUNDED JULY 23, 1870,

CHURCH DEDICATED JULY 23, 1880.

More than three hundred and fifty years ago a sturdy
priest, Martin Luther, posted up ninety-five theses on the
doors of the church at Wittenberg.

To-day, founded on these very theses, a church is dedi-
cated, in the forests of another continent, four thousand
miles away.

" How far that little candle throws his beams."

FOUNDING OF NEW SWEDEN.

87

The following lines, written by one of the guests at the
Swedish Decennial, were inspired by the forests and fields
of New Sweden.

THE FLOWERS OF AROOSTOOK.

BY MKS. H. G. BOWE.

Daisies and buttercups, sweet purple clover,

Starring your meadows, so blithesome and gay.
Proclaim to our vision, in voices prophetic:
"The darkness primeval is passing away !"

Yet down by the streams where the forest still lingers,
The clematis wild its white fingers doth lave.

And the harebell bows low, like some shy forest maiden,
To watch her fair face in the clear flowing wave.

Close, close on the track of the fire in the clearing.
Spring rosy-hued blossoms, perfuming the air;

And the honey bee sucks from the buckwheat's white bosom
On the spot where the wild beast once crouched in his lair.

Dumb Nature awakes at the voice of her master.
To his God-given rule her proud forehead she bends,

While the ring of the axe, and the clang of the hammer,
Like a pgean of praise to high heaven ascends.

Ring out, bonny blossoms, bright daughters of labor.

Let your glad faces brighten Aroostook's rich soil,
Sing ever " God-speed to the axe and the plow-share,

All blessing and praise to the children of toil ! "

X^'~