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Minnesota's pioneers suffered prolonged and intense terror in the fall of 1862. Estimates vary but between 450 and 800 settlers were killed. Large areas were depopulated as panic-stricken settlers rushed to Fort Ridgely or to towns like St. Peter. The settlers formed groups of citizen soldiers to protect themselves. They gave themselves names like The Le Sueur Tigers, St. Peter Guards, and the Scandinavian Guards of Nicollet County. Soldiers rushed from St. Paul to defend the counties of southern Minnesota. An experienced Norwegian-American soldier, originally from Hol in Hallingdal, by the name of Asgrim Skaro trained the group named the Scandinavian Guard of Nicollet County. Skaro went on to become a Civil War hero and was killed at the Battle of Nashville. Gene Estensen, Telelaget member, has written about the Sioux Uprising of 1862 at Norwegian Grove, just outside St. Peter. This article contains translations of letters written to Norway from St. Peter and can be read here.
There are records of Norwegian settlers being killed and wounded in the Indian War of 1862, but most survived. Gene Estensen's great-great-grandfather and his brother were mustered into the Scandinavian Guard of Nicollet County. They were Ole Østensen Bøen (Ole Estensen) and his brother Torstein Østensen Bøen (Tosten Estensen). The book titled "Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars" contains a roster of the Scandinavian Guard of Nicollet County. Gene Estensen began a project in the summer of 2002 to indentify the men of the "Guards" from the Norseland area. This project is now called the "Norseland Project". Help preserve the history of these citizen soldiers, pioneers from Scandinavia.
Letters to Norway during the Indian War indicate the nature of the panic. One pioneer woman, originally from Tinn, Telemark and living near St. Peter wrote to her family. Read this dramatic letter here.
Guri Olsdatter Endreson, pioneer from Hardanger, took four years before she reported her tale of terror to her family in Norway. Read excerpt on the Endreson story here.
A letter of terror was sent to Stavanger by a settler from southern Minnesota.
Deb Nelson Gourley of the Fillmore County Journal tells the story of how some of her ancestors were killed by Indians in 1862.
For several years following 1862, settlers posted armed men on the highest ground as they performed their farming chores. Through it all, the Norseland Settlement continued to thrive. Today, the old store at Norseland continues to thrive. It is at this store that Mr. Swensen showed me the store records of the 1850s and 1860s. There, on the old ledgers, I saw the signatures of my ancestors from Telemark from when they purchased goods on credit.
