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1839, John Nielsen Luraas, the eldest son on the Luraas farm led a party from Tinn, Telemark. The Rynning book and letters from earlier emigrants motivated him. Also, Ansten Nattestad was leading a group to America this season. John Luraas married Anna Olsen Berge on April 8, 1839. By September 8 they were in America. Of the 40 in the party, half were from the Luraas families. These 40 left from Drammen with the sloop "Enighteten" on May 5, 1839, then from Goteborg aboard the "Clarissa Andrews" to Boston , sailing from June 1 to July 20. The immigrants went west by way of New York and Buffalo, and after a perilous voyage on the Great Lakes (a miserable journey, see Norlie, The History of the Norwegian People in America, p. 160) arrived in Milwaukee seventeen weeks after they left their native land. Their original plan was to go to the Fox River Settlement in Illinois. They were talked out of it by a couple of Americans and they went to Muskego instead. John Evenson Molee was one of seven children and he left Norway because of the Law of Primogeniture (odelsretten). Later in life John wrote "that in 1835 the trades were overstocked. A laborer was not allowed to eat at the same table as the landowner. Labor commenced before sunrise and lasted until after dark".
Most of these folks went to Muskego in Waukesha County and founded this settlement. John Molee there married Anne Jacobsen Einong, sister of Gunhild. At the same time, Gunhild's sister Aslaug married Hans Tveito. These were the first Norwegians at Muskego. See Luraas reasons for leaving on page 115 of Blegen. John Evensen Molee reasons are on page 116. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America. Also, see Flom, Norwegian Immigration to the United States, p. 66 and 119. Also see Anderson, Rasmus, Norwegian Immigration, p. 268. See the story of John Nielsen Luraas on page 269, and also Norlie, The History of the Norwegian People in America, p. 161. Also Clausen, C. A., A Chronicler of Immigrant Life, p. 13.
1839, June 28, Johannes Johansen and Soren Tollefsen Bache left Store Walle in Lier and came to America. Johannes would go on to write the Muskego Manifesto. Soren would write a book about Muskego. They went to Muskego in the summer of 1840 from Fox River. The Muskego site seemed to Bache to be unfavorably located so he selected lands on the shores of Wind Lake in Norway Township. This led to most of the Muskego folks to move here. Soren returned to Norway in 1842, left again in 1843, returned once more in 1847 and settled in Lier parish where he died in 1890. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America, p. 118.
1839, the "America Letters", begin to flow with accounts of freedom and equality. There was no need to bow to officials and "betters" in this land. The letters became an indictment of Norwegian class distinctions but also told of toil and hardship. The letters were copied and sent from farm to farm and community to community. Many were reprinted in newspapers.
1839, Swamp fever, ague, and malaria plague the early settlers at Muskego. They moved out of the low lands, on to Norway Township and adjoining lands in Racine County. They retained the name Muskego however. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America, p. 118.
1840, when a company of newcomers in Muskego or Koshkonong in the 1840s, weary and worn from many months of traveling, they were not impressed with the housing offered them. The houses were no more than 12 to 14 foot square and had been built horridly. Semmingsen, Norway to America, p. 66.
1843, the famous Heg barn is erected at Muskego. This barn, the first home in America for many a Norwegian immigrant, became the springboard from which families moved westward. Tollef Bache, father of Soren, donoted $400 from Drammen, Norway. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America, p. 130.
1843, Reverend C. L. Clausen arrived in America with his bride and became the pastor in the Muskego settlement. The first Lutheran Church in America is set up on Even Heg's land at Muskego. Elling Eielsen was ordained on October 3 at Fox River as the first Norwegian minister in America, and, along with Clausen, ordained on October 13 at Muskego, and in 1844, J. W. C. Dietrichson, the first university-trained minister, ushered in formal Norwegian-American Lutheranism. Anderson, Rasmus, Norwegian Immigration 1821-1840, p. 418.
1843, December, 270 Muskego setters sign a document showing they desired to members of Clausen's church. Rønning, N. N. The Saga of old Muskego, p. 20.
1843, Muskego suffers from malaria as written by Claus Lauritz Clausen in Festskrift til Den norske synodes jubileum (Aniversery Book for the Norwegian Synog, 1903. Seventy persons died at Muskego in the fall of 1843 according to Munch Raeder. Milton Wells visited the Muskego settlement during the winter of 1843-44 and wrote "the amount of wretchedness and suffering which prevailed was such as absolutely to mock all description". Men like Heg, Bache, and Johansen gave so much aid to new immigrants that Muskego became the place to be for the down-and-out. Every house had to hold 15-20 new immigrants, thus the susceptibility to disease. Blegen, The American Transition, p. 57. See also Norlie, The History of the Norwegian People in America, p. 160. For a vivid account of the wretched conditions, see Blegen, Land of Their Choice, p. 177. see Rønning, N. N. The Saga of old Muskego, p. 22. Also Bache, Chronicle of Old Muskego, p. 166.
1840, There are now six permanent Norwegian settlements in America. Anderson, Rasmus, Norwegian Immigration, 1821-1840, preface.
It is now called the "Muskego Manifesto". It was an open letter to the people of Norway by the Norwegian emigrants in Muskego, Wisconsin which was printed in the April 1, 1845 edition of Morgenbladet of Christiania. Far and wide, throughout the valleys of Norway, wherever men met, the discussion turned to those pioneers from Telemark at a place called Muskego. A great letter from those pioneers, among the first one thousand to leave Norway for America, would open the floodgates and 800,000 would follow. Read all about it in story form or the direct translation and join the "Muskego Project", a search for the records of those pioneers that appended their names to the "manifesto".
