Stavanger

“ It was on a morning in the beginning of June that the steamer glided into Stavanger harbour. We had had rain and southerly wind the whole way, and the night outside Jædren had been anything but pleasant, although neither Monk nor I suffered from seasickness.
Toward the morning, the wind sprung around to the north, and drove rain, fog, and clouds in front of it, out into the North Sea. The sun shone on the small rippling billows, which merrily splashed against the gaudily painted coasting vessels and warehouses in the harbour. ”

“ Stavanger is the first port of call for northward-bound passenger steamers from Hull and Newcastle, and has regular services from all the Norwegian coast towns, from Hamburg, &c. A railway runs south along the wild and desolate coast of Jaederen, one of the few low and unprotected shores in Norway, the scene of many wrecks. Stavanger commands a considerable tourist traffic. ”

“ So all you Gods that love brave men,
Send us a three-reef gale again!
Send us a gale, and watch us come,
With close-cropped canvas slashing home!
But—there's no wind on all these seas, A long pull for Stavanger! So we must wake the white-ash breeze, A long pull for Stavanger!
'ANGUTIVAUN TAINA' Song of the Returning Hunter (Esquimaux) .
Our gloves are stiff with the frozen blood,
Our furs with the drifted snow,
As we come in with the seal—the seal! ”

“ The other two diocesan towns, Stavanger and Hamar, are placed at the heads of the other two bays to the east, and Stavanger has thus lost the remarkably correct position in relation to Bergen and the south point of Greenland which it had on the older map. Trondhjem has been placed at the extremity of the westernmost promontory, possibly because there had been found a more correct determination of the latitude of the town, which was to be fitted into Ptolemy’s graduation; thereby the shape of Norway has become still narrower and farther removed from reality. ”

“ The half-day's sail from Stavanger to Bergen is all like this, except that after one turns southward into the Bergen Fjord the mysterious islanded shores press closer, and the hill shores back of them rise higher, so that expectancy and wonder deepen moment by moment, till the moment of landing on Bergen's water rim. "Will there be carriages at the wharf?" we had asked of the terrible stewardess who had tyrannized over our ship for two days, like a French Revolution fishwoman. "Carriages!" she cried, with her arms akimbo. "The streets in Bergen are so steep carriages can't drive down them. ”

“ Down to 1839 the immigration movement in Norway had not really gone beyond the provinces of Stavanger and South Bergenhus in southwestern and western Norway. Indeed, nearly all of the emigrants had come from these sections. In fact, before 1836 the movement was almost confined to Stavanger and Ryfylke. In that year it reaches Hardanger, and in 1837, Bergen. It does not reach Voss properly before 1838, although Nils Röthe and wife had emigrated from there in 1836. In 1837, as we have seen, the first emigrant ship, the Aegir, left Bergen with eighty-four passengers. ”

“ The sailing of Enigheden may be regarded as a continuation of the movement in Stavanger county, which was given such an impetus by Knud Slogvig’s return in 1835. Other immigrants continued to come from this region in subsequent years, but the autumn of 1837 inaugurates a change in the course of the movement to a more northerly region, Hardanger, Voss, and Bergen, for a period, contributing a large share to the now rapidly increasing numbers of emigrants. ”

“ The chief industrial centres are Christiania, Bergen, Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg, Drammen, Skien and Porsgrund, Trondhjem, Fredrikshald and Stavanger. Large water-power is available in many districts. A powerful impulse was given to industrial enterprise by the non-renewal of the customs treaty with Sweden in 1897, which established a protective systerr against that country. ”

“ However, we are never going home again, that is quite decided.”
“Unless we walk,” said Millie firmly.
“Do you mean to land at Stavanger?”
“How can you ask? I would land anywhere, even on a desert island. Besides, we have been reading somebody’s Best Tour, and according to that it is the right way of going into Norway. Once adopt a guide-book, you become its slave.”
“Then we shall be likely to jog along together, unless you object?” said Wareham, with a smile. ”

“ That Trondhjem is placed to the west of Bergen and Stavanger, that the Dovrefjeld is called a high promontory, while on the Nancy map it was inland, that Hamar (“Amerensis”) is put on the sea-coast, etc., all shows the same want of knowledge of the country and its configuration. The names he may have taken from an itinerary or other sources, and, as already suggested, it is not unlikely that he may have found in the papal archives a fairly correct statement of the latitude (or length of the longest day) of Trondhjem, which was an archbishop’s see. ”

“ We have already above, page 63, recited this fact and its significance toward promoting further emigration from Stavanger Province and of inaugurating the first exodus from Hardanger also. Thus, while Jacob Slogvig, the brother, was one of a few to secure land in La Salle County and make the beginnings of settlement, Knud became the means of bringing hosts of immigrants from Norway to recruit the colony and start it upon its course of growth. ”

“ Stavanger (24) , a flourishing port of Norway, on a fiord on the SW. coast, 100 m. S. of Bergen; is of modern aspect, having been largely rebuilt; has two excellent harbours, a fine 11th-century Gothic cathedral, and is the centre of important coast fisheries.
Stavropol (657) , a Russian government on the Caspian Sea, the inhabitants of which are chiefly nomads and breed horses, with a capital of the same name (36) on a hill, a modern town and a prosperous, both in manufacture and trade.
Steel, Sir John, sculptor, born at Aberdeen; studied at Edinburgh and Rome ”

“ Harold sailed south to meet them, and a fierce battle took place at Hafrs Fjord, near Stavanger, in which he gained a complete victory; the hostile force was entirely broken, and from this time his rule over all Norway appears to have been undisputed. Every man was forced to own him as master; new taxes and obligations were imposed; the fylkis were put under the rule of earls, and the hersirs became or were replaced by the king's lendermenn,—a title which becomes familiar in subsequent history. ”

“ Other sections of Norway than those already mentioned began to feel the effects of the emigration bacillus after 1837, and the processes illustrated by the movements from Stavanger, Bergen, and Numedal were repeated—the emigration of two or three, letters sent home, the return of a man here and there, the organization of the party, the long journey, and the selection of the new home. Thelemark, the rugged mountainous district in south central Norway, was in a condition to be strongly moved by stories of freer and larger opportunities. ”

“ Justice cannot be done to Norway, its fish, or yourself under a month. There is not much to choose between the two routes, the one from Hull, the other from Newcastle, but care must be taken to time the arrival at the chief ports to suit the smaller steamers that traverse the fiords. The North Sea passage has its caprices of weather, but it is not very protracted. If you leave port on Saturday night, by breakfast time on Monday you are threading between the rocks that introduce you to Stavanger. ”

“ There are many reasons why the Sugar Creek Settlement did not grow as did the later settlements north and west. First of all, land was not of the best in Lee County. And then, the locality was rather too far south, Norwegians have everywhere in America thriven best in the more northerly localities. Again, the tide of emigration from the vicinity of Stavanger was not sufficiently heavy to recruit the various settlements already established by immigrants from that region. ”

“ Hull, Christiansand and Christiania; Newcastle and Stavanger, Bergen and the North; London and Christiania, &c, and there are also passenger services from Grimsby, Grangemouth and other ports. Yachting cruises to the great fjords and the North Cape are also provided. A daily service of mail steamers works between Christiania and all ports to Bergen; thence the summer service is hardly less frequent to Trondhjem. From each large port small steamers serve the fjords and inner waters in the vicinity, and there are also
steamers on several of the larger lakes. ”

“ The pair were so pleased with each other's company that the commercial, whose name was Klingenstein—"Goloshes and rubber goods," decided not to land at Arendal as he had intended, but to go on to Stavanger instead. Peter Oiland recommended this course, as offering, perhaps—who could say—an opportunity for getting into touch with the South Sea Islands, and selling goloshes to the heathen.
"As a matter of fact," Peter added, "I know a man in Stavanger who lived some years on one of the South Sea Islands, personal friend of Queen Nabagadale; useful man to know." ”

“ Kleng Peerson returned to Stavanger in 1824 with a favorable report and many of the members of the Quaker colony began to make preparations for emigrating to the locality selected by Peerson, namely, Orleans County, New York State. A sloop of only forty-five tons capacity which they called Restaurationen, built in Hardanger, was purchased and loaded with a cargo of iron and made ready for the journey. Larson himself had married in December, 1824, Georgiana Person, who was born October 19, 1803, on Fogn, a small island near Stavanger. ”

“ A remarkable road traverses the gorge by means of cuttings and a tunnel, and the scenery is among the most magnificent in Norway. It is usually approached from Stavanger by way of Sand and Lake Suldal, and the road divides above the gorge, branches running north to Odde and south-east through Telemarken. ”

“ David Stavanger and his son Hugh. I almost betrayed myself by trying to get too near them, as they questioned the watchman, but I suppose they thought themselves quite safe in that out-of-the-way region, and did not even trouble themselves to speak low, or to notice who stood near them.
“‘Do you know where the “Merry Maid” is lying?’ asked Mr. Stavanger.
“‘Yes, sir, she’s lying over there, sir, in that basin; but she’s not easy to get at. She’s been shifted into the middle of the dock, sir. ”

“ The two counties named are small and lie almost wholly within the coastal strip along the Skagerrack, which, with the coast-lands about Stavanger, Haugesund, Bergen and Trondhjem, the outer Lofoten Islands and the land about Lake Mjösen, are the most thickly populated portions of the country, the density exceeding 50 persons per sq. m. A vast area practically uninhabited, save in the N. by nomadic Lapps, reaches from the north most point of the Norwegian frontier as far S. as the middle of Hedemarken, excepting a markedly more populous belt across the Trondhjem depression. ”

“ It has been estimated that about fifty per cent of Scandinavian emigrants, arrive by prepaid passage tickets secured by relatives in this country. [58]
The visits of successful Scandinavians back home was in the early days an important factor; and as a rule only those who had been prosperous would return. In 1835 Knud Anderson Slogvig, who had emigrated in the sloop as we know, returned to Norway and became the chief promoter of the exodus from the Province of Stavanger in 1836, which resulted in the settlement at Fox River, La Salle County, Illinois. ”

“ Of the towns the following seven had the largest population (Christiania and Bergen being each a separate amt) : Christiania, 119,407; Bergen, 43,026; Throndhjem (1875) , 22,152; Stavanger (1879) , 23,500; Drammen, 19,582; Christiansand, 12,282; and Christiansund, 9025.
Norway is the most sparsely-populated country in Europe, having an average of about eighteen persons to the square mile. The distribution is very unequal: the greatest density is in Christiania stift, which contains about seven-twentieths of the whole population in seven-hundredths of the total area of the country. ”

“ Sjur Haaheim and wife, Paul Dale and wife, Sjur Dale and wife and Aslak Holven. These eighteen persons form the advance guard of the immigration from Hardanger.
We have spoken of the two ships that came from Stavanger in 1836. These were followed in the next year by Enigheden (Harmony) , Captain Jensen, carrying ninety-three passengers. These were for the most part from Tysvær and from Hjelmeland, and Aardal in Ryfylke, from the city of Stavanger, and from Egersund. They came to New York, thence went to Albany and Rochester, and by way of the lakes to Chicago. ”

“ They felt now that America offered many advantages to the able and the capable, and they began writing encouraging letters to relatives and friends in the old country, urging them to seek their fortune here. As a result there was, if not a large, at any rate a fairly constant emigration of individuals and families from Stavanger and adjacent region during the following eight or nine years, although few seem to have come before 1829. In this year, e. g., came Gudmund Sandsberg (b. 1787) from Hjelmeland, in Ryfylke, Norway, and his wife Marie and three children, Bertha, Anna, and Torbjör. ”

“ On the 14th of May of that year Andreas Sandsberg wrote his brother Gudmund in America as follows:
A considerable number of people are now getting ready to go to America from this Amt. Two brigs are to depart from Stavanger in about eight days from now, and will carry these people to America, and if good reports come from them, the number of emigrants will doubtless be still larger next year. A pressing and general lack of money entering into every branch of industry, stops or at least hampers business and makes it difficult for many people to earn the necessaries of life. ”