Read Ebook: Reminiscences: The Story of an Emigrant by Mattson Hans

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At one time I went in company with my mother to the Danish capital, Copenhagen, we being among the first Swedish families that traveled by rail, for we took the railroad from Copenhagen to Roskilde, the same being finished several years before any railroads were built in Sweden.

In the summer of 1847, shortly after my confirmation, I was properly supplied with wardrobe and other necessaries, and saying good-bye to the happy and peaceful home of my childhood, I left for the city of Kristianstad to enter the Latin school. In kissing me good-bye my mother urged on me the precious words, which she had inherited from her mother: "Do right and fear nothing."

When I entered this school I was fourteen years and a-half old, tall of stature and well developed for my age, and, like other country children, somewhat awkward in dress and behavior.

My schoolmates welcomed me by giving me a nick-name, and trying to pick a quarrel with me, which they also succeeded in doing, and before the end of the first day a drawn battle had been fought, after which they never troubled me again. The principal study in this school was Latin, early and late, to which was soon added German, and at the close of the second year, Greek, French, history, geography, and other common branches. I made rapid progress, was awarded a prize at my first examination, and finished the work of two classes in two years, only about half the usual time.

During those two years, and even before that time, I had a peculiar presentiment that I would have to make great mental and physical exertions in the future, and that it was necessary for me to prepare for whatever might happen. Therefore, I often chose the hard floor for my bed and a book for a pillow. At times I would take long walks without eating and drinking, and let my room-mates strike my chest with their fists until it was swollen and inflamed. I even tried how long I could go without food, and still not lose my mental and physical vigor.

When I was sixteen years old, an event took place which had a decisive influence on my whole life.

The first Danish-German war broke out about this time, and I, with many other youths, felt a hearty sympathy for the Danes. The Swedish government resolved to send troops to help their neighbors, and a few regiments marching through our city fanned our youthful enthusiasm into flame. Finally, a detachment of the artillery, quartered in the city, was ordered to leave for the seat of war, and now I could no longer restrain myself, but besieged my parents to let me join that part of the army which was going to the battlefield, and to clinch the argument I was cruel enough to send word to my distressed mother that if she would not consent I would run away from home and join the army anyway. This last argument made her yield, and in the fall of 1849 I became an artillery cadet, being then in my seventeenth year. But although I won this victory over my mother, whose greatest desire was that I should become a clergyman, she in turn gained a victory over me by persuading the surgeon of the batallion, who was also our family physician, to declare me sick and send me to the hospital, although I had only a slight cold; thus my plan to go with the army to Schleswig-Holstein was frustrated. This did not make much difference, however, as the war was virtually closed before our troops arrived at the place of destination, and my time could now be more profitably employed in learning the duties of a soldier, and in taking a course of mathematics and other practical branches at the regimental school.

I remained in the army a year and a-half, during which time I received excellent instruction in gymnastics, fencing and riding, besides the regular military drill. Two winters were thus devoted to conscientious and thorough work at the military school.

Knowing that the chances for advancement in the Swedish army during times of peace were at this time very slim for young men not favored with titles of nobility, and being also tired of the monotonous garrison life, my friend Eustrom and myself soon resolved to leave the service and try our luck in a country where inherited names and titles were not the necessary conditions of success.

At that time America was little known in our part of the country, only a few persons having emigrated from the whole district. But we knew that it was a new country, inhabited by a free and independent people, that it had a liberal government and great natural resources, and these inducements were sufficient for us. My parents readily consented to my emigration, and, having made the necessary preparations, my father took my friend Eustrom and myself down to the coast with his own horses, in the first part of May, 1851. It was a memorable evening, and I shall never forget the last farewell to my home, in driving out from the court into the village street, how I stood up in the wagon, turned towards the dear home and waved my hat with a hopeful hurrah to the "folks I left behind." A couple of days' journey brought us to a little seaport, where we took leave of my father and boarded a small schooner for the city of Gothenburg.

At that time there were no ocean steamers and no emigrant agents; but we soon found a sailing vessel bound for America on which we embarked as passengers, furnishing our own bedding, provisions and other necessaries, which our mothers had supplied in great abundance. About one hundred and fifty emigrants from different parts of Sweden were on board the brig Ambrosius. In the middle of May she weighed anchor and glided out of the harbor on her long voyage across the ocean to distant Boston.

We gazed back at the vanishing shores of the dear fatherland with feelings of affection, but did not regret the step we had taken, and our bosoms heaved with boundless hope. At the age of eighteen, the strong, healthy youth takes a bright and hopeful view of life, and so did we. Many and beautiful were the air-castles we built as we stood on deck, with our eyes turned towards the promised land of the nineteenth century. To some of these castles our lives have given reality, others are still floating before us.

Arrival at Boston--Adventures between Boston and New York--Buffalo--An Asylum--Return to New York--A Voyage--On the Farm in New Hampshire.

The good brig Ambrosius landed us in Boston on June 29, 1851, but during the voyage about one-half of the passengers were attacked by small-pox and had to be quarantined outside the harbor. My good friend and I were fortunate enough to escape this plague; but instead of this I was taken sick with the ague on our arrival at Boston.

Now, then, we were in America! The new, unknown country lay before us, and it seemed the more strange as we did not understand a word of the English language. For at that time the schools of Sweden paid no attention to English, so that although I had studied four languages, English, the most important of all tongues, was entirely unknown to me.

The first few weeks of our stay in Boston passed quietly and quickly, but the ague grew worse and my purse was getting empty. My friend, however, had more money than I, and as long as he had a dollar left he divided it equally between us. I cannot resist the temptation to relate a serio-comical escapade of this period, one that to many will recall similar occurences in their own experience as immigrants ignorant of the language of the country.

In Gothenburg we had become acquainted with a bright young man from Vexi?, Janne Tenggren by name, who had also served in the army. When we met him he had already bought a ticket on a sailing vessel bound for New York, so that we could not make the voyage together. But we agreed to hunt each other up after our arrival in America. We left Sweden about the same time with the understanding that if we arrived first we should meet him in New York, and if he arrived first he should go to Boston to meet us there.

About a week after our arrival in Boston, we heard that the vessel on which he had embarked had arrived, and I immediately left for New York to fulfill our promise. But, unfortunately, I found he had already gone west, so I bought a return ticket to Boston the same day. The journey was by steamboat to Fall River, thence by rail to Boston. We left New York in the evening. I remained on the deck, and went to sleep about ten o'clock on some wooden boxes. About eleven o'clock I awoke, saw the steamer laying to and, supposing we were at Fall River, hurried off and followed the largest crowd, expecting thus to get to the railroad depot. Striking no depot, however, I returned to the harbor, only to find the steamer gone, and everybody but myself had vanished from the pier.

There I stood, in the middle of the night, without money, ignorant of the language, and not even knowing where I was! Tired and discouraged I finally threw myself down on a wooden box on the sidewalk, and went to sleep. About five o'clock in the morning a big policeman aroused me by poking at me with his club. This respectable incarnation of social order evidently took me for a tramp or a madman, and as he could not obtain any intelligible information from me in any language known to him, he took me to a small shoe store kept by a German.

Fortunately, my acquaintance with the German language was sufficient to enable me to explain myself, and I soon found that I had left the steamer several hours too early; that the name of this place was New London, that another steamer would come past at the same time the next night, so that all I had to do was to wait for that steamer and go to Boston on the same ticket.

I spent the day in seeing the city and chatting with my friend, the shoe maker, and in the evening returned to the wharf to watch for the Boston steamer.

This being my ague day, I had violent attacks of ague and fever, so that I was again forced to lie down to rest on the same wooden box, and again went to sleep. After a while I was aroused by the noise of the approaching steamer; rushed on board in company with some other passengers, and considered myself very fortunate when reflecting that I would surely be in Boston the next morning. I had made myself familiar with the surroundings during the day, and when the steamer started, I noticed that it directed its course towards New York, instead of Boston. I had no money to pay my fare to New York, could neither borrow nor beg, and so I crawled down in a little hole in the fore part of the steamer, where the tackles and ropes were kept, thus, fortunately, escaping the notice of the ticket collector.

The next evening I again embarked for Boston and finally arrived safely at my destination.

We stayed in Boston several weeks, and during that time my ague caused a heavy drain on our small treasury. We had no definite plan, did not know what to do, and as we had never been used to any kind of hard work, matters began to assume a serious aspect, especially in regard to myself. But then, as now, the hope of many a young man was the Great West which, at that time, was comparatively little known even in Boston. Toward the close of the month of July we, therefore, went to Buffalo, which was as far as our money would carry us. Here we put up at a cheap boarding house kept by a Norwegian by name of Larson, with whom we stopped while trying to get work. But having learned no trade and being unused to manual labor, we soon found that it was impossible to get a job in the city; so we left our baggage at the boarding house and started on foot for a country place named Hamburg, some ten miles distant, where we learned that two of our late companions across the ocean had found employment. On the road to Hamburg, about dusk, we reached a small house by the wayside, where we asked for food and shelter. I was so exhausted that my friend had to support me in order to reach the house. We found it occupied by a Swedish family, which had just sat down to a bountiful supper. Telling them our condition, we were roughly told to clear out; in Sweden, they said, they had had enough of gentlemen and would have nothing to do with them here.

A council was finally held among us four, and it was decided to send me back to Buffalo with a farmer who was going there the following morning. One of the men Mr. Abraham Sandberg on parting gave me a silver dollar, with the injunction to give it to someone who might need it worse than I, whenever I could do so. I have never met Abraham since; but I have regarded it as a sacred duty to comply with his request, and, in case these lines should come before his eyes I wish to let him know that my debt has been honestly paid.

On reaching the old boarding house in Buffalo the landlord promised that he would send me to a hospital where I could receive proper treatment and care. I made up a little bundle of necessary underwear, and in an hour a driver appeared at the door; I was lifted into the cart and off we went through the muddy streets to the outskirts of the city, where I was duly delivered at a large building which I supposed to be the hospital. It was near evening, and I was brought into a large dining-room, with a hundred others or more, served with supper, corn mush and molasses water, after which I was shown to a bed in a large room among many others. I suffered with fever, and for the first time in my life with loneliness. Exhausted nature finally took out its due, and I slept soundly until awakened in the morning by a loud sound of a gong. As soon as dressed I walked out in the yard, or lawn, back of the building. On one side was a high plank fence, behind which I heard some strange sounds. I found a knot-hole, and, peeping through this, I observed another lawn, on which were many people. They were strange looking; I never saw any like them before. Some were swinging, some dancing, others shouting, singing and weeping and behaving in a most out-of-the-way manner. I wondered and wondered, and finally it dawned upon me that it must be a lunatic asylum. It was, in fact, as I since learned, the county poor farm, where one part was used for the lunatics and the other for paupers like myself. Has it come to this? I asked myself; is this the goal of all my ambition and hopes? Going back to the room, where I had slept, I stealthily took my little bundle, slipped out through a side door into a back yard, found a gate open and was soon in the street. I started on a run with all the power in me, as if pursued by all the furies of paupers and lunatics, never stopping until I was near the old boarding house, where I was taken in exhausted and in deep despair. I would have killed the landlord for deceiving me if I had been able to do so. One good thing resulted from the sad experience of that day: the mental shock on discovering where I was, cured me for the time being of the ague.

The next day my friend returned from Hamburg, where he could no longer get any employment on account of his blistered hands, and poor health in general. We now put our wise heads together and agreed that we had already had enough of the West for the time being. Having plenty of good clothes, bedding, revolvers and other knick-knacks, we sold to our landlord whatever we could spare, in order to raise money enough to pay our way back to Boston.

During our stay in Buffalo, our renowned countrywoman, Jenny Lind, happened to give a concert there. We were standing on the street where we could see the people crowd into the theatre, but that was all we could afford, and we never heard her sing. Our host advised us to go and ask her for help; but our pride forbade it.

At this time the Swedes were so little known, and Jenny Lind, on the other hand, so renowned in America, that the Swedes were frequently called "Jenny Lind men," this designation being often applied to myself.

Having purchased tickets for Albany, we returned East in the month of August. I still remember how we rode all night in a crowded second-class car, listening to the noisy merry-making of our fellow-passengers; but we understood very little of it, for up to this time we had lived exclusively among our own countrymen, and learned only a few English words--a mistake, by the way, which thousands of immigrants have made and are still making.

Arriving at Albany, we sat down by an old stone wall near the railroad depot, to talk over our affairs. Fate had been against us while we remained together, and we probably depended too much upon each other. Accordingly, we decided to part for some time and try our luck separately; and if one of us met with success he would, of course, soon be able to find a position for the other. We decided by drawing lots that Eustrom should go to Boston and I to New York. When we had bought our tickets there remained one dollar, which we divided, and we left for our respective places of destination the same evening.

Our landlord in Buffalo had given us the address of a sailors' boarding-house in New York, which was also kept by a Norwegian by the same name of Larson. So when I left the Hudson River steamer early the next morning, I paid my half-dollar to a drayman, who took me to said boarding house. I found Mr. Larson to be a kind, good-natured man, told him my difficulties right out, and asked him to let me stop at his house until I could find something to do. He agreed to this, and for a week or so I tried my best to get work. But, when asked what kind of work I could do, I was compelled to answer that I had learned no trade, but that I would gladly try to learn anything and do anything whatever, even sweep the streets, if necessary. As a result of my protracted sickness, I was so weak and exhausted that nobody thought I would be able even to earn my bread. As to easy or intellectual work, I had no earthly chance, as long as I did not know the English language. Finally Mr. Larson took me to a ship-owner's office. I still remember that a Norwegian captain was cruel enough to remark in my hearing, that he did not intend to take any half-dead corpses along with him to sea.

After two weeks of fruitless efforts to get work for me, my host finally declared that he could not very well keep me any longer, because his accommodations were crowded with paying customers; nevertheless, he allowed me to sleep in the attic free of charge, while I had to procure my food as best I could, which I also did for another two weeks. Being a convalescent, I had a ravenous appetite, and, indeed, I found how hard it is to obtain food without having anything to pay for it. Of the few articles of clothing which I brought with me from Buffalo, I had to sacrifice one after another for subsistence. When all other means were exhausted, I was compelled to go to the kitchen-doors and tell my desperate and unfortunate condition by signs, and more than one kind-hearted cook gave me a solid meal.

Tramps! In our day there is a great deal of talk about tramps, and it has become customary, to brand as a tramp, any poor wandering laborer who seeks work. There are undoubtedly many who justly deserve this title; but I think there are tramps who are not to blame for their deplorable condition, and who deserve encouragement and friendly assistance, for I have been one of them myself, without any fault or neglect on my part. It always provokes me to hear a young or inexperienced person use the expression "tramp" so thoughtlessly, and in such a sweeping manner. Long ago I made up my mind that no tramp should ever leave my door without such aid as my resources would allow. It is better to give to a thousand undeserving, than to let one unfortunate but deserving suffer.

My good host, like his Buffalo namesake, finally contrived to get rid of me by representing me as a sailor, and hiring me to the captain of the bark "Catherine," a coasting vessel bound for Charleston, S. C., telling me that I was to serve as cabin boy. My wages were to be five dollars a month, of which he received seven dollars and a-half in advance, so that I could pay my debts and buy a sailor's suit of clothes.

On the second day of our voyage we encountered a storm. I was on deck with the sailors and the captain stood on the quarter-deck. We were coursing against the wind and were just going to turn when the captain called on me to untie some ropes. Understanding very little English, and being no sailor, I naturally knew nothing about the names of the different ropes, and I grabbed one after another, but invariably missed the right one. The captain was swearing with might and main in English. Seeing that I did not understand him he suddenly roared out angrily the name of the rope in good Swedish and added: "Do you understand me now, you confounded blockhead!" Turning to him, cap in hand, I answered: "No, captain, I do not know the name of a single rope." "And still," he continued "you have followed the sea three years, what a dunce you are." I answered: "Indeed Mr. Captain, I have never been a sailor, and will never be worth anything at sea. But I am willing and anxious to do all you ask if within my power." The captain, whose name was Wilson, was a Swedish American and, although somewhat gruff, he was in fact one of the noblest men who ever commanded a ship. He immediately saw how the matter stood; the boarding house man had cheated both him and me and from that hour Captain Wilson became my friend and benefactor.

Afterwards I found out of the whole crew, which numbered twenty-six men, nine-tenths were Scandinavians, but they always used the English language while on board the ship. Captain Wilson told me to see him in his cabin as soon as the work was performed. Here he asked me about my circumstances, and I told him the short story of my life, which elicited his sympathy to such an extent that he even asked me to pardon his rude behavior toward me. He assigned me to a place to sleep in the cabin; told the officers not to give me any orders as he was going to do that himself, and treated me with the utmost kindness and consideration in every respect.

After this I was excused from all work properly belonging to a sailor, but kept the cabin in order, and helped the steward in waiting at the table, and the officers with their calculations. During my spare hours I read and conversed with the captain and his two mates, one of whom was a Dane and the other an Irishman, both splendid fellows. The first mate was preparing the second mate for a captain's examination, and I, having recently taken a course in mathematics, at a military school, was able to assist them in their studies.

On the table in the cabin was a large English Bible, with which I spent many happy hours, and by which I learned the English language. At first I used to pick out chapters of the New Testament, which I knew almost by heart, so that I could understand them without a dictionary or an interpreter. After my first conversation with the captain I did not speak another word in the Swedish language during the voyage, and when I returned to Boston, three months afterwards, it seemed to me that I could talk and read English about as well as Swedish.

I made two trips with the captain from New York to Charleston and back again. At the wharf of Charleston, I was, for the first time in my life, brought face to face with American Negro slavery in its most odious aspect. Crowds of Negroes were running along the pier pulling long ropes, by means of which the ships were loaded and unloaded. Each gang of Negroes was under the charge of a brutal overseer, riding on a mule, and brandishing a long cowhide whip, which he applied vigorously to the backs of the half-naked Negroes. During the night they were kept penned up in sheds, which had been erected for that purpose near the wharf. They were treated like cattle, in every respect. This sight influenced me in later life to become a Republican in politics.

After our second return to New York, Capt. Wilson assumed the command of one of the first clipper ships which carried passengers to California in those days. This was at the most stirring time of the gold fever, and the captain kindly offered to take me along and let me stay out there, an offer which thousands would have accepted. But I was never smitten with the gold fever, and, having a distaste for the sea, I said good-bye to the kind captain, never to see him again. My wages were to have been only five dollars a month, but he generously paid me eight dollars, so that I had earned enough money to pay my way to Boston, whence my friend Eustrom had written me and urged me to come.

A few days afterwards I went by rail to Contocook where I was met by Mr. Anderson, who took me out to his hospitable home a couple of miles from the town. This Anderson was a remarkable man. Having no education to speak of, he was a better judge of human nature and practical affairs of life than any other man I ever met. He was pleased with me, and said he wished I would sit down in the evening and tell him about Sweden, and explain to him what I had learned at school. Poor Anderson! He had one fault, rum got the better of him, and it was cheap in New England at that time, only sixteen cents a gallon. He bought a barrel of it at a time, and did not taste water as long as the rum lasted.

My friend Eustrom, having heard of my misfortune, soon came to visit me, and brought with him an old Irish woman who was something of a doctor, and cured my hands by means of a very simple plaster which she prepared herself. But I was forced into complete inactivity for more than three months, during which time I was entirely helpless, and had to be washed, dressed, and fed like an infant. But, as to me, the old proverb has always proved true: "When things are at the worst they'll mend." There were men and women in my accidental home who willingly tended to me in my trouble. May God bless them for it! In the latter part of March, Mr. Anderson, who had always treated me with the greatest kindness, quite unexpectedly told me that I was now able to work again and could try to get a place with some other family in the neighborhood, because he could not keep me any longer.

In the beginning of June I got a letter from my parents, stating that my father and brother were going to leave for New York immediately, and they asked me to meet them there and go West with them. I had never complained in my letters to my parents, but, on the other hand, I had not advised them to come to America, either. They had been advised to do so by some of my fellow-passengers on the "Ambrosius," who went to Illinois, and were highly pleased with their prospects. So I went to Boston again. My father's voyage had been delayed, and I had to wait for him over a month, during which time I got sick, and would have been in a sorry plight, indeed, if it had not been for my friend Eustrom, who now felt like a rich man, with his six dollars a week. A couple of years later he became the partner of his employer.

The Arrival of my Father and Brother--Journey to Illinois--Work on a Railroad--The Ague--Doctor Ober--Religious Impressions--The Arrival of my Mother, Sister and her Husband--A Burning Railroad Train--We go to Minnesota--Our Experience as Wood Choppers and Pioneers.

Finally my father and brother arrived, and again I turned my course westwards in company with them and their friends. We traveled by rail to Buffalo and across the lake to Toledo, thence by rail again to Chicago. In the summer of 1852 there were no railroads west of Chicago, and our company had to take passage on a canal-boat drawn by horses to La Salle, and from this place we rode in farmers wagons to Andover and Galesburg. The country around there was as yet only in the first stages of development; there was very little money in circulation, and no demand for farm products. The immigrants suffered a great deal from fever and other climatic diseases.

My brother who was nearly sixteen years old soon obtained steady work from an American farmer, while my father and I had to do different kinds of work, such as building fences, stacking grain, etc. The only pay we could get was checks on some store. I remember what an abundance of provisions there was in that locality, and nobody seemed to be in need.

A farmer near Galesburg, for whom I worked a week, had so many hens and chickens and eggs, that when people came out from town to buy eggs, they were told to pay ten cents, go out to the barn and fill their baskets with freshly-laid eggs, no matter how big the basket. Beef and pork had scarcely any value, and anybody could go into a cornfield that fall and gather a crop on half shares.

There was much religious interest among the Swedes in Illinois at that time. The Methodists and Lutherans were already building churches, and held services side by side in many of the towns and settlements, although they numbered only a few families yet. I remember distinctly one Sunday attending service in a Methodist church listening to an eloquent preacher, taking for his text "The Broad and the Narrow Ways." He depicted both in glowing language, and wound up with the following words, pronounced in a broad dialect: "My dear brethren, I have now shown you the two ways, and you may take which ever you like; that is all the same to me."

My father had taken with him only just enough money to pay his way, although he had by no means exhausted his resources in Sweden, for he had prudently decided to spend at least a year in seeing the country and making himself familiar with its institutions, customs, manner of tilling the soil, etc. At this time he was a strong man, at the age of fifty. In order to obtain steady work, we two, and a few others of our company, hired a man in Galesburg to take us to Rock River, where a bridge for the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad was being built. We all got work, and had to take hold of the spade and the shovel. The wages in those days for railroad laborers were from seventy-five cents to one dollar per day. I received only seventy-five cents, out of which my board was to be paid, which, however, was very cheap, one dollar and a half per week only. A Swede by the name of Hoffman kept a boarding house for thirty-four of us, and all would have been well except for the ague. No man remained there many days without getting the "shakes;" I and my father got them the second day. The lower part of the shanty in which we boarded was used for dining-room and kitchen, the upper for sleeping on the floor. The shanty was as shaky as the ague, which came regularly every other day. Fate had so arranged it that seventeen of us had the chills one day, and seventeen the next day. Hoffman and his wife fortunately also had the chills alternate days, so that there was always one to attend to the cooking.

Some may doubt it, but it is a solemn fact, that when seventeen ate dinner below, the shaking of those upstairs sometimes shook the house until we could hear the plates rattling on the table.

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