Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/277

 HISTOEY OF GOODHUE COUNTY H21 for his family, and it was agreed that he should there meet -lens Ottun. who had arrived from Norway, and accompany him to Red Wing- on the steamboat. Three weeks later Toge and Henry Nelson set out from Red Wing to meet them. After wandering about for two days they found the place. In the meantime the party had arrived, but both men had taken the cholera while on the steamboat. Mr. Gulbrandson died in one hour after landing. Mr. Ottun survived. They were left on the shore by the boat hands. Mrs. Gulbrandson took charge of her dying husband and grown-up daughter. The latter also took the disease, and died shortly after the father. William Freeborn, seeing Mr. Ottun lying on the levee with none seemingly to care for him, offered five dollars to the man who would take him to some house and care for him over night. A few days after this the Nelsons arrived in Red Wing and found Ottun so far recov- ered as to be walking about, and he, in company w T ith Mrs. Gulbrandson and her son, returned with the Nelsons to the new settlement. The next year, Toge Nelson (Talla) and Mrs. Gul- brandson were married. In October, 1854, the Nelsons went again to Red Wing, for winter supplies. Nils J. Ottun, son of Jens Ottun, related years afterward to a historian that his father was sent by the party for flour and some other neces- sities. Having only ten dollars, his wife sent a gold nugget worth ten dollars more. They bought two barrels of flour. Jens Ottun worked for Toge Nelson that winter, splitting rails, leading his son Nils and the mother to keep house alone. The mother used to measure off the slice of bread for each to be eaten at every meal, the same size, and this, with a little butter and something they called coffee for drink, constituted their everyday diet through the winter. In the latter part of March the people who had settled in the northern part of the town came to them for flour. They were entirely out, and the snow was so deep they could not get to Red Wing. Only one barrel was then left in the settlement. That was one of the two that Jens Ottun had bought, and it was equally divided among all and was made to last until the road to Red Wing became passable. The first death among the settlers was that of the youngest child of Thorsten Anderson, named Berith. Mrs. Jens Ottun was requested to select a suit- able place for a burial ground, and a farm for a preacher. This she did at the time of the burial of this child, in July, 1854. The first white child born in this town was Knute N. Fenne, in September of the same year. The first marriage was a double wedding in June, 1855. Toge Nelson (Talla) and .Mrs. Gul- brandson, already mentioned, and John J. Marifjern and Soe- neva Johnson were united in marriage at the same time, by Rev.