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When McHenry County and northern Stevens County - which became Ward County in May, 1885 - were settled in the early 1880s, there was a distinctively Scandinavian milieu within the populations of both counties.
According to the 1885 census, McHenry County had fifty heads of households from Sweden and twenty-one from Norway. This amounted to 71 in a total of 302 heads of households in McHenry County in 1885 (or 23%). In Ward County, the percentage of heads of households from three Scandinavian countries was much higher (at 47%) with thirty-eight heads of households born in three Scandinavian countries: thirty-two in Norway, four in Sweden and two in Denmark. There were 87 heads of households in Ward County in 1885, with 31 living in the area around Burlington, and 56 in the Mouse River Country. Additionally, many residents were first-generation Americans whose parents were Scandinavians.
Even before the census of 1885, small groups of Lutherans among these Scandinavians had shown an interest in forming churches at various locations. At first, perhaps, families had practiced family devotions, using a Bible, hymnals, prayer books and books of worship containing the creeds and the order for worship services, These would have been written in Norwegian, or in Swedish, or in Danish, and because they were Lutherans, in German.
It would have taken no time at all before small family groups were joined by their neighbors to hold services. A need for church formation and for ministers was felt by the families taking part in such informal gatherings as early as 1884.
In 1884, small groups of such families seeking to establish churches were found at Villard in McHenry County and at Burlington in Stevens County. There were also three other sites in the Mouse River Country between Villard and Burlington with like-minded families.
Two of these sites were in McHenry County and the third at the future site of Minot in Stevens County. During 1884, Rev. Ole Aaberg of the Norwegian Synod visited Villard, Burlington and Erik and Peter Ramstad. At the time, Rev. Aaberg resided at the Norwegian settlement of Walle in Grand Forks County south of Grand Forks. He listed these three sites as 'preaching places' (prækeplads). At Villard, in July, 1884, Johannes Kopperdahl, Anton Jevnager and Erik Espeseth were among the fourteen charter members and their families who established the Norway Lutheran Church there.
In December, 1884, at the residence of Erik Ramstad, another Lutheran church was formed, the Mouse River Evangelical Lutheran Church (or Mouse River Norsk Evangelisk Lutherske), consisting of eleven charter members and their families. Rev. Aaberg and Johannes 'Hans' Kopperdahl of McHenry County had attended both church formations.
According to George Reishus, in 1884, the Ramstad residence was located at the northeast corner of Railway Avenue and First Street NW. In 1959, when Reishus was writing, it was the location for the Dakota Lutheran Academy. (See page 3 in All His Benefits: A History of the First Lutheran Church of Minot, North Dakota [Minot, 1959] by George A. Reishus.)
According to records kept by Rev. Aaberg himself, he visited these five Mouse River places a number of times from 1884 until 1886 or 1887. He called at Burlington in 1884, again in 1885. Rev. Aaberg visited all three of the McHenry County sites every year from 1884 to 1886. And he visited the Mouse River Church, and then Minot, every year from 1884 to 1887. Rev. Aaberg had moved from Walle to Devils Lake in 1885.
(Rev. Aaberg's visits as given above were tabulated by Mary Jane Tweit in 2000, when she was the Secretary at the Evangelical Lutheran Synod Archives in Mankato, Minnesota. Mary's source for Rev. Aaberg's mission work was O. M. Norlie, Norsk Lutherske Menigheter i Amerika, 1843-1916, Bind I og II [Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House]. In English, the title of Norlie's book is Norwegian Lutheran Congregations in America, 1843-1916.)
In April, 1886, a meeting was held at the Anton Jevnager residence at Villard to decide on a delegate to attend the Norway Synod to be held at Rothsay, Minnesota, where they would put out a call for a resident minister. The three McHenry County "preaching places" pledged to pay the minister's salary, perhaps for a period of up to 15 years. It took four hours of debate for the attendees to arrive at their decision. (See page four of the Villard Leader for Saturday, April 24, 1886.). Their call was answered by Reverend Torjus Reishus.
He was born in Wisconsin and his wife Ellen had been born in Norway. They had two children, Lysander and Inga, at the time Rev. Reishus accepted the call. He decided to leave his congregation in Sacred Heart, Minnesota, where he had been for a year, and to settle in the Mouse River Country.
The Reishus family reached Villard on Thursday, July 1, 1886, and by Tuesday, July 6, Rev. Reishus had picked out a site for his homestead, which was nicknamed "Coal Claim" by the locals (in jest?) due to the presence of coal seams nearby. His claim was just north of the St. Carl post office. His parsonage was built here, having two stories; it was completed in October, 1886.
The Reishus family lived here throughout the eight years of his ministry in the Mouse River Country (1886 to 1894).
To be continued. …
M.L. Berg of Minot enjoys researching local history.