June 16: Mari Anne and her husband Michael drove me out to Bø farm, near Randaberg, north of Stavanger, where Cousin Sigve lives (turns out he’s not actually a cousin, but a relation by marriage. But he’s had trouble finding relatives in America, and has settled for me). He’s retired, but used to be a farmer and was be involved in scientific breeding programs for hogs and cattle.
He told me he had a chest that had belonged to the grandmother of Prof. Sven Oftedal of Augsburg College, one of the people we study in the Georg Sverdrup Society, whose journal I edit. Oftedal’s mother, he explained, was born on a neighboring farm and he had acquired the chest.
He took me up to Hodnefjell on Moster Island (not to be confused with Moster on Bomlø, which I visited the other day). Some of my ancestors lived there and were converts to the Moravian movement. They heard about Hans Nielsen Hauge, the Lutheran lay evangelist, and invited him to visit them there. It was with them Hauge stayed when he first visited the Stavanger area. They became followers (“friends”) of his. One of their community was John Haugvaldstad, who went to Stavanger and became a prominent Haugean leader and businessman. He established several businesses, always with the goal of employing the poor and supporting mission work. I understand he was considered the de facto head of the Haugeans after Hauge’s imprisonment for leading meetings while not ordained. My relatives were friends and supporters of Haugvaldstad. There is a bust of him in Stavanger, outside the mission school.
We visited Utstein Kloster, the only medieval monastery in Norway that remains standing. Smaller place than I expected, but very interesting. A chance to get in out of the rain, which was pretty steady all day.
We went to another medieval church, whose name I forget. But it is well preserved (or restored) and quite beautiful in a simple, Romanesque way. We visited a German coastal installation from World War II along the coast, which included gun emplacements and a tunnel through the rock.
On the island of Finnøy, we saw the replica of the sloop “Restauration,” in which Cleng Peerson led the first organized group of Norwegian immigrants to America. 52 people (53 on arrival, as a baby was born) traveled on this tiny vessel, which authorities later declared inadequate for the purpose and seized (after it had arrived). These people were mostly Quakers, along with some Haugeans, fleeing religious pressure from the state church. Finnøy was Cleng Peerson’s home.
Sigve also drove me past the one place he has found in the area where (he’s personally satisfied) Hans Nielsen Hauge set up a sea salt refinery. (After several years in solitary confinement, the pressures of the Napoleonic Wars induced the government to grant Hauge temporary parole so he could set up sea salt refineries to relieve the salt shortage. After he had performed this service well, the conditions of his imprisonment were eased a little.)
Back to Sigve’s house and a lovely dinner with his wife and daughter. We talked quite a long time about Vikings and other matters. Then back to Sandnes and my hosts. I am stimulated but tired. I hope I’m not coming down with a bad cold.
