Sven Gabriel Björkander (1818 - 1851)

Born 24 Mar 1818 in Ekby (R), Sverige

Ancestors

Died 15 Jul 1851 at age 33 in Wisconsin, USA

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Biography

Björkander, Sven Gabriel
F. i Ekby 24/3 1818, son av gästgivaren i Binneberg P. Björkander. Ht 30-ht.38 ö.c.n. Student i Lund 1841. "Reste till Amerika" ^[1]

Återfinns i Census 1850 Koshkonong, Jefferson, Wisconsin, USA.

Sven Gabriel Björkander (1819-79), Born in Ekby, Västergötland, he had enrolled at the University of Lund in 1841. Presumably he departed for America soon thereafter. In 1850 he was living in Koshkonong, Wisconsin, and owned real estate valued at $1,000. For further information about him see Angie Kumlien Main, “Thure Kumlien, Koshkonong Naturalist” in Wisconsin Magazine of History, September and December, 1943, and March, 1944, pp. 26, 28, 204, and 325. Mrs. Main errs in saying that Björkander arrived aboard the Swea August 16, 1843. He is not listed on that vessel’s manifest. (Carl Sjöström, Vestgöta nation i Lund 1683-1910 [Lund, 1911], p. 176;New York Port Passenger Manifests)^[2]

Letter from an emigrant. Koskonong 2 april 1849. In the end of May 1842 I left my always beloved homeland in company with a bailiff Norberg and his sister, and arrived in Pin Lake 25 miles west from Millwaukie in Wisconsin in the middle of september the same year. Norberg and I were then in C:o (??) and took 320 acres of land, without paying anything. In the middle of November I got very sick for 2 and a half month, and lived during that time with Unonius, because our house was not finished. During my illness Norberg quitted our C:o, and when I recovered I found that I had almost no clothes, and were in debt to my host for food and caring 60 R:dr (Swedish money) and for doctor 100 r:dr R:gs. I did not let me down. I started working, and during the winter and sommer until october 1843 I paid off my debts, just 20 R:dr remaining, bought clothes and saved 120 R:dr. With them I travelled to New Orleans, about 2 500 miles (about 380 swedish mil) from Pine Lake and arrived there in the end of october the same year. Here I got work at a theatre and earned quite well. The following year in the beginning of July, when yellow fever normally comes to New Orleans for a few months, I travelled again up to Pine Lake, to visit my friends, och back to New Orleans in the beginning of october. This time I stayed here until spring 1843, when I again travelled to Wisconsin and bought 40 acres of land near a lake by the name Koskonnong, where 2 friends from Skara and Uppsala live, Thure Kumlien and G. Mellberg. ^[3]

Gustaf Unonius was a swedish pioneer and priest in the American midwest ^[4]

Thure Ludwig Theodor Kumlien (1819 – 1888) was a Swedish-American ornithologist, naturalist, and taxidermist. ^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ Erlandsson, Elis: Skara högre allm läroverks lärjungar. Åren 1826-1869.
2. ↑ A pioneer in Northwest America 1841-1858. The Memoirs of Gustaf Unonius. See attached pdf
3. ↑ “Bref från en Emigrant,” Post och Inrikes Tidningar, 11 Jun 1849, p. 1, col. 4; image copy, Svenska Dagstidningar (https://tidningar.kb.se).
4. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_Unonius
5. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thure_Kumlien

• Odensåker (R) AI:7 (1837-1845) Bild 125 / sid 121 (AID: v31435.b125.s121, NAD: SE/GLA/13418)

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/105613391