| Summary: | When we got to where Einar said I think this is your land, we found the surveyor's stakes so we knew we were on the right place. I walked up the hill where my house now stands and said here is where I'm going to build my house. Down below the hill there was a slough full of water and grass all around. The ducks were singing and rabbits running all around so I said to John, "We have nothing to worry about. Look at all the meat we have." And I said, "What in the world am I going to do with all this land, 160 acres." I was so happy I sat down and cried. Einar Stromme helped us a lot. We borrowed a short handled shovel, walking plow and a horse from him. We used one ox and a horse, hitched them up to the walking plow to plow up some good sod to build our house. First we dug out in the hillside for our houses. Then we plowed a furrow of sod, measured the sod by the length of our shovel, cut it that length, and started to build our house. One strip of sod we laid lengthwise and the other crosswise so the walls were three feet thick. For the roof we borrowed Einar Stromme's team and wagon, went east to the river, cut poles, laid them on the roof and covered the roof with sod. The grass would grow on the roof and made it good and tight. This house was warm in winter and cool in summer. (I asked my grandfather how much money he had in his pocket when he came here. His answer was, "I had one five dollar bill.") We had our sod houses built so now it was time to go back to Dalrymple Farm and see how our wives were getting along. Einar Stromme took care of our cattle so we walked back to Dalrymple Farm. We worked that winter and purchased a team of oxen and wagon. We came back in the spring to put our crop in. We plowed and put in about five acres each the first year. We also took turns working on the railroad being built from Sanborn to Cooperstown. John would work one week then I the next so one of us could be home with the families. We would walk to work. I also helped build the court house in Cooperstown. I'd walk to Cooperstown, carry bricks all day, then walk home at night. It was hard work but it seemed we didn't mind as we were young and happy in our new land. I built all these buildings, bought more land, have had three different threshing rigs. My first steam engine had to be pulled into the field with horses. We also used horses to pull the separator around the field. There was no feeder on the machine. We had to push the bundles in by hand and cut and pull all the twine. There was no blower for the straw either, but it did have a conveyor that brought the straw out of the machine. Then we had to use forks and pitch the straw away. ANDREAS HEGNA Mr. and Mrs. Andreas Hegna came to Lenora Township, Griggs County in 1881 by horses and wagon from Kasson, Dodge County, Minnesota. They homesteaded on an L-shaped quarter of land in Section 18 along the Sheyenne River. They had eight sons and daughters; Mrs. Christ (Ingeborg) Jacobson, Mrs. Simon (Carrie) Anderson, Mrs. Andreas (Oste) Lee, Andrew, Halvor, Ole, John and Christian, all deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Andreas Hegna. Photo by I. Glerum Co., 1895-1896. Andreas continued living on the farm until his death in 1926 at 98 years of age. His wife died some time before. His son Andrew continued living on the farm until 1966 when he died at 86. Andrew married Anne Lee. They had four children; Alice (Haugo), Edna (Olson), Melvin, and Arthur, deceased. Melvin owns the farm now. Alice Haugo has four children; David, Perry, Bonnie, and Delores. BETUEL HERIGSTAD In 1852, Betuel Herigstad was born to Baar and Karen Herigstad on a farm on Jaederen, near Sandness, Norway. He married Inger Thu, daughter of Oman and Margaret Thu from a nearby farm. On April 10, 1881, Betuel and Inger Herigstad, along with Ola Westley, Omon Westley, Knut Haaland, Karl Herigstad, Waldemar Klubben, Sven Loge and Sven Lunde, left Stavanger, Norway to follow their desire to live in America. They left England April 18, then had an eventful voyage across the Atlantic and arrived in New York, via Newfoundland on May 20. There they journeyed by train to Chicago, to St. Paul and on to Granite Falls, Minnesota. With Christian Aarestad as their leader, the men traveled to North Dakota by train as far as Fargo. With their ox teams, they set out for the Sheyenne River in Sverdrup Township. Betuel chose to homestead on 145-58, the northeast Vt of section 30. The children of Betuel and Inger Herigstad were Karen, Bard, Margaret, Omen, Inga, Conrad, Emil, Henry, Theodore, Lydia, Sylvia and two girls born around the turn of the century who died in infancy. -79- Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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