Pioneer women were as courageous as the men ... 

Thone Saangdak Thortvedt (in the sketch above) was courageous, frank and charitable.  She was widely known for her frequent gifts to needy families, usually a sheep or a bag of wool. She liked nothing better than to sit at her loom and weave cloth.  In order to do that she also had to shear the sheep and spin the yarn.  She knitted many garments and went into the fields with her husband and helped bind sheaves of grain.  Whenever she had a moment of leisure, she would read.  It was a big day for her when her only newspaper, published in Iowa, arrived from the Hudsons Bay post at Georgetown.  The paper was called "Ved Arnen."  On Sundays Thone would read from the old family Bible, while members of her family listened.  When she died one of her neighbors said, "Now the kindest woman along the Buffalo river is dead."  In this sketch Thone is shown in the finest garb that pioneer women of those days knew.  Her hair was parted in the middle as was the custom of the day.  Her granddaughter, Orabel Thortvedt, has sketched several fine likenesses of this pioneer mother.  None of the modern conveniences of today's kitchen were in her home...

An interior view of the Thortvedt Cabin home ...

Here you may see the double-deck bed where part of the Thortvedt family slept, the old kitchen stove, the spinning wheel, the only table, the stockings drying on a string behind the stove.  Thone Thortvedt is seen carrying a hot dish from the stove to the table, where her husband, Olav Thortvedt sits, pulling away on his pipe.  Little Thone, their daughter, stands behind him and at the right, another daughter, Signe, tugs at the arm of her brother, Leif Levi (later Orabel Thortvedt's father), urging him to come and play, but he is loathe to leave the warmth of the stove.  Another cat has joined the family circle to take the place of Dvarius Jillum.  On the table may be seen a homemade candle casting its feeble beams about the cabin.  The settlers had no candle forms so Thone tied twisted cotton rags onto a stick for wicks and while they hung suspended between two chairs poured sheep tallow over them.  As soon as one "pour" had hardened, a second was poured on, until the candles had the proper thickness.  The settlers also used "grease" lamps for lighting, candles usually being reserved for special occasions such as Christmas.  Christmas trees were not in use in those days and the pioneers usually "shot in" the festive day. One of the men would go outdoors, point his gun into the air and pull the trigger.  The horses, cattle and sheep were given special rations while the families dined on the best food in their larders, read the Bible and sung hymns.  There were many cold and stormy days...

Skis were used to bring food and mail ...

Despite the weather, the men made excursions by turn to the Hudsons Bay post at Georgetown to bring mail and supplies.  In the sketch may be seen Ola Midgarden setting out for the post.  On his back he carries a bundle of furs, mink and muskrat, which he will exchange at the post for high-priced sugar, tobacco and other frontier luxuries.  He is warmly clad in homespun clothes of wool, with a muskrat cap on his head.  The skis, too, are homemade.  They proved a popular and necessary method of travel during the winter months.  Return of the man from the post was awaited eagerly.  He often brought a letter from the old home across the sea and at stated intervals the Norwegian publication, Ved Arnen, in which in those days was being published a popular serial, Prairien's Hvide Hest (The Prairie's White Horse).  It was a romance read with avid interest by all that could read and listened to eagerly when read aloud.  There were other important expeditions, too, particularly those from Buffalo river to Alexandria for other food supplies such as flour, coffee, matches, tobacco, and windows for the cabins, and to the land office to file claims.  The trip to Alexandria took two weeks when a wagon and oxen were used.  The return of such food expeditions was awaited joyfully and was followed by big bakings of bread and biscuits, much to the delight of the younger people.  Life soon began to settle into routine along the river and there was talk of intimate events about to occur...

The first white baby is born on the Buffalo ...

In this sketch may be seen the interior of the cabin of Tarje Skrei and his wife after the arrival of their son, Theodore, first white child to be born along the Buffalo.  The date was December 15, 1870.  Thone Thortvedt acted as midwife and can be seen in the sketch holding the baby, while his father, Tarjei Skrei, scrutinizes him with paternal interest.  The mother, Gunhild Skrei, is the figure in the corner bed.  There were no doctors in those days but the people were resourceful and met their problems with fortitude.  This was the second child in the Skrei family, the other being a daughter, Signe, 4.  Other children arrived as the years passed.  In 1940, several survivors and many descendants of the colony gathered near the old Thortvedt homestead and re-enacted the arrival of the pioneer party on the 70th anniversary.  There was an improvised prairie schooner, horses, cows, chickens in a lath crate and the children of the pioneers all dressed up in clothing reminiscent of early days.  Many of the utensils and other articles possessed by the original party were displayed.  The modern Buffalo river people closed the evening's celebration by dining on the same kind of food eaten by their forefathers on that day.  It was prepared over a campfire.  Many interesting events occurred during the early settlement days.  Among them was the infrequent arrival of strangers ...

Empire builder visits a humble cabin ...

It was in April of 1871 that two fur-clad strangers in a cutter drawn by a chestnut mare arrived at the door of Olav Thortvedt's cabin, asking for food and lodging for the night.  They were made welcome and their request quickly granted.  After they had eaten they conversed with the family, and occasionally spoke to each other in French.  Thortvedt brought in a huge armful of hay which he placed in one corner of the cabin.  On it the men spread their buffalo robes and went to sleep.  Leif Levi, 11, son of Olav, stared at the strangers with interest.  One of them was James J. Hill, destined to become known as the "Empire Builder" and builder and head of the Great Northern railway.   Dreaming of the days when he might span the prairies with rails, he traversed much of the frontier by horse and buggy, looking for routes and sites.  In 1912 there was a grain growers convention in Fargo with Hill a speaker.  Leif Levi went to hear him.  During his address he said, "In the spring of 1870, I stopped with a homesteader over on the Buffalo River." (1870-1871 date discrepancy in the original) It was then that the Thortvedts first realized who one of their guests had been. In 1870, one of the pioneering party, Aanon Gunderson Gjeitsta, had become alarmingly ill, suffering from a serious malady, making it difficult for his wife, also named Thone, and their four young sons.  Others in the settlement helped out the sad wife, attending to various tasks the father could not undertake.  As Aanon's illness became more acute, the neighbors took turns sitting up with the sick man.  He died March 25, 1871...

Note: James J. Hill started out a riverboat man on the Red River, and over the years became a frequent guest at the A. Kragnes home in the northern part of the settlement.  Hill was a shrewd businessman, and his gifts of prize purebred bulls to a number of farmers, including Kragnes and Tarje Grover, were not simply gracious gifts from a friend, but were designed to encourage development of cattle herds that would be transported to market on his trains! Visit this website to learn more about James J. Hill

Buffalo river colony's first funeral ...

Aanon Gunderson Gjeitsta is believed to have been the first white man to die along the Buffalo.  He was laid to rest in a crude coffin constructed by his brother, Olav Thortvedt.  It was made from wood taken from a wagon box.  There was no preacher in the settlement.  Olav took over the duty.  In this sketch he may be seen reading the Lord's Prayer and leading the singing of a hymn, Her Modes Alle Vele (Here All Paths Meet).  It was a grey, sleety day in March.  Flood water in the Buffalo was rising rapidly and the settlers were worried about their stock.  In the sketch, the mourners, beginning at the left, are Thone Thortvedt, attempting to comfort her sister-in-law, Tone Veum Gjeitsta, whose two sons, Gunanr 11, and Gustav, 7, are clinging to her.  Olav Thortvedt is reading Scripture.  Ola Midgarden is taking his turn at the spade, as was the custom; little Leif Levi Thortvedt, sad of face, is standing at the foot of the grave watching the clumps of earth fall on his uncle's coffin.  The others are Tarjei Skrei, Tarjei Muhle, Gunhild Skrei and Halvor Fendalstveidt.  Aanon was buried on the banks of the river.  It was about this time that word came that more settlers were coming.  A letter came from Olav Thorvedt's brother, Bendick Gunderson, that he had sold his Houston county farm and was coming.  So was another of Olav's brothers, Ole Lee. Others were coming too ...