Finland-Swedes in Michigan

Finland-Swedes in Michigan

15 Finland-SwedesinMichigan S ome of the first people from Finland recorded in Michigan include Fredrick Randall and Fredrika Bremer. Randall was a forty-eight-year-old sailor who was enumerated in the 1850 U.S. Census in Huron County on the shores of Lake Huron.31 The first Finland-Swede to travel through Michigan also dates to 1850, when Fredrika Bremer visited North America between 1849 and 1851. As noted earlier, an exhibition hall was established in her honor by the American Swedish Heritage Museum located in Philadelphia. Her accounts of travels in which she mentions Lower Michigan were published in the two-volume work titled Hemmen i den Nya verlden, En dagbok i bref, skrifna under tvenne års resor i Norra Amerika och på Cuba (Homes of the New World: A diary of two years of travel in North America and Cuba). In this text, Bremer mentions her travels across Lake Erie to Detroit, her overland venture by rail through Ann Arbor to the shores of Lake Michigan, and her eventual crossing onboard a steamer across Lake Michigan to Chicago.32 Michigan was one of the first states to attract immigrants from Finland in large numbers. The first immigrants did not, however, come directly from Finland. Several thousand Finns living in Norway, where they were mostly engaged in fishing and mining, followed Norwegians to work in the copper mines of Houghton and Keweenaw counties. It was reported that one mining company sent Christian Taftes to secure miners from Finnmarken and 16 Mika R oinila Tromsø in Norway. In the summer of 1864 he landed in Hancock with over one hundred Norwegians, Swedes, and Finns. Some of the men took up work in the mines, while several were induced to enlist in the U.S. Army, which needed more men in defense of the Union.33 It is very possible that the first Finland-Swedes arrived in Michigan in this first wave of settlers, and it is recorded that a few Finland-Swedes were found in the Calumet area as early as 1871.34 Finland-Swedes closely followed their Finnish-speaking countrymen. Perhaps the earliest arrival of Finland-Swedish immigrants who remained in Michigan dates to 1868 when a group of Finland-Swedes from Chicago settled in Ludington, Michigan, and joined the Emanuel Lutheran Church: The first of them was Alex Mattson, an uncle of A. A. Palm arriving in 1868. Two or three years later Matts Borg, John Hakalax and Carl Liljestrom. In 1872 the number was added to by Andrew Newberg, Anders Borg, Abraham Westerlund, Matts Mattson and fifteen more who came with them from Chicago shortly after their arrival from Finland. Others came later. Some of them became fishermen, others worked as did most of the Swedes in the forests during winter and in sawmills in the city in summers. Sometime later came a number of native Finlanders who stayed for a while and then moved elsewhere, all except Jakob Berglund who lived on a farm on the north side of Lincoln River.35 As estimated by IPUMS-USA, the 1910 census showed that the number of Swedish-speaking immigrants born in Finland shows Michigan in first place, with 2,905 Finland-Swedes, representing 18 percent of all Finland-Swedes in the country. Michigan was followed by New York, with 2,101 (13 percent), Oregon with 2,001 (12.4 percent), California with 1,605 (9.9 percent), and Washington with 1,408 (8.7 percent). Although the percentage share of Finland-Swedes in Michigan declined to 14.6 percent in 1930, it maintained its number-one status with most Finland-Swedes in the country until Washington, California, and New York surpassed Michigan.36 The 2000 census showed that the most populous states with people born in Finland who spoke Swedish were found in California (23.8 percent) and New York (13 percent). According to this definition, Michigan had a total of eighty-two (5.8 percent) individuals in the nation F INL AND-SWEDES IN MICHI GAN 17 who could be identified as being Finland-Swedes (table 2). Once again, the census data does not account for descendants who may or may not speak Swedish and who are born outside of Finland. The majority of Finland-Swedes settled in the Upper Peninsula, as they were attracted to the availability of jobs in the mines and forests of the region. Among the best-known and most populous locations for Finland-Swedes in Michigan were Ironwood, Crystal...