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OLSEN ANCESTORS
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WHEN COLIN AND I were in Stavanger, Norway, in 2003, we purchased a book about one of our Thomsen family ancestors, Christian H.G. ‘Spyglass’ Olsen. The book is titled ‘Jordbundet og Himmelvendt.’ In English, the title means that ‘Spyglass’ Olsen was both a down-to-earth, practical man and a dreamer. The author is Olsen’s great-grandson, Alf Craner, another relative of ours. ‘Spyglass’ Olsen was an important figure in Norwegian technological history. He was an inventor and instrument maker who built Norway’s first telescope. He also held important patents for telegraph machines and made navigational and surveying instruments used by the famous Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen. ‘Spyglass’ was also a brother of Marie Magdalene Olsen, the wife of Taulerius Thomsen and the mother of Tolleif George, Lorentz and Cornelius Thomsen. The first section of Craner’s book tells the stories of four remarkably creative, ambitious and successful Olsen family members, and details some of their very human failings. They are ship Capt. Ole Olsen; his son Rolf, who became police chief and mayor of Bergen, Norway; Rolf’s brother, Eric, the unruly priest of the island of Stord; and Eric’s oldest son, Ole Georg, the man who built Enstabovoll and was the father of both ‘Spyglass’ Olsen and Marie Magdalene Thomsen. Here is my translation of this section of Craner’s book. Parts of Craner’s narrative have been cut, condensed or paraphrased for the sake of brevity. Most of the cuts are in the section about Ole Georg. Tolleif George Thomsen’s book, ‘Saga from Western Norway,’ is the primary source for this section and much of the information related there is already known to us. Major points in my translation have been verfied by a Norwegian friend, Bente Soderlind of Bergen and Duluth. Notes at the end of the text will amplify some of the information. -- Keith Thomsen Ole Olsen (~1720-1792) Ship captain and sailmaker Ole Olsen was known as a direct, bold and brave man who lived in Bergen in the 1700s. He sailed for 40 years and traveled as far as the Mediterranean Sea. He was believed to be the first ship captain to fly the flag of Denmark-Norway in Egyptian waters. In 1779, his ship, the Jomfru Karen, was caught in a fierce storm on the North Sea and nearly wrecked. By manning the ship’s pumps 24 hours a day to keep it from going to the bottom, Capt. Olsen managed to bring the crippled Jomfru Karen as far as the outer harbor at Skjellangen. There he immediately ran it aground to keep it from sinking. All the sailors were rescued. After that, Capt. Olsen went ashore for good. He bought his father-in-law’s house in the Engen district of Bergen, laid out a bowling alley in the garden, built a two-story brewery and opened a club or tavern patronized by gentlemen. The tavern was a meeting place for a regular clientele of Olsen’s friends and former associates at the rich Bergen shipping firm of Fasmer. The prosperous ex-captain liked to carry a Holland leather wallet embossed in sparkling gold letters with the name ‘Ole Olsen van Bergen.’ The ‘van’ was apparently prompted by his many voyages to the Netherlands and his social pretensions. ‘Van’ (‘of’ in English) was a form used by the Dutch nobility. Rolf Olsen (1750-1810) The success of the tavern and brewery put the family finances on a sound footing and allowed two of Ole’s sons to study at the university in Copenhagen. One, Rolf Olsen, became a lawyer and later served as police chief and mayor of Bergen. Rolf was known for his good taste, his knowledge of science and his interest in the arts. He lived in an elegant house at the corner of Domkirkgaten and Skostraedet in Bergen, where his garden was a public attraction. People came from all over the city to view his exotic flowers and his amazing fountain. It had gilt metal balls that bounced up and down in the spray. Rolf was fond of parading the streets of Bergen every Sunday wearing a red uniform, a sword and a three-cornered hat. He was always escorted by two policemen armed with staves and spiked maces called ‘morning stars.’ The pompous display did not make him popular with the people of Bergen; neither did his opposition to the liberalization of the laws regulating brandy sales. Many Bergensers thought Rolf Olsen ‘set the nose too much in the weather,’ or that he was haughty and snobbish. Eric Olsen (1761-1834) Rolf’s brother Eric Olsen , the father and grandfather of the Olsens at Enstabovoll, also studied at the university in Copenhagen. Eric trained as a Lutheran minister and was able to launch a very promising career in the Danish capital. He became a tutor in the home of Pastor Jorgen Grundvig (also spelled Grundtvig) and soon after married Grundvig’s daughter, a tall, slim woman of 19 named Antonette Marie. Her family was socially prominent. She was a cousin of Bishop Nicolai Gundtvig, a composer of church music whose well-known hymns are still used today in Lutheran churches throughout Scandinavia. In 1785, the 24-year-old Eric got his university degree. Two years later he was named catechist at Holmens Church and chaplin at the home of Bishop Paul Egede. Like his brother, Eric had aristocratic manners and was known for his elegant dress. He always appeared in public clad in a green topcoat, vest, high-heeled shoes with bows and silver buckles, a wig and a three-cornered hat. Standing beside his tall, slender wife he appeared shorter than he really was, but he was ‘strong like a sailor’ and was somewhat aggressive in his manner. His wife was fond of calling him, in Danish, ‘min norsk biorn’ - ‘my Norwegian bear.’ Something Rotten in Denmark Eric’s aggressiveness was not tempered by tact. He rashly exposed two major scandals that destroyed his standing with the government and the upper classes in Copenhagen. Part of his job was to serve as an assistant pastor at Holmens Church. There he heard a rumor that the body of a dead sailor was to be used for anatomy studies at the university without the knowledge of the sailor’s family or friends. The sailor’s empty casket was to be buried while the body was carried secretly to the university. The outraged Eric demanded that the coffin be opened. Inside he found nothing but stones and straw. Eric reported the case to the authorities and hurriedly published a pamphlet about the incident that was embarrassing to church officials. In 1789, after being ordained, Eric became a priest at a Copenhagen hospital. There he learned that the director was stealing hospital money to lead an immoral life. Again Eric rushed into print a report of the scandal that embarrassed officials. The hospital director was fired, but the Danish authorities decided to get rid of the eager Norwegian reformer as well. Revenge of the Body-Snatchers Denmark’s prince regent, later King Frederik VI, called Eric to the palace and told the petulant preacher that his presence in Copenhagen was no longer desired. Eric had preached at the palace as a student so the regent knew he was an eloquent speaker. As a result, Eric was given his pick of vacant parishes in Norway. He chose the one on Stord because it was near his home in Bergen and because it seemed like a rich office. It included the annexes of Fitjar and Valestrand. At Christmas time in 1792, Pastor Olsen traveled by sea with his wife and three small children to Norway. Their ship encountered a winter storm on the Skagerrak, and they arrived in Bergen exhausted by seasickness. There they learned that Eric’s father had died a few days previously. The old ship captain was buried on Christmas Eve. After the New Year’s holiday, the family traveled by boat to their new home on Stord. Real Estate Rift Problems arose for Eric almost immediately on Stord. The buildings at the Tyse parsonage assigned to him were in disrepair and unfit for human habitation. The widow of the former priest, a Mrs. Paludan, gave the Olsens lodging at the Kørsvik parsonage where she lived. After a couple of years, Eric decided he wanted a place of his own, and that led to a series of legal disputes. The trouble started when he made a shady deal with the widow Paludan. For 60 specie dollars Eric bought a farm called Saevarhagen in the old parish of Tyse. But Saeverhagen was not the widow Paludan’s to sell or Eric’s to buy. It was a benefice; it belonged to the church. The use and income from the farm could be given to someone, in this case the widow Paludan, but ownership of the property could not be transfered. The local bishop was immediately on the case and filed a legal complaint about the deal. Three separate lawsuits about the parsonage finally ended with a remarkable legal judgment. Eric and Mrs. Paludan were declared to have been in the wrong, but Eric got to keep the farm anyway. In return, he was ordered to pay a yearly fee of one barrel of barley to the parish priest. In other words, he was ordered to pay rent to himself. With this matter settled, Eric built himself a new house and barn and laid out a garden that featured a carp pond and exotic shrubs. Saeverhagen became a beautiful parsonage that was known for its many upper-class guests and noisy parties. The farmers on Stord who paid their tithes to Priest Olsen began to have doubts about him. Champion of Lost Causes The doubts were increased by Eric’s reforming zeal. With great energy, he tried to turn on the light of knowledge in the gloomy wastes of Stord. But what the priest proposed the farmers would have to pay for, and that they were extremely reluctant to do. Eric wanted to have a school at a fixed site. Formerly, circuit-riding teachers held school lessons in an area for a time and then moved on. Besides a school building, Eric asked the farmers to provide meals, lodging and extra pay for teachers during a longer school term. The farmers wouldn’t do it, and the teachers wouldn’t perform the extra work without being paid. Eric defied both by teaching mathematics and writing to the students for free. The priest called for the creation of a public library on Stord, but the taxpayers said it would cost too much. Eric sought a special levy to support the parish poor, but he got no response from church superiors. He printed a pamphlet calling for the use of slate from Valestrand as a building material to save the forests. He was ignored. In 1807, after the British Navy attacked Copenhagen, Eric started to teach the farmers on Stord how to use firearms to defend the coast. After the British blockaded Norwegian ports, he called for the creation of an emergency store of food to be used in case of a famine. The farmers wouldn’t do it, and the famine came. Litigation with the Laity Eric had a reputation as a fine preacher who could speak eloquently about the need to love one’s neighbors. But when his neighbors opposed him, or worse, when he thought they were trying to fool him, he became furious. According to law, the farmers were supposed to pay a tenth of their produce to the preacher. In addition, the congregation was supposed to make an ‘offering’ of money so he had some cash. Soon after his arrival on Stord, Eric came to suspect he was not getting all that was due him. He filed a legal complaint and went to court to enforce his rights. Thus began a series of lawsuits that was to last the entire 40 years he served on the island. He sued a fisherman for a share of a herring catch. He sued a tenant farmer for not performing the full amount of work required under the terms of his lease. He prosecuted servants who left his employ before the stated time. (Another book says he sued a woman whose baby cried in church.) Eric even forced his parishioners buy copies of a hymn he’d written before they could receive communion. The farmers of Stord counterattacked. They filed legal complaints alleging false accusation. The situation deteriorated into a fight between town dwellers and rural people, between the educated and uneducated, and between high and low classes. In 1813 Eric tried to reach out to his enemies by printing at least two tracts on the disputes. He also preached on the subject of Christian love, forgiveness and atonement at the Domkirken in Bergen, but all this had no effect on Stord. A year later Eric sent a despairing letter to the government asking for help. The title he gave to his plea was ‘A protest to the Norwegian government from Priest Eric Olsen on how for 21 years he has been treated with much adversity, with a humble prayer for protection.’ In it he asked for a transfer to another parish. He was refused. Melancholy Priest Eric’s bishop until 1816 was Johan Nordahl Brun. On a visit to Stord he heard a sermon by Eric and wrote that the people loved him in church but hated him outside. In everyday life, Eric was dictatorial and quarrelsome and was often visibly drunk in public. His many problems apparently led him to imbibe too much. One who was concerned about the situation was the man who succeeded Nordahl in 1817, Bishop Claus Pavels. In a diary entry about a visit to Eric at Stord, he wrote: ‘When the others took a glass of punch, Olsen took a glass of brandy in one hand and a glass of beer in the other and drained them both one after the other. At the table he drank another flask of wine and soon was well muddled and jabbering. But as soon as we had eaten, he went straight to bed without further adieu.’ Three years later there was a dinner party at Saeverhagen that caused a scandal. From early in the day Eric had wandered back and forth between his house and a little building in his garden, where he apparently kept strong drink. By the time the guests sat down to eat, Eric was drunk. Pavels wrote: ‘That was the most unpleasant meal I had had on the whole trip. The brandy glass had been in diligent use all morning, and at the table our host slurred his words, proposed a toast that made a fool of himself, and was crude, despite the presence of me, his bishop, and my wife ... It was so disagreeable to both me and my wife that we left the meal during dessert ...’ Pavels said Eric had made crude jokes and nasty comments that he shouldn’t have repeated in front of a clock, much less in front of a bishop. The incident doomed Eric’s efforts to enlist Pavels’ support to get a new parish. The next day Eric had sobbered up and tried to repair the damage. He knocked cautiously on Pavels’ door and without a word handed him a letter apologizing for what he had done. He blamed the wine, which he said he seldom drank. Pavels said he forgave Eric but vowed never to set foot on Stord again as long as Eric Olsen was there. In 1832, a pair of Stord farmers finally got the better of their priest in a lawsuit. They had watched him for 12 years and could prove that Eric had been drunk in church on many occasions dating back to 1820. They had proof that Eric had been drunk twice while serving communion and had once performed a marriage while intoxicated. And so Eric went to court for the last time. In January 1833 a panel of judges ruled that Olsen should be removed from office. A year later he died at age 73. After his ouster and death, the people on Stord began to take a kindlier view of Eric. They said he was a very eloquent preacher, and that his drinking wasn’t that much worse than normal for priests. They said he could be crude and vulgar but was also a straight-talker who treated everyone the same and was kind to animals. They said he was a gifted man who had two fatal weaknesses: stubbornness and an addiction to drink. Willful Widow Antonette Marie survived her husband by 10 years. She didn’t like living in the remote Norwegian countryside and was a stickler for keeping up class distinctions. When one of her daughters, a very beautiful and strong-willed girl named Ulrikke Eleanore, became pregnant by a country boy named Gabriel, the stern mother sent her daughter to Bergen to give birth in concealment. She got Gabriel out of the way by placing him on a tenant farm in Valestrand. Gabriel later married another woman, but Ulrikke remained single all her life. Her son, who took the name of Grundtvig Olsen, became a lawyer, while Ulrikke managed the house at the famous Rosendal Barony in Kvinherad. She lived there with her son until she died at age 59 in 1859. Antonette Marie passed her final years writing poetry. The new priest on Stord, Claus Daae, was not allowed to have Saeverhagen. Antonette Marie lived there until her death in 1844, and then a grandson, Christopher Olsen, took it over. Norwegian law would have given it to her oldest son, Ole Georg Olsen, but by that time he had already built his dream home at Enstabovoll in Valestrand. Ole Georg Olsen (1789-1862) Ole Georg was 4 years old when he came to Norway from Copenhagen in a storm. Eleven years later, in 1804, he went to sea again, much against his will, on a ship bound for the Mediterranean. He probably should have studied theology; he was already a student at the cathedral school in Bergen. But one day Eric Olsen stopped at the school and bluntly announced that his son was leaving. Rumor had it that a servant girl at the Saeverhagen parsonage was pregnant and that Ole Georg was to blame. His father had hired him as a cabin boy to Capt. Krogh, whose ship was bound for Spain. The priest’s wife protested that the boy hadn’t been confirmed and that the cloth for a suit being made for the occasion was still on the loom. The priest said the boy could wear one of his old coats and he would confirm Ole Georg when he preached the following Sunday. When the ceremony was over, Ole Georg was hurried to Bergen to board his ship. For three years Ole Georg’s ship sailed the Mediterranean. Then, in 1807, Norway was drawn into the Napoleonic Wars. English warships blockaded Norway’s coast, and ship after ship from the Norwegian merchant fleet went to anchor in southern ports to save the vessels from capture. Ole Georg’s ship went to Malaga, Spain, where it was laid up for the next six years. Spain was drawn into the war as well. By 1812, the English had occupied the country. All Danish and Norwegian ships there were confiscated, and the sailors imprisoned. Ole Georg was jailed for a year and a half in Malaga. Prior to that he had worked on a Spanish farm. As peace approached, Ole Georg and the other sailors were released and he sailed back to Norway as a ship’s mate. The blockade of Norway was eased, and Ole Georg’s ship was granted a license to trade with England. In the fall of 1813, the ship was wrecked in a storm off Kinn Island. Ole Ashore After that, Ole Georg went to sea no more. Farming looked like a safer occupation. For nine years he had been in foreign lands. When he left home he was a youth who had to push up the sleeves of his borrowed coat to shake hands at his confirmation. Now he was a ship’s officer who was used to being obeyed when he shouted an order. Ole Georg’s parents still lived at Saeverhagen. Their parish included a farm named Tveita that belonged to the church and was leased to help pay some of the priest’s wages. Ole Georg got the lease. Tveita was in Valestrand by the Bømla Fjord. Off the coast, ships from all over the world passed to and fro, but Ole Georg remained at home, farming and doing a little trading by boat in the fjords. On Halsn¿y Island he became acquainted with a young brother and sister who owned the old cloister farm there. They were Andreas Juel and his 20-year-old sister, Ingeborg Marie Juel. Andreas was rebuilding the farm, and his sister was acting as his housekeeper. In 1815, Ole Georg and Ingeborg Marie married and settled at Tveita. Soon this farm was too small for them. With the church’s permission, they exchanged it for another, larger place in Valestrand - Enstabovoll.
Establishing Enstabavoll Like the Juel’s Halsnøy farm, Enstabavoll had fallen into disrepair during the war and was a sad sight. The barns and workshops were starting to collapse, and the main house had to be propped up with logs. In foreign lands Ole Georg had seen the geometric gardens of the Renaissance and Baroque eras and the gentle, natural gardens of England. Now at Enstabovoll he created a garden of his own where there was a harmony between the buildings, fences, trees, avenues and landscape. Plots and beds were cleared of wild flowers, bushes and holly. Cuttings, grafts and seeds were brought from Bergen, where Ole Georg had an agreement with merchants and ship’s officers to import them. At home in his garden he experimented with unusual conditions of soil, sun, shade and humidity to encourage his new plants.
His buildings were made of shale. The stone on his property could be cut into flagstones. He got the idea of building with them from his father’s earlier pamphlet on the subject. But to make the house, bridges, buildings and fences Ole Georg had to hire a large number of workers. There weren’t enough in Valestrand so he hired then from as far away as Kvinnherad and Telemark to the east. There were so many that they had to build huts in the forest or hollow out caves in the rock for places to live. Where Ole Georg got the money for the project is uncertain. He lost all he had in the shipwreck off Kinn. Apparently his mother gave him money she had inherited from Denmark. With his large labor force, he could also cut more stone than he needed, and he began to sell it throughhout Western Norway. A wharf was built on the fjord. From this landing loaded boats sailed for Stavanger, Haugesund and Bergen, where the flagstones they carried were used for sidewalks, stairs, terraces and garden walls.
Slowly Enstabovoll became a lovely park, fruit orchard and model farm. In 16 years Ole Georg built more than 20 buildings and about two miles of stone fences. The fences were about six feet high and were so stable that children could run and play on them. Only the house was made of timber; the rest of the buildings were made of stone. They included a cow barn, loft, storehouse, pig sty, sheep fold, fruit house, boathouse and workshops for a wheelwright, blacksmith and cabinetmaker. There were also many wellhouses, a plant nursery and three gardenhouses called North Pole, South Pole and Constantinople. Finally there was a brewery where beer was made in a 200-liter copper vat. All that was needed on the farm, right down the smallest nail, was made there. Even the workers were largely paid in produce from the farm, either in the form of clothing or in supplies needed for winter fishing. Landed Proprietor For his first 16 years at Enstabovoll, Ole Georg was a leaseholder. But in 1832 his father helped him buy the estate with its grounds, forest and stone quarry. Now he could let others do the work of quarrying stone while he took a half part of the profits as property owner. Ole Georg could also afford to build a guest house for overnight visitors. The new building had stone walls almost a yard thick and was called Muren - The Wall. The ninth and last surviving child of the family was born on March 13, 1835. He was given the name of Christian Holberg Gran after a man who at one time lived at Kørsvik on Stord. Christian’s brothers Hans Jacob, Peder Nicolai and Andreas, were 2, 5 and 6 years old at the time. The boys haunted the farm workshops to make toys and playthings. During the long winter days, two or three men worked in the shops repairing sleds, wagons and tools or turning wood. These men were always ready to help the boys with the difficult parts of their projects. Their master teacher was their father. Ole Georg liked to experiment and devise new tools. One of his inventions was a seeder of a kind never before seen in the area, but it functioned poorly. On the other hand, his cargo wagon with sleigh runners in front and wheels behind was a success. The wheels made it easier for horses to draw heavy loads uphill. Downhill the runners acted as brakes. A mill powered by the tide was a failure. So was a wind-powered mill. Sudden gusts made the mill grind in an uneven way, producing poor flour. In the end, Ole Georg built a dam of boulders in the woods, and from there the water flowed down to a mill on the fjord. Local farmers brought boatloads of grain to the mill to be ground and rowed back home with loads of meal and flour. Ole Georg was a headstrong and stern proprietor. When he came around to supervise the farm work and pointed to something with his cane, the workers had to get busy or they didn’t stay around very long. Now and then he dressed himself in a black coat, silk hat and gloves and traveled to Bergen. Along the way he stopped at Saeverhagen for a visit at his parent’s parsonage, a place known for its festiveness and good food. There his mother often gave him money, which embarrased him; he would rather that the gifts be loans. With money in his wallet, he went to Bergen to buy gilt leather wallpaper for his study, English porcelain for his table, wigs for himself and little foreign luxuries necessary to those who wanted to impress visitors. But his stern mother also made Ole Georg toe the line occasionally. She told him not to eat so fast at the table. When Ulrikke was pregnant, Ole Georg had to arrange for the child’s father to get a tenant farm at Enstabovoll. Also, he had to take care of his spinster sister Marie. Ole George built her a house of her own at Enstabovoll. The neighboring farmers were annoyed by Ole Georg’s despotic and arbitrary ways. Dressed in a double-breasted marine blue coat, he rode around on a white horse to supervise the work on his farm. He took so much stone from the mountains that one place that had been a hill became a lake. The stone came from common land shared by all the local farmers. They complained that Ole Georg was taking more than his fair share. They said that because he was a priest’s son and a friend of the new priest he was taking liberties.
Ole George and Lorentzia,
At Enstabovoll. The large tree in the center was planted to commemorate Ole George Olsen after he died in 1862.
Ole Georg’s mother was now 80 years old. She was extremely pleased to see her eldest son marry another woman of high social status at the posh Nykirken (New Church) in Bergen. Lorentzia never had children of her own but the affection between her and her stepchildren grew strong and lasted all her life. -- Keith Thomsen Notes SPYGLASS OLSEN - Christian Holberg Gran Olsen was born at Enstabovoll in 1835. He was named after an uncle of his mother’s. He trained as an instrument maker in Bergen and then went to work for the German firm of Repsold in Hamburg, where he met the woman who would become his wife. He also studied in Paris for a time before moving to Christiana (Oslo) in 1861 to start his own company. His business was the first in Norway to produce precision instruments; prior to 1861, such instruments had to be imported. In 1883, he built Norway’s first telescope for astronomical observation. It was first erected in the palace park in Oslo but later moved to Holmenkollen, the city’s famous ski-jumping hill. He also made binoculars, theodolites, compasses and other instruments for the Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen’s Fram expedition. Olsen also invented several machines used in telegraphy in Europe. He died in 1921 in Oslo. ALF CRANER - Craner, born in 1936, is a singer and songwriter who appears regularly on television in Norway. He has written music for films and the theater and has put the words of several Norwegian poets to music. One of his records won the Norwegian equivalent of a Grammy Award in 1976. He is a great-grandson of Spyglass Olsen. CAPT. OLE OLSEN - I’ve been unable to find any birth or marriage dates for Ole Olsen. Given that he died in 1792, and estimating that he enjoyed the traditional biblical life span of three score and ten years, he was probably born in the 1720s. Fasmer, the shipping company that employed him, is still a thriving Bergen business, although it is now headquartered in the southern suburbs of the city. Engen, where Ole had his home and tavern, is the area around the National Theater in Bergen. Interestingly, there is a nightspot directly across from the National Theater called the Ritz Cafe. It has the usual amenities you’d expect at a night spot, such as a bar and restaurant, but it also has something very unusual - a bowling alley. Could this be a successor to Ole’s business? ROLF OLSEN - Born 1750, died 1810. The streets given as his address still exist, and so may his house. Further research is needed. No dates are given for his term as mayor but it was probably in the 1790s or the first decade of the 1800s He would have been appointed to the job by the royal government, not elected. ERIC OLSEN - Born 1761, died 1834. ANTONETTE MARIE GRUNDVIG OLSEN - Born 1764, died 1844. Their gravestone can be seen in the churchyard in Leirvik. SAEVERHAGEN - Only one small building remains from Eric Olsen’s grand parsonage and farm at Saeverhagen. The area is now on the northern edge of the city of Leirvik and the land has been subdivided for homes. DEFENDING THE COAST - Eric’s plan to arm farmers to defend Stord during the Napoleonic Wars was not entirely a crackpot scheme. Iron pyrite, a source of sulfur used in making gunpowder, was mined on Stord, and the British were very interested in obtaining it. Fortunately, an attack was not needed. Cynical and cutthroat deals were arranged that would have made the old-time Vikings proud. While the British blockaded Norwegian ports and starved people to death, they granted trading licenses to some Norwegian shippers to bring strategic goods like pyrite and naval stores to England. At the same time, the ship owners carrying the goods were also fitting out privateering vessels to prey on British ships in the North Sea and Baltic. Norwegian and Danish privateers captured more than 2,000 British merchant ships of various sizes during the seven years of the war. ‘HE SUED A FISHERMAN ...’ - There is a chance that the fisherman was none other than Tolleif Thomsen. Conflicting dates and story details obscure the issue, but Tolleif was sued by a priest over a herring catch and Eric Olsen was his parish priest in 1832-33. ULRIKKE ELEANORE - Born 1800, died 1859. Her story was the subject of a 1905 novel called ‘Djup Jord,’ or ‘Deep Earth.’ Two people who have tried to read it told Colin and I it is written in a very flowery, archaic Norwegian that is now almost impossible to decipher. Both had very pained expressions on their faces when they recalled the book. Studies done in the mid-1800s found that one in 11 births in Norway was illegitimate, a surprisingly high rate given the religious and cultural restrictions of the time. ROSENDAL BARONY - The only one of the palatial homes of the nobility to survive in Norway, Rosendal Barony is located on the south side of the Hardanger Fjord complex near its mouth. The manor house was built in 1665 by Ludwig Rosenkrantz. It now belongs to the University of Oslo and is used for conferences and musical concerts. It is famous for its rose gardens. Rosendal was also the site of the famous Skølurens shipyard that specialized in wooden vessels. Tolleif George Thomsen worked there just before he emigrated in 1882. The Gjoa, Roald Amundsen’s arctic exploration ship, the first vessel to make the Northwest Passage, was built there. Both the Gjoa and the Fram, Nansen’s ship, can be seen at the Bygdøy museums in Oslo. INGEBORG MARIE JUEL - Born 1793, died 1841. She was a member of a socially prominent Western Norway family. She is also our link to Ole Bull. She and Ole Bull’s mother had a common maternal grandmother, also named Ingeborg Marie Juel. Or, to put it another way, she and Ole Bull’s mother were cousins. It is unlikely that she knew Bull very well, however. Bull was born in 1810 and would have been only four years old when the 19-year-old Ingeborg Marie moved to Halsn¿y. Bull left Norway as a young man and did not return until the late 1830s, when he was an international celebrity. Ingeborg Marie died in 1841. LORENTZIA HOLTERMANN - Born ???, died ??? Marie Magdalene Olsen Thomsen apparently shared her brothers’ affection for Ole Georg’s second wife - she named her second son Lorentz. The name was a common one in the Holtermann family and is the source of the stepmother’s given name. NYKIRKEN - The New Church (in English) was built in 1742. It is on the waterfront directly across the bay from the Bryggen, Bergen’s famous tourist shopping area. |
