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THOMSEN ANCESTORS
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Svenke Knutson (1626-1709) Svenke, also known as Svein or Svennich Knutson, was born in 1626 and died in 1709 at Vallevik (sometimes spelled Vallavik or Wallevik), a farm on the north shore of the Hardanger Fjord about eight or nine miles west of Ulvik.
Mikkel Svenkeson (1661-1748) In time the Vallevik lease passed to Mikkel Svenkeson. He was prosperous enough to buy the farm outright on Feb. 19, 1702, from Kristense Miltzow Stud. The unusual name suggests that Stud may have been Danish. Why a Dane would own land in Norway and why he’d want to sell it requires some explanation. In the late 1600s, the Danish king began granting his political allies crown lands in Norway for use as estates. The idea was both to reward his followers and to create a new class of landed nobility in Norway with close ties to Denmark. The king thought these landowners would help him control the country, which had once been a separate kingdom but was now ruled as a province of Denmark. Not surprisingly, the farmers in Norway deeply resented and resisted the imposition of a new landlord class. There were sporadic outbreaks of violence and rebellion when the new owners tried to take over their land or collect rents. Some owners were kidnapped or murdered. These outbreaks were put down with bloody savagery and the leaders were executed, but the unrest could not be entirely quelled. Most of the Danes who tried to live in Norway eventually gave up and left the country in fear for their safety. Many others didn’t bother to go to Norway in the first place and just sold their holdings to people like Mikkel Svenkeson for a quick profit. Mikkel Svenkeson thus became the first “selveier” at Vallevik farm. A “selveier” was a resident farmer who owned his land and had a registered deed to prove it. This deed was both a security and potential danger, since the land could now be lost to creditors in a bankruptcy. As a selveier, Mikkel was a social pioneer. Prior to 1660, most Norwegian farm land was owned by the church, the crown or large landowners. Only a fifth of the agricultural land in Southern Norway had a "selveier" when he purchased Vallevik. Vallevik under Mikkel’s management was a diversified and productive farm. The tax rolls for 1723 show the extent of his operations. Besides the main farm, which lay by the sea, he had a summer farm in the mountains about three miles away. He also owned a water-driven grist mill, a water-driven sawmill capable of producing 200 boards a year, and an area of forest. The farm land was not stony, swampy or hard to work. Mikkel had four cows, two calves and 12 sheep and goats. He harvested 2 1/2 barrels each of barley and oats in 1723. Mikkel Svenkeson was married twice and had seven children as well as four stepchildren. He wed Gunnhild Gunnarsdatter from the Fryste farm, Ulvik, on April 25, 1700. Their children were Hans Mikkelson, born 1700; Svenke Mikkelson, 1702; Tolleiv Mikkelson, 1704; Guro Mikkelsdatter, 1706; Sigvor Mikkelsdater, 1709; and Brita Mikkelsdatter, 1713. In 1727, Mikkel married the widow Brita Salomonsdatter from Bjotveit farm. She had four children from her first marriage: Aamund Hallgeirson (1701-1775); Anna Hallgeirsdatter (1704 -1783); Salomon Hallgeirson (1708 -?); and Eirik Hallgeirson (1712 -1790). Eriik Hallgeirson married his half-sister Guro Mikkelsdatter in 1741, making Mikkel's stepson his son-in-law as well. Vallevik remained a large and busy place until the 1900s, but economic changes forced some cutbacks in later years. At one time five tenant farmers lived on the main Vallevik property, but the last of them emigrated to America in 1911. In addition to farming the owners once fished and engaged in shipping. A sloop called “The Hope of Hardanger” had been based at Vallevik, but it was condemned in 1923. Vallevik is now owned and managed by Tone and Paul Wallevik, who raise fruits and berries, log, and rent cabins to tourists. Livestock is no longer raised there.
Tolleiv Mikkelson (1704-1783) Our direct ancestor among Mikkel Svenkeson's seven children was Tolleiv Mikkelson. As a teen-ager and young man Tolleiv worked the Vallevik farm with his father and brother Svenke. But Tolleiv was a younger son and did not inherit Vallevik. Instead, the farm went to his oldest brother, Hans. Hans had been drafted as a soldier in 1720 and served until 1734. After his discharge, he returned to the Hardanger. He took over the deed to Vallevik on May 19, 1734, from his father and two younger brothers. What happened at Vallevik after that is not clear. Records show Hans was married to Ragna Endresdatter Hallanger (1702-1760), and that they mortaged the farm on June 9, 1751, for 98 "riksdaler" (silver or specie dollars) to Anve Hallanger, apparently a relative by marriage. More research is needed to find out who got the Vallevik farm when Hans died or retired. The current owners of Vallevik may be his descendants and therefore related to the Thomsens. Tolleiv Mikkelson left Vallevik when the farm changed hands. He married Brita Oddmundsdatter (1709 - 1795) from Ringøy farm in Kinsarvik. Tolleiv and Brita lived first at Djønno farm in Kvam and later moved to Ytre Vikane farm, which they held from 1745 to 1769. Tolleiv and Brita had 4 children: Gunnild (1736-1790); Ingeleiv (1742-1779); Gunnar Tolleivson (1748-1837); and our ancestor, Tomas Tolleivson.
Tomas Tolleivson (1753 - 1836) Tomas Tolleivson was also known as Tomas Røo, a name stemming from a farm he acquired in 1775 under unusual circumstances. The Røo or Røen farm is on Tysnes, an island near the mouth of the Hardanger Fjord. Tomas married Inga Torsteinsdatter (1753-1823) from Samland, an ancient Jondal farm, at the age of 22. He got the farm at Røo the same year. By the standards of the time, Tomas was very young to have either a farm or a wife. Most of the marriages then involved men in their thirties taking wives who were in their early twenties. Men commonly had to have property, “penger” (money) or prospects before they could expect to win the consent of a prospective bride’s parents. The minimum for matrimony was a place to live, and that often took lots of hard work and a little luck to acquire. Hence the later marriages for men. So how did Tomas manage get a wife and farm at age 22? To answer that question we must look into the story of the previous owner of the Røo farm, a doomed man named Nils Svenkeson Vestheim Røo. Nils had bought Røo in 1768 and moved there with his second wife, Anna Hansdatter, and his three children by a previous marriage. In 1773 one of those children, a nine-year-old girl named Ragnhild, fell ill with leprosy. This debilitating disease attacks the skin, flesh and nerves and causes open sores, scabs, and deformities. It is communicated by long and close personal contact, so the rest of Ragnhild’s family was at risk. The risk proved all too real. Nils developed leprosy at age 53 in 1775. He then gave or sold his farm to Tomas, who was his cousin. The nature of the transaction is unclear. While records state flatly that Nils purchased Røo, they say Tomas “took over” the farm. The phrase “took over” may have a precise legal meaning in Norwegian, such as assuming a mortgage, or it may merely mean Tomas stepped in to help when Nils’ health failed. Tomas and Inga probably agreed to care for Nils and his doomed family as part of the terms of the property transfer, sale or bequest. Such retirement or pension arrangements involving room and board for former owners were often part of farm sales in Norway. However, the number of dependents at Røo and their plight were very unusual. Lepers were commonly shunned because of their appearance and the risk of infection. A decision by Tomas and Inga to care for a family of lepers, even in return for a farm, would have been a brave and kind one. Nils’ foresight in arranging for the care of his family was well justified. Within a year he was dead, and within two years the rest of his children had developed the disease. The two boys and their sister were eventually hospitalized in Bergen and probably died there. Records show that one of them, Kristoffer, was a patient of St. Jørgen’s Hospital in Bergen in 1781. What happened to Nil's wife, Anna Hansdatter, is unknown, but she may have remained at Røo. Records show that Tomas and Inga built a new “sengbu” or “vilk-rhus” – a dormitory (bunkhouse) or pension home – at the farm. Tomas and Inga ran Røo until 1806. They had four children – Torstein (1776-1837), Tolleif (1779-1864), our ancestor; Ragna (1781-1856); and Brita (1795-1840). Another boy named Tolleif was born in 1778 but died as an infant. Tomas made his living as a coastal fisherman and leased half of Røo to a neighbor, even though the farm was one of the smallest on Tysnes. In fact, it was so small that the first tax or rent for it in 1591 was only a pound of butter and a goatskin. The farm faces Lukksund (Hidden or Isolated Sound) on the east coast of Tysnes island. The nearest town of any size is Onarheim to the southwest. Røo, or Røenas it was also spelled, originally meant “The Clearing” in the local dialect. It is the Western Norway equivalent of a common farm name in Eastern Norway – Rød or Ruud. The Tysnes "bygdebok" – local history – says Tomas and Inga were “velstandsfolk” – wealthy people – and paid a church tithe or tax of 2 specie (silver) dollars in 1816. They were devout Christians and staunch supporters of an important figure in Norwegian religious history, the lay preacher Hans Nilsen Hauge. When the evangelist toured the Hardanger Fjord in early summer of 1799, he was invited to hold a religious meeting at Røo where many people were “saved.” Hauge was regularly prosecuted by Norwegian relgious officials for preaching without permission. Tomas and Inga's decision to host one of his revival meetings was an act of defiance against the established authorities. Before we follow the fortunes of our ancestor Tolleif, we will finish the story of the what happened to the Røo farm. In 1806, Tolleif's older brother Torstein took over the farm at Røo from his parents. He married Kari Mortensdatter (1782-1838) from Malkenes the following year. Malkenes is on the northeastern tip of Tysnes Island at one entrance to Lukksund. They had five children: Anna, born 1808; Berte, born 1810; Tominga, birth date not given; Johannes, born 1820; and Moraline, born 1822. The parents showed some creativity with two of their children's names. Tominga is a combination of Tomas and Inga, Torstein’s parents, while Moraline is believed based on the word “moral” and stems from the parents’ Christian beliefs. Torstein died in 1837 at age 61. In summing up his life, the Tysnes bygdebok cites three remarkable things about him. First, he had a house with a two-story iron or tile stove, the latest thing in heating in the early 1800s. Second, he owned a cabinetmaker’s bench, implying that he was a skilled and serious woodworker. Such benches had to be imported from Germany. And third, Torstein had a small library of Christian literature. He owned two collections of Hauge’s sermons, an account of Hauge’s evangelical travels, excerpts from a Norwegian church history, the Bible, several church songbooks, nine books of “basic Christian scholarship” and three books of “double basic (advanced) Christian scholarship.” Torstein and Tolleif’s two sisters lived at Røo but did not fare as well in life. Brita married Jens Mortensen of Malknes in 1816. They leased a homestead called Nobbelen, a part of the Røo property, about 1820 but struggled to survive there. In 1826 they had to mortgage the house and grain storage building to Ola Neravaage for 16 specie dollars. After every payment they were forced to seek economic assistance from the community. Jens married Ragna after Brita died in 1840. All three were listed as community-supported paupers.
Tolleif (Tomassen) Thomsen (1779-1864) Tolleif Thomsen, the first in our family to use that surname name, was closely associated with his brother Torstein. As teen-agers, they shared their parents’ support for Hauge, but that didn’t prevent them from sowing a few wild oats. A Tysness bygdebok says they left home early to travel. Where they went and what they did is not recorded, but they probably visited Bergen. They eventually returned home and became hard-working fishermen like their father. But they were not satisfied with local fishing. Instead they “reiste paa sorafiske” – traveled after southern fish. The term “southern fish” is not explained, but it implies that Tolleif and Torstein went to Southern Norway or beyond to fish. The term may refer to spring herring. These fickle fish, also called sprat or alewives, changed their migration pattern in the 1780s and disappeared from the waters of Western Norway. They did not reappear there until 1808. Spring herring were particularly important to full-time fishermen like Tolleif and Torstein because they provided income during an otherwise slow time of the year. The fish were gutted, salted, packed in barrels and shipped to other parts of Norway and to Sweden and Russia. The bygdebok says Tolleif and Torstein owned a spring herring net, something they wouldn’t have needed unless they fished outside of Western Norway. The two brothers also had several other nets. As we will see later, a net might have cost as much as 300 specie dollars, so Tolleif and Torstein were exceptionally well-off and well-equipped for fishermen in their mid-twenties. They may have hired men to help handle their nets or outfitted other fishermen in return for a share of the catch. The records state that Tolleif, and probably Torstein, owned a fishing boat and had a herring salting business. When his brother took over the Røo farm in 1806 and got married, Tolleif struck off on his own, apparently as a sailor. This led to the most dramatic incident in his life: his imprisonment aboard a British prison hulk during the Napoleonic Wars and his participation in a mutiny to regain his freedom. According to T.G. Thomsen's book "Saga from Western Norway," Tolleif was serving as a seaman aboard a ship owned by Hauge when it was captured by the British. Tolleif was held as a prisoner of war for two and a half years on an old, dismasted warship, where he learned navigation in classes organized by imprisoned ship's officers. (See "Mythic Mutiny" for background on the Napleonic Wars, prison hulks and other sailing lore.) Tolleif and some other Norwegian POWs accepted a British offer of freedom in exchange for serving on a British ship during a trading voyage to Iceland. On the return leg of that trip, Tolleif and the other Norwegian sailors seized the ship in a mutiny and sailed the vessel for Norway. After successfully evading a British warship bent on capturing them, the mutineers arrived in Bergen and sold their prize. Tolleif used his share of the money to buy a coastal trading vessel, while one of his friends, "Hans" Helland, became a successful Bergen merchant. Research by Roger Fossum has located English and Norwegian records that confirm and flesh out the story of Tolleif’s capture and imprisonment. The name of the ship Tolleif was aboard when captured was Welforenniet (“Well-United” in Danish or Norwegian). Two of the other sailors aboard the Welforenniet were Torbjørn Knudsen, 43, and Gullick Pedersen, 14, both able seamen. Tolleif, Knudsen and Pedersen all gave the same area of Bergen as their home addresses. Records show that Knudsen signed aboard the Welforenniet on Aug. 14, 1807, for a voyage to Holland. The ship was taken by a British cutter on Sept. 1, 1807, at or near Yarmouth, a port on the east coast of England. Whether the Welforenniet was sailing to Holland or on the return trip to Norway is unclear. The seizure occurred two days before a British Navy attack on Copenhagen and before the formal declaration of war between England and Denmark-Norway. The timing of the capture shows that Tolleif was probably not a privateer, one of the government-licensed pirates who preyed on British shipping during the Napoleonic Wars, but an unfortunate sailor who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the war started. English prison records say Tolleif was 5-foot, 4-1/2 -inches tall with red hair, blue eyes and a pimpled face. He was first imprisoned in Yarmouth but was transfered to Chatham, a city on the Medwey River near the Thames River estuary on Dec. 3, 1807. Roger’s reseach shows there were 12 prison ships and a hospital ship anchored near Chatham at the time. Which of these vessels Tolleif was aboard wasn’t recorded, but the 12 ships were named Fyen, Kronprins Fredrik and Nassau, all captured Danish ships, and Crusty, Sampson, Buckingham, Irresistible, Bahama, Canada, Glory and Belliqueux. The prison hulks at Chatham were apparently moored two abreast a short distance up the Medway River from the Thames estuary and just downstream from the royal dockyard and arsenal. With their ballast, masts, rigging and guns removed, the battered old warships floated very high in the water. In addition, sheds for cooking, washing and storage were built atop the main deck, making the hulks look like the pictures of Noah's Ark seen in children's Bible story books. Resemblence to anything divine stopped there. The ships' gun ports were stopped with iron bars and the decks divided into cages to hold between 500 and 1,000 prisoners. Most POWs were given little work, got little excercise and barely survived on rations of bad fish and bread supplied by corrupt contractors. One vistor to a hulk described the prisoners as "a generation of dead men rising for a moment from their tombs, hollow-eyed, wan and earthy of complexion, bent-backed, shaggy bearded, and of a terrifying emaciation." Others remarked about the terrible smell aboard the ships because of a lack of sanitation. In most of the prison camps, the sailor-prisoners were pressured by the English to enter British sea service in return for their freedom. Some Danish and Norwegian war prisoners took the offer of berths on English merchant vessels, mostly on ships bound for the East Indies. According to some sources, this manner of gaining release was disdained by the remaining prisoners and by public opinion in the homeland, but taking jobs on enemy merchant ships was not considered treason. Serving on a British war ship was. The Norwegian-born priest Ulrik Fredrik Rosing, who worked among the prisoners until 1811, estimated that about 300 of the 7,000 prisoners went into English service, less than five percent. I believe his estimate is very low. Tolleif was held until at least Jan. 17, 1809. He was then discharged to a ship with the ironic name Bedre Tider – Better Times in English. This was apparently the ship he was aboard when the crew mutinied. Why Tolleif was released to a ship with a Danish or Norwegian name is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it was a captured ship that kept its Scandinavian name as a cover for trade with Iceland. The Danes ruled Iceland and did not allow trade with England. Or perhaps the English had captured the ship earlier from the Danes and hadn't bothered to change the name. They routinely did this with captured French ships during the Napoleonic Wars. According to T.G. Thomsen, Tolleif was in prison for 2-1/2 years, but the period described in the English records was from Sept. 1, 1807, to Jan. 17, 1809, barely 1-1/2 years. Tolleif may have been aboard the Bedre Tider a year before the mutiny. Or perhaps there is a mistake in the English records. An anomaly in them points in this direction. They show Tolleif was first issued prison clothing on March 9, but no year is given. Since he was captured on Sept. 1, 1807, this could have been no earlier than March 9, 1808. Other clothing allocations were made on March 18, Dec. 11 and June 13, no years given. Since the entries are handwritten in ink in chronological order, the last issue would have to have been made on June 13, 1809, five months after Tolleif was reportedly discharged, an impossibility. Records discovered by Roger for another Norwegian sailor released to the Bedre Tider, a man named Christian Christiansen, show he was freed on July 17, 1809. Note the similarity to the questioned date of Tolleif's release, Jan. 17, 1809. Research attempts to find details of the mutiny have so far been fruitless, but two intriguing facts have come to light. First, a British traveler who made a trip to Iceland in 1809 mentioned in his journal that a Danish ship (or a ship with a Danish name?) arrived in Reykjavik harbor in late summer. He was aboard another vessel about to leave the island but thought the arrival of a Danish ship with an English license to trade during wartime was unusual enough to mention in his diary. Second, an internet summary of records held in the Icelandic archives mentions four letters between Danish officials in Norway and Iceland about an apparent insurance claim for the Bedre Tider. The first, dated Oct. 25, 1809, says the Bedre Tider recently arrived in Christiana's (Oslo's) jurisdiction, i.e., in Norway. The other letters indicate the ship was returned to its Danish owner, Lambertsen. Roger contacted a fellow researcher in Iceland when this information came to light, but the researcher found that the original letters no longer exist. There is now a six-year gap in what we know about Tolleif. Bygdeboks say only that he had been a prisoner, suffered much and made several long voyages. “Saga from Western Norway” says that the mutiny and sale of the seized ship allowed Tolleif to get a great financial boost when he returned to Norway, enough to buy a coastal trading vessel. This is borne out by Norwegian records. In 1816 Tolleif paid a tax of 27 specie dollars as the owner and captain of a large sloop. There were few people on Tysnes who paid more, indicating he was one of the most prosperous people on the island. Between 1817 and 1819, three big changes occurred in Tolleif’s life: He got citizenship at Bergen, he got married and his first child was born. The importance of city citizenship – “borgerskap” in Norwegian – is a little difficult to explain because there is no English or American equivalent status. Borgerskap meant more than mere residence in a city; it formally established a man’s relationship to the place where he lived, worked and/or did business. By taking citizenship, a man assumed certain civic duties, such as paying taxes. In return, he got the right to run a business in the city or to be a master craftsman, journeyman or ship captain there. The inclusion of that last occupational title may explain why some bydgeboks say Tolleif became a ship captain in 1819. The title had more to do with his new social status than with his seamanship. Tolleif’s new wife’s name was Katrine Nilsdatter, but little is known about her. She was either 42 or 43 when she died in 1839, so she was born in 1796 or 1797. She would have been 22 or 23 when she married, while Tolleif was 40 or 41. She was apparently from Bergen. When Tolleif and Katrine’s first child, Thomas, was baptized at Nykirken in Bergen, their names were listed on the church register as “Skipper (Captain) Tollew Thomasen and Madame Catharina Thomsen.” Note the difference in the spelling of the last name. It was unusual at the time for a wife to take her husband’s last name, and the title “madame” before her name shows Katrine had a high social status. So Katrine may have been the daughter of a man named Nils Thomsen, and Tolleif may have adopted the spelling of her name as he rose in the world. The church records Roger located show that Thomas Thomsen was born on March 26, 1819, and was baptized on April 16, 1819. One of his godfathers was “Kjopmann (Merchant) Amund Helland.” Could this be the “Hans” Helland who was Tolleif’s companion in the ship mutiny and who later gave Tolleif credit to keep his herring fishing business afloat? The evidence is inconclusive; there were definite ties between Tolleif and Amund Helland men, but the details of their histories do not jibe. No mention of a Bergen merchant named Hans Helland has been found so far. Amund Helland was born at Bjerkreim in Norway's Rogaland county, where Hauge held a religious meeting in 1804. Amund Helland followed Hauge to Bergen and worked for he evangelist until 1807. A Helland family biography says Amund then became a sailor and made voyages to Sweden and Denmark during the next six years. This is puzzling. Sweden and Denmark were at war at the time, and the British Navy blockaded both Norwegian and Danish ports from 1807 to 1814, almost halting Norwegian trade and driving almost all Norwegian ships except privateers from the sea. By 1813, Amund Helland, like Tolleif, was a prosperous man who had enough money to set himself up as a merchant in Bergen. City records show that Tolleif and Helland lived next door to one another in the Nordnes section of Bergen in 1819. According to Roger, Thomas Thomsen's 1819 baptismal sponsors were Ingeborg Johannsesen, Gunnild Evensen, Peder Odland, Amund Helland and Samson Fraae (or Traae?; handwritten records are open to interpretation). The two women were probably friends or relatives of Katrine. The four men were linked to Tolleif in ways that aren't clear, except that they were all followers, friends and associates or employees of Hauge. When Tolleif's father Tomas died in 1836, Fraae was named as a beneficiary in his will. Why is a mystery. The bygdeboks differ on the names and birthdates of Tolleif and Katrine’s six other children, but Roger has located church records that provide an accurate account. Here are their names and correct birthdates: Nils Elias, born Sept. 18, 1820; Inger Katrine, Aug. 13, 1822; Hans, Sept. 12, 1824; Karl Andreas, Dec. 26, 1828; Taulerius Cornelius, July 12, 1832; and Gerhard Conrad, Feb. 10, 1835. Nils Elias, Inger Katrine, Hans and Karl Andreas were all born on Tysnes; Taulerius and Gerhard were born at Engesund. One bygdebok includes the name Kari in the list of Tolleif’s children. This may have been the name of a baby girl who died in infancy. There is an unusually long gap of four years between the births of Hans and Karl Andreas that may indicate a missing child. Or it may be a mistaken reference to Hans’ wife, Kari Knudsdatter from Austvik. Tolleif continued to sail, fish and maintain a home on Tysnes through the 1820s. At first he lived at Røo but later established a home and business at a place called Kroken under Sunda. This farm, like Røo or Røen, is on the Lukksund between Tysnes Island and the mainland. Today it called Faerstad. Tolleif first bought a piece of the Kroken farm from Jon Sunda in 1818 and set up a fish-salting business along the shore there. In 1821 he got a tax license for the whole place for 2 specie dollars a year. He established a home there in 1822 called Muren – “The Wall” in Norwegian.
The name of Tolleif’s new home – Engesund – can refer to four things: a property unit, a farm, a business and a shipping channel. The property of Engesund consisted of a main island, called Engesundøy, and several small islands – Flatholmen, Skatholmen, Dyrsholmen and Big and Little Porsholmen. “Holmen” means "the small island" in Norwegian. One of the islands was given to a neighbor’s child as a confirmation gift. Another part of the property was a place called Saetramarkjo on Ivarsøy, a large island just west of Engesund. The farm on Engesund was established in the 1600s and is “ikke gamle” – not old – by Norwegian standards. It lies on the southeast part of Engesund island and was measured at 23.5 acres in 1945. In Tolleif’s time it supported one horse, 15 cows and 16 sheep. The farm has some beautiful meadows in ravines where peat has formed. These fields are a lush green and are springy and soft to walk on. They look very much like the fairways of a golf course. The rest of the island is barren rock outcrops with only a few trees, low plants, mosses and lichens. The trees were introduced during a forestry project after 1945. Prior to that there were none on the island. Tax records note that Engesund had no firewood and that peat was burned for fuel there. There were at least three “husmannplasser” or tenant farms on Engesund. Their names were Level Island, The Luxury and The Reef. The Reef has recently been restored by a member of the Kleppe family and is a beautiful collection of red buildings trimmed with white and green paint. They face the sound north of the old inn on Engesund. The bygdeboks don’t say anything specific about the tenants or their farms at Engesund. In Eastern Norway, tenant farms usually consisted of a cabin, a small acerage for some livestock or a garden and limited fuel-gathering rights. In return the tenants or husmenn had to work for their farmer-landlords at a fixed low rate of pay. Sometimes their wives and children were required to work as well. When they got too old to labor, they could be evicted from their farms. In Western Norway there was less demand for farm workers, so many husmenn were renters who made a living from the sea or as craftsmen such as carpenters. The business at Engesund was a complex, changing one but mainly consisted of an inn, a store and a seasonal herring salting operation. In return for providing certain services to the government, the business was granted trading privileges for the area, a sort of limited monopoly. One of the required government services was to provide a room for a court to convene. Soon after its founding in the 1600s Engesund was the site of a trial for a Fitjar woman accused of witchcraft. The unfortunate lady was convicted and later executed in Bergen. Finally, Engesund was the name given to the shipping channel along the east side of the island. This channel is part of the ancient coastal shipping route between Bergen and Stavanger, but it is exceptionally narrow (Engesund means narrow water passage in Norwegian). At one place ships and boats must pass between underwater rocks no more than 60 or 70 feet apart. According to the Fitjar bygdebok, Tolleif ran Engesund until 1851, when the inn and store were taken over by his oldest son, Thomas. He supposedly ran the business until it was sold in 1859. However, Roger’s research has shown that Thomas was actually living about 80 miles away at the time and had been for many years. Thomas had moved to the Grude farm near Klepp, a town south of Stavanger, in 1841 when he was 21. He worked there as a teacher for the Nordre School District. In June 1853, he married Anna Kristine Nilsdatter from Klepp and took over a part of the Grude farm. He and Anna had seven children, all born at Grude. So who ran Engesund during the 1850s? Just what happened there is now a mystery, but here is what we know for sure: First, Engesund fell into hard times as its business declined. Fishing was poor. The laws that gave places like Engesund trading privileges were relaxed to allow competition. Steamships took over coastal shipping, and their captains preferred to dock at Fitjar and avoid the narrow passage at Engesund. Second, there was a breaking up or dispersal of Tolleif’s family. All of his children had left Engesund by 1859. Roger believes that Tolleif, who was 72 in 1851, wanted to retire or semi-retire. His business faced an uncertain future, and he was too old to revive it or start over somewhere else. He may have settled his affairs by transferring the business and/or property to his oldest son. This would ensure a smooth transition in the event of his death. Thomas may have been the titular owner of the business while Tolleif continued to oversee day-to-day operations at Engesund. Apparently none of the children wanted Engesund or could afford to take it over. I suspect the business was scaled back to a level easier for Tolleif to manage alone. The need for workers would have declined, and that would explain why his children all left. Tolleif may also have given them money to get a start elsewhere, since four of the seven bought farms in the two or three years after 1851. Our ancestor, Taulerius, also left Engesund to become a sailor at this time. There is another possibility. T.G. Thomsen, in "Saga from Western Norway," says Engesund was rented for a time before it was formally sold in 1859. Perhaps this lease period began as early as 1851, which would also explain why Tolleif's children left the island. In 1858 Thomas used the inn and store as collateral to borrow 1200 specie dollars from Hypotek-banken, a new mortgage agency that offered credit to struggling farmers who couldn’t obtain it elsewhere. The debt may have led Tolleif and/or Thomas to sell Engesund in 1859 for 3200 specie dollars. Or perhaps Engesund needed repairs before it could be sold. At any rate, the sale allowed Tolleif to stay on at Engesund as a boarder. Thomas probably arranged the deal since the three men who bought the business were all from the Klepp area where Thomas lived. Business problems and change were not the only thing that darkened Tolleif’s final years. Three of his seven children died. The first to go was his son Hans. He had bought a farm at Strømøy (Stream or Current Island) in Sveio in 1851, where he was said to be a clever manager who made the farm pay in just two years. Hans had also married, and his wife was expecting their first child when he died suddenly on Oct. 8, 1853, at age 29. His son, Hans Carl, was born three months later on Jan. 5, 1854, at Strømøy. Among the sponsors at his baptism was Taulerius Thomsen, apparently back in Norway between voyages. (For more information about Hans Sr. and Hans Jr., see "New Zealand Connection.") The second death was that of Tolleif’s second son, Nils Elias. He had bought half of a farm called Avløypet on Ivarsøy in 1853, but he didn’t make a good living there. He drowned in the sea in front of his father’s home at Engesund on Dec. 26, 1855. His body washed up on Porsholmen the following spring, and he was buried at Fitjar churchyard. Nils, 35, left a wife, Sofie, and six children. The oldest child was 10; the youngest was born three months after he died. The third death was that of Tolleif’s only daughter, Inger Katrine, who had lived near him on one Engesund’s tenant farms until the mid-1850s. Tolleif was the best man when she married Berge Endreson of Tufteland in 1848. Inger Katrine died on Feb. 15, 1859, after childbirth at her home on Ivarsøy. The baby and four other children, ages 10 to 3, and her husband survived her. She was 37. A bygdeboks says Tolleif was a “velstandsmann” – a wealthy person. He left an estate of 2913 specie dollars. Specie dollars cannot be easily converted into any modern currency because of vast differences in purchasing power, but here is a comparison to give some idea of what they were worth: When violinist Ole Bull bought the 160-acre island and farm of Lys¿en near Bergen in 1872, he paid 600 specie dollars for it. The ornate mansion he built there cost 4200 specie dollars Tolleif had lived a hard life, and he could be a hard man. In 1821 he was fined for illegal brandy sales at Kroken. He had also been sued twice. In 1829, he was ordered to pay 315 specie dollars to some fishermen from Austevoll for cutting up their herring net. According to historian Tore Moe, such disputes were common in Western Norway at the time. Nets could be set in such a way as to prevent herring from reaching the nets of other fishermen, prompting acrimonious disputes. The second lawsuit was brought against Tolleif in 1834 by a Lutheran minister for non-payment of a fish tithe or tax. The minister may have been the notorious unruly priest of Stord, Erik Olsen, who was the grandfather of the woman who would become Taulerius Thomsen’s wife. Both suits probably stemmed from an incident described in “Saga from Western Norway.” If so, the second suit involved the sum of three specie dollars. During his last years, Tolleif became more and more reclusive. The new owners of Engesund were very friendly, but no member of his own family was at Engesund. The farthest away was Taulerius, who made a series of voyages that kept him from Norway for many years. When he returned home in 1860 or 1861, Taulerius found he no longer had one. He settled with his new wife at Enstabovoll, her family’s farm in Valestrand, in 1862. Tolleif stayed on alone at Engesund until his death on Feb. 3, 1864, at the age of 85. He was the first and last Thomsen to live in the big home he built there.
Taulerius Conrad Thomsen (1832-1909) For a copy of "The Voyages of Taulerius Thomsen" by Keith Thomsen, click here.
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Svenke first leased the Vallevik farm in 1660. Prior to that he was a servant to or worked for a man named Jakob Vines. Svenke was married but his wife’s name is unknown. They had three children: Mikkel Svenkeson (1661-1748), Marita Svenkesdatter (1663-1752) and Knut Svenkeson (1671-1701). Marita wed a man from Hallanger, but Knut never married and died young.
In 1831 Tolleif bought Engesund and received the government license to run the inn and store in 1832. The 1830s were a time of great upheaval and change for the Thomsen family and saw an end to their residence on Tysnes. Tolleif’s father died in 1836; his brother Torstein in 1837; his sister-in-law Inga in 1838; and his wife Katrine in 1839. The farm at Røo was left to Torstein’s only son, 18-year-old Johannes, but he had it for only a short time before he moved to Engesund to work for Tolleif. His name disappears from the records there. He apparently died young and unmarried. The farm at Røo was taken over in 1839 by Johannes Torbjornson, who married Torstein’s daughter Tominga the following year. Thomsens had lived at Røo for 64 years, longer than they were to live at Engesund or Enstabovoll, two other family farms prominent in “Saga from Western Norway.” 
