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4oo VIII. THE MODERN PERIOD (A.D. 18121910).
came to America came as individuals.25
The sea passage
was generally made in sailing ships, and was often very
long, tedious, painful and dangerous. The individuals
who most concern the history of religion were Erik Alund,
who came in 1823 to Philadelphia, and the brothers Olof
Gustaf and Jonas Hedstrom.
Both of the latter were Methodist preachers, and they
came over in 1826 and 1833 respectively. But the first
regular settlement of Swedes was that led by Gustaf
Unonius in 1841.
28
This remarkable man \vas born in
1810, and, at the age of thirty, had already had a varied
career. He had been an army cadet, had taken a degree
in law at Upsala, and had served with distinction as an
emergency physician in a cholera hospital. He was re
cently married to his twenty-year-old bride, Carlotta
Margareta Ohrstromer, who evidently shared his adven
turous spirit. There was something of the old Viking love
of wandering which led him and his few companions, men
of education and refinement, to take the seven or eight
months voyage to America, and to attempt to settle in what
was then the extreme west. It was unfortunate for them
that they did not bring skilled labourers with them to their
first home, Pine Lake (Tallsjon), in Wisconsin.
Here Unonius and his wife laboured hard, both physic-
25
The opening chapters of E. Norelius De Svenska Luterska
Forsamlingarnas och Svenskarnes Historia i Amerika, Rock
Island, 1890, treat in detail of the early settlements. I have
also to thank a learned friend, Dr. Tofteen, of Chicago, for
valuable notes on the same subject. See Appendix B to this
lecture. E. W. Olson s The Swedes of Illinois contains many
details about early individual settlers as well as later colonies.
26
For Unonius I have used an article in the Swedish paper
Idun, reprinted (in English) in The diocese of Chicago official
paper, Vol. xiv., for March, 1902, entitled Unonius, Chicago
1
s
senior priest, and Ernest W. Olson s The Swedes of Illinois, I.,
p. 185 foil., and p. 414 foil., Chicago, 1908. I have not seen
Unonius Memoir of Seventeen Years 1
Residence in North-
West America, but I have seen the Appendix to it (Bihang,
Stkh., 1896), in reply to Esbjorn.
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