Kari Sanderson
Margit
Sanderson
Ellen
Sanders
Harriet
Sanders
Sondra
Sanders, Sr.
Asse
Sanderson
Ole
Sanderson
The Beaver Creek Tragedy
The missing orphans of Osten & Aase Sondresson
THE BEAVER CREEK STORY
by C. Robert
Sanders
My great, great
grandfather Osten Sondreson was born November 8, 1789 on
Bakka farm in Tinn, Telemark, Norway. He was the 5th
child of Sondre Gjermundson and Margit Oysteinson. As
patronymics was the custom in Norway he was known by the
surname of Sondreson. Hence today we have the name of
Sanders as an anglicize version.
Bakkajord, Tinn, Telemark, Norway
Osten married Aase Olson, from Romeraasen farm in Tinn,
in 1815. They had nine children, two of which died at the
age of three. Osten and Aase left their native land in
the spring of 1837 for America. They traveled to
Goteborg, Sweden and obtained passage on the brig
"Nord", commanded by Captain H. P. Brunk. They
sailed for American sometime in May of 1837 and according
to the ships manifest they arrived in New York harbor on
August 15, 1837.
They traveled by canal boat and other means to Chicago.
There they met other Norwegian immigrants and rather than
proceed to the Fox River Settlements in LaSalle County,
where the Norwegian settlements were located, they opted
to go with a number of other families and settle on some
land which they called Beaver Creek. This was located
about seventy-five miles south of Chicago on the Illinois
and Indiana border. It was in Iroquois County near the
present town of Watseka, Illinois. Osten and Aase
traveled to America with Osten's brother-in-law, Erik
Gauteson Midtboen Haugen and his family. On October 7,
1837 his brother-in-law filed, with the Land Abstract
Office, a claim for 160 acres of land. We assume that
Osten and Aase were very close by and that perhaps the
land claim was filed upon jointly for both families by
Erik.
During the first winter of 1837/38
Osten, Aase, and at least one child died in the Beaver
Creek Settlement. There are a number of historic accounts
of this settlement that are available for referencing.
The malaria epidemic was the cause of most of the deaths
of Beaver Creek Settlement. Because of the epidemic the
settlement was abandoned early in 1838.
The Sondreson surviving orphans were farmed out to
various families and at least four of them were located,
by my research, in the Fox River Settlements. They were
living with various families. I have tried to locate all
of the orphans and have been able to located only four. Kari was blind and lived with a
family until her death after 1860. Another child, Ole or George as he called
himself in America, reportedly migrated to California in
the 1860's and nothing is known of him after that time.
It has been thought that there were perhaps two of the
children died in Beaver Creek.
Three of the orphans, Ellen, Harriet, and Sondra, eventually joined the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) and
came separately to the Salt Lake Valley as early
pioneers. Ellen and Harriet. along with their brother
Sondre, traveled to a church conference in Nauvoo,
Illinois a few months after the martyrdom of the Prophet
Joseph Smith. Ellen and Harriet stayed in Nauvoo and
Sondre returned to Fox River.
Ellen and Harriet both married Apostle Heber C. Kimball
in January of 1846. Heber C. Kimball chose Ellen to
accompany him in the first pioneer company which arrived
in the Great Salt Lake Valley in July of 1847. She was
one of the three women in the first company and her image
has been placed on the "This Is The Place
Monument" in Emigration Canyon east of Salt Lake
City. Harriet came to Salt Lake a year or so later.
Sondra, my great grandfather, arrived in Salt Lake in
1850.
Much of the history of Beaver Creek
and the history of the Sanders ancestors comes from a
written history of Sondre Sanders Sr. who dictated it
prior to his death. Details of this history have been
incorporated in a family history book , "From The
Land Of The Midnight Sun-Osten and Aase Sondreson from
Bakkajord", which I had published in 1992. Copies of
this book are found in the Salt Lake Family History
Library, Ogden Utah Family History Library, Brigham Young
University Library, L.D.S. Church Historians Office, and
the Iroquois County Historical Society Library in
Watseka, Illinois.
If you have any information about the
missing orphans, please email the author.
Those who do not honor and revere
their ancestors
are not likely to leave a posterity worth remembering.
-unknown