Sarah was just seven years old when she boarded the small sailing ship Restoration at the dock in Stavanger in 1825.
Seven families with a total of 19 children, along with two married couples and 12 single men, set out to cross the Atlantic. Their journey is considered the start of the organised emigration from Norway to the USA.
Now, 200 years later, her great-great-grandson shares Sarah's story.
"She never gave up and stood up for herself," says New Yorker Tom Olmstead, who has spent decades researching his family history.
Tom Olmstead grew up in a small town in the Midwest. Here he is in New York.(Photo: Private)
Found 45 letters in a trunk
Annonse
Olmstead grew up in a small town in Iowa in the Midwest where many Norwegian immigrants settled. One day he explored his grandparents' attic. He opened an old steamer trunk. It was full of photographs and documents.
"I got my grandmother to write on the back of the
photos who everybody was," says Olmstead.
Among the documents were 45 letters exchanged between Sarah and one of her daughters. They were difficult to read, lacking punctuation and capital letters. Olmstead painstakingly deciphered and read them.
The journey across the Atlantic took 14 weeks. Sarah's father, Aanon Thorsen Brastad, carved this spoon from a barrel. It was found in the steamer trunk at Tom Olmstead's grandparents.(Photo: Tom Olmstead)
Rocky fields and hard work
Sarah's parents were tenant farmers in Jæren, Norway. They were allowed to cultivate their own plot of land in return for working for the landowner a few weeks a year.
But life was harsh. Olmstead says the fields were so rocky that ploughing had to be done with spades.
Two of the children died young. When the family emigrated, they had three children. Seven-year-old Sarah was the oldest.
Most people could not write or read. They signed official papers with an X. But Sarah's father seems to have signed his own passport. Where he learned to write remains a mystery.(Photo: Private / Tom Olmstead)
200 years since the first emigrants left
In 2025 it will be 200 years since the first Norwegian emigrants travelled to the USA. Science Norway's reporting trip has been made possible through support from the Fritt Ord Foundation. Science Norway has full editorial freedom.
Just one Quaker on board
The first emigrants are often described as religious refugees. At the time, Norway had no freedom of religion, and the state church had a monopoly on people's faith.
"It's been written that both Quakers and Haugeans left, but there was only one registered Quaker on Restoration," says historian Terje Mikael Joranger.
He is the director of research at the Emigrant Museum in Hamar.
The Quaker was Lars Larsen Geilane, the leader of the group.
Joranger notes that others in the group may have sympathised with the Quakers.
Annonse
Tom Olmstead has found no evidence that his family were Quakers.
"My guess is they were just looking for a better life," he says.
Space equivalent to a wardrobe
Restoration was actually too small a ship to cross the Atlantic. On top of that, it was overcrowded with 45 emigrants and seven crew members. The boat was designed for half that number.
The National Archives has calculated that each person had three cubic metres of space. That's equivalent to a small wardrobe.
The ship was also heavily loaded with iron plates and nails to be sold in New York.
The journey lasted three and a half months. It was a dramatic voyage. During a stop in England, they were driven away for selling spirits. They went off course and ended up in Madeira, Portugal, where they were suspected of having plague on board. Storms battered the small ship. A child was born during the crossing.
'We never lost our confidence and cheerfulness, although it looked as if we would all perish in mid ocean,' Sarah said in an interview with a newspaper in 1894.
A model of Restoration hangs in the Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church (Mindekirken) in Minneapolis. It was made by woodcarver Hans Sandom, who did extensive research to make the replica as accurate as possible.(Photo: Sandra Bestland)
Farmers in coarse clothes
When Restoration finally reached New York, it was seized by port authorities. The ship and its captain had violated American law by carrying far more passengers than permitted for a vessel of its size.
Their arrival caused a stir. It was astonishing that such a small ship with so many people on board had managed to cross the Atlantic. An American newspaper wrote that such a sea voyage showed great courage on the part of the captain and adventurous spirit in the passengers. It also said that the Norwegians were farmers, dressed in coarse, homemade clothes.
Once the ship was released, the emigrants sold it and its cargo, though they earned much less than they had hoped.
Further north
On the dock that day was Cleng Peerson, the scout who had been sent out a few years earlier to find a place where they could farm and start new lives.
"The emigrants trusted Peerson," says Terje Joranger.
He knew many Quakers who owned land north in the state of New York. Peerson purchased land from them in what was later called Kendall. This became the new home for the Norwegians from Restoration.
Sarah and her family travelled north with the rest of the group.
In a letter from 1871, one of the fellow passengers, B. Harvig, wrote that they were poor and none of them spoke English. He recounts that most of them became sick and discouraged when they finally arrived in Kendall.
Kendall lies in the north of the state of New York. The emigrants travelled part of the way by boat and walked the last stretch.(Image: Google Earth / Science Norway)
Struggled on poor soil
Life in Kendall was tough.
"There was dense, impenetrable forest and the work was exhausting. The place lay by Lake Ontario, exposed to the cold winds from the north," says Joranger.
The soil was strewn with stones and had to be cleared by hand, much like the land they had left behind in Norway. To earn money, they also hired themselves out as farmworkers to local farmers.
B. Harvig also wrote that the timber was heavy and that it took a long time before they could make a living from it. He adds that during their early days in Kendall, everything seemed wrong because nothing was as it had been in Norway.
Many fell ill.
Sarah's father died just nine months after they came to America. Then her youngest sister passed away.
The Norwegian colony in Kendall lasted only ten years.
New land, new opportunities
Cleng Peerson saw how the Norwegians struggled. Joranger believes he may have felt guilty.
"In 1833 he set out west on foot. He visited many places to find a new and better home for the Norwegian colony in Kendall," says Joranger.
According to stories passed down through generations, one night Peerson lay down to sleep and dreamed of beautiful homes surrounded by fruit orchards.
"That's when he reached Fox River in Illinois," says Joranger. "This was prairie land, with fertile soil that was far easier to cultivate than in Kendall."
Within a couple of years, all the Norwegian immigrants had left Kendall to start over in Fox River.
Sarah stayed behind
Sarah's mother remarried – to the brother of her late husband. They moved on to better land in the Midwest.
Sarah did not go with them. At 16, she moved to the neighbouring city of Rochester, where she worked for a woman doing housekeeping and sewing.
It was there she wrote the oldest letter found in the trunk in the attic.
Sarah wrote that she felt lonely after her family had left for Illinois. She wanted to join them. She also struggled to read her mother's letters and asked her to find someone with better English.
'Be careful of those old men'
Sarah's letters were written in beautiful cursive, near-flawless English.
"How she learned English is another mystery," says Olmstead. "There were no public schools in Kendall in the 1820s and 1830s."
Perhaps she learned it from the Quaker Lars Geilane on board Restoration.
He had been taken as a prisoner during the Napoleonic Wars. Quakers cared for the prisoners and taught them both English and their beliefs.
In her letters, Sarah wrote about major events, like a great fire in New York City, and about receiving fabric for a purple and white dress. She also advised her younger sister Anna to 'be careful of those old men' when considering suitors.
Married to a Brit
After a couple of years in Rochester, Sarah moved to Fox River to rejoin her family. There she met George Olmstead, an English settler. They married when Sarah was 19.
"I don't know how they met, since they lived about 30 kilometres apart. In those days, that was a day's journey by horse," says Olmstead.
George and Sarah farmed the land together.
"She did more than cook and take care of the children, Sarah was out there in the fields working the land," he explains.
In 1842, Sarah wrote that they had 40 acres of cultivated land, 50 acres of pasture, and 60 acres of other land.
"That's a lot of land for back then," says Olmstead.
Tired of the prairie
Sarah and George had five children. Two died as infants. Three grew up: Marion, Benson, and Charles Byron – Tom Olmstead's great-grandfather.
Farming was grueling. In a letter to friends, Sarah wrote that George was tired of living on the prairie. They considered moving.
And they did. In town, George found work as a carpenter.
In 1849, a cholera epidemic swept through Illinois. Thousands fell ill, and many died. Within a single month, Sarah lost George and eight other family members.
Sarah was left to raise three children alone. She was 31 years old.
Married again, daughter died
Little is known about this period of Sarah's life. She wrote no letters.
Five years later she married William Richey and had three more children.
In 1857, Sarah did something unusual. She sent her eldest daughter Marion to college.
"At that point in time, there were only three colleges in the entire United States that accepted women," Tom explains, showing Marion's report card from North Western Female College in Illinois.
The college offered a 'Mistress of Science' degree – the female counterpart to a 'Master of Science.'
But Marion had to leave after nine months due to illness. She died young, likely of tuberculosis. She was buried in the corner of a cornfield, possibly because the family couldn't afford a cemetery plot.
"I have no idea how Sarah could afford college tuition and expenses, but no money to bury her in a cemetery," says Olmstead.
Sarah with her son Will. She's in her mid-forties and had recently lost her daughter Marion.(Photo: Private / Tom Olmstead)
Never mentioned Norway
Sarah endured many losses. She lost siblings in Norway, her father and a sister in America, two infants, her first husband, and later three daughters.
In her letters to family, friends, and fellow passengers from Restoration, she never mentioned Norway or the family they left behind.
"Norway and the family back home are never mentioned in the letters. It's like once they came to the United States, that's where they were," says Olmstead.
Tom Olmstead's grandfather always insisted the family was Norwegian. When young Tom discovered that the Olmstead name came from England, his grandfather wouldn't hear of it.
"He slammed his fist down on the table and said, 'we're Norwegian,' and walked out, refusing to talk to me for two weeks," Olmstead recalls.
Tom Olmstead aboard a reconstruction of Restoration during a visit to Norway. It was built in 2010 in Ryfylke.(Photo: Private)
Demanded divorce
At 68, Sarah divorced her second husband – almost unheard of for a woman in the 1880s.
In a letter to Marion, a friend wrote: 'Remember me most affectionately to your mother and tell her I think that she does perfectly right in keeping a watchful eye on her flirtatious bird especially when there are so many rough handed to guard her against.'
"It was a bad marriage, he was running around on her, and then finally she had had enough," says Olmstead.
'Great injustice'
In a letter to a friend, Sarah writes about the divorce:
'My suit closed and all I am to receive is a divorce and six hundred dollars. .... The Judge done me great injustice.'
Her husband had already transferred his house and belongings to his son. According to Sarah, they also gave false testimony.
'I had nothing but truth, that is all I wanted. ... They had no principal or honor. It hard for me to be broke away from my home in my old age and all broke down with hard work and bad treatment for thirty years with what makes me without a home when he was worth ten thousand dollars.'
Sarah moved in with one of her sons, Tom Olmstead's great-grandfather. She lived to be 87 years old.
Sarah was interviewed twice about the voyage to America. Author Rasmus Andersen wrote of her: 'a hale and hearty woman, who to know is to love.'(Photo: Private / Tom Olmstead)
Never give up
Tom sees Sarah's influence on his family:
"The Norwegian work ethic – never give up, dedication, honesty, integrity, respect – those things have been driven into me from the time I was a little kid," says Olmstead.
The family lived in the small town of Guthrie Center, Iowa, for nearly a century. As a young man, Tom Olmstead moved away, and now has almost no family left there.
"That's why I've been researching the family history. I have grandkids who should know where we come from," he says.
In 2024, he visited Norway for the first time. He saw the land his family once cultivated.
"It was the most amazing feeling. A historian I'd been in contact with came up to me, put his hands on my shoulders, and said: 'welcome home.' My heart almost stopped," he recalls.
"For me it had mostly been about finding out
where my family was from the Norwegian side, but after I went there and saw
everything, it felt like I was coming back to my roots," Olmstead explains.
