There are very few longer accounts of nineteenth century life around Mishicot. This one came to us only in 2026. Dave Ellingson of Seattle contacted the museum with information about his Halverson ancestors, including the booklet written by his great aunt (Agnes Halverson Hilmen) about her life growing up on a farm just outside Mishicot in the 1870s to 1890s. We think she wrote this booklet late in her life, around 1950.
Agnes’s parents, Andreas and Elin Halverson, were early Norwegian immigrant settlers between Jambo Creek and Mishicot, coming around 1854. They settled on a farm just northwest of town on Ridge Road near the Mishicot River. They were part of a Norwegian settlement in the area, living near a group of French-speaking Swiss. The Norwegians built Jambo Creek Lutheran church, which stood until 1951, though most of the Norwegians had left the area earlier in the century and went further west. Andreas was a leader in the church and a Civil War veteran. One can still see the veteran’s plaque at his grave in the Jambo Creek Cemetery. Louis Falge reports that “for many years the spiritual leader and mainstay of the congregation was Andreas Halverson: after his death (1904) decline in interest accelerated.” When he died, Elin moved to North Dakota where her son Gustav lived. She died in 1916 and is buried in North Dakota.
Tags: mishicot, halverson, hilmen, agnes halverson, otto hilmen, anna zander, nicholas terens, hronek
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