IMMIGRATION STORY OF SOREN AND BERTHA
Mormon Immigration Index – Personal Accounts
Forest Monarch (January 1853)
A Compilation of General Voyage Notes
"Departures . . . The Forest Monarch sailed on the 16th of January, with
297 Danish Saints on board, under the presidency of Elder John Forsgren…"
<MS, 15:6 (Feb. 5, 1853), p. 89>
"SIXTIETH COMPANY. –Forest Monarch, 297 souls. This company of emigrants
was from the Scandinavian mission, being the first large company of Saints
who emigrated from Denmark, Sweden and Norway. An earnest desire to emigrate
to Zion had been manifested by many of the Scandinavian Saints since the first
company had left for the mountains a few months previous; and the elders had
been engaged for some time past in making preparations to send off a large
company. About the beginning of December, 1852, the emigrants from the respective
conferences in the mission began to gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, and on
Monday Dec. 20, 1852, two hundred ninety-three Saints, including children,
went on board the steamship Obotrit and sailed from Toldboden (the custom
house) at 4 o’clock p.m., under the leadership of Elder John E. Forsgren,
one of the elders who, in connection with Apostle Erastus Snow, first introduced
the gospel into Scandinavia two years before. A great multitude of people
had gathered on the wharf to witness the departure of the ‘Mormons’,
and many of the rabble gave utterance to the most wicked and blasphemous language,
while they cursed and swore, because so many of their countrymen were disgracing
themselves by following ‘that Swedish Mormon priest’ (an appellation
they gave Elder Forsgren) to America. No violence, however, was resorted to,
and the ship got safely away. After a rather stormy and unpleasant passage
the Obotrit arrived safely in Kiel, Holstein, on the evening of the twenty-second.
The following day the journey was continued by rail to Hamburg, where a large
hall had been hired, and supper prepared for the emigrants. In the afternoon
of the twenty-fourth the Saints went on board the steamship Lion, which glided
slowly with the tide down the river Elbe to Cuxhaven, where the captain cast
anchor, owing to the heavy fog which prevailed. The emigrants now celebrated
Christmas Eve on board, with songs and amusements of different kinds. In the
morning of the twenty-fifth anchor was weighed, and the Lion sailed to the
mouth of the river, where it was met by heavy headwinds, that made it impossible
to reach the open sea until midnight. Finally, the passage from the river
to the sea was made in the moonlight.
Early in the morning of the twenty-sixth, the ship passed Heligoland, soon
after which a heavy gale blew up from the southwest, which increased in violence
until the next day, when it assumed the character of a regular hurricane,
the like of which old sailors declared they had never before experienced on
the German Ocean. The ship’s bridge and part of the gunwale were destroyed,
and some goods standing on the deck were broken to pieces and washed overboard;
otherwise, neither the ship nor the emigrants were injured. On the twenty-eighth,
in the evening, after the storm had spent its fury, the lion steamed into
the harbor of Hull, England. About one hundred and fifty vessels were lost
on the German Ocean in the storm, and the people in Hull were greatly surprised
when the Lion arrived in safety, as it was firmly believed that she had gone
under like the other ships that were lost.
From Hull, the emigrating Saints continued the journey by rail to Liverpool,
on the 29th, where lodging and meals previously ordered, were prepared for
them, and on the first of January 1853, they went on board the packet ship
Forest Monarch, which was hauled out of the dock and anchored in the river
Mersey. There it lay until the 16th, because of storms and contrary winds.
In the meantime three of the company died, two babies were born, and three
fellow passengers were initiated into the Church by baptism. One man, who
had been bitten by a dog, was left in Liverpool, to be forwarded with the
next company of emigrating saints. One night the ship became entangled with
another vessel and sustained some injuries: and a few days later, during a
heavy storm, it got adrift, pulling up both anchors, and was just about to
run aground, when two tug boats came to the rescue and saved it.
On the sixteenth of January, 1853, the Forest Monarch put out to sea. The
emigrants now numbered two hundred and ninety-seven souls, who were placed
under the direction of Elder John E. Forsgrean, in connection with who Elders
Christian Christiansen and J. H. Christiansen acted as counselors. Elder Willard
Snow and Peter O. Hansen who had accompanied the emigrating Saints to Liverpool,
now returned to Copenhagen.
During the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean the Forest Monarch was favored
with very pleasant weather, but for several days it was a perfect calm, and
in many respects the emigrants, who nearly all were unaccustomed to seafaring
life, found the voyage trying and tedious. The provisions were poor, and their
fresh water supply gave out before the journey was ended. Four deaths also
occurred, and three children were born during the voyage.
On the eighth of March, 1853, the ship arrived safely at the mouth of the
Mississippi River, where five of the company died, and on the arrival at New
Orleans, on the sixteenth, two others departed this life, and one family who
had apostatized remained in that city.
From New Orleans the journey was continued by steamboat up the Mississippi
River to St. Louis, Missouri, where the emigrants landed on the thirty-first.
In that city, tents and other commodities needed for the journey, were purchased.
After tarrying about a month, during which time six of the emigrants died
and two couples were married,(one couple being Soren and Bertha) the company
left St. Louis and proceeded by steamboat about two hundred miles further
up the river to Keokuk, Iowa, where the emigrants pitched their tents for
the first time, and lay in camp for several weeks before starting for the
plains.
In the meantime the emigrants received their teams consisting of oxen and
wagons. Some of the Scandinavian emigrants, who at first rejected the American
way of driving oxen in yokes, went to work and manufactured harness in regular
Danish fashion; but no sooner were these placed on the animals than they,
frightened half to death struck out in a wild run, refusing to be guided at
all by the lines in the hands of their new masters from the far north. Crossing
ditches and gulches in their frenzy, parts of the wagons were strewn by the
way side; but the oxen, (many of which had never been hitched up before) were
at last stopped by men who understood how to manipulate the most important
article of all teamsters outfits -- the whip; and the Danish emigrants, profiting
by the experience they had gained, soon concluded that, although harness might
do well enough for oxen in Denmark, the yoke and whip were preferable in America;
and they readily accepted the method of their adopted country.
With thirty-four wagons and about one hundred and thirty oxen, the company
rolled out from the camping ground near Keokuk on the twenty-first of May,
and after three weeks rather difficult travel over prairies of Iowa, Council
Bluffs, on the Missouri River, was reached. Here the company rested for several
days, and on the twenty seventh of June resumed the journey by crossing the
Missouri River, after which they were soon far out on the plains. On the overland
journey a number of the emigrants died, more children were born, and few lost
the faith in the midst of the hardships and trials of the long march.
Finally on the thirtieth of September, 1853 the company arrived in Salt Lake City; and on the fourth of October the emigrants were nearly all rebaptized by Apostle Erastus Snow. They were counseled by President Brigham Young to settle in different parts of the Territory, and mix up with people of other nationalities, so as to become useful in developing the resources of the new country. Most of them located in Sanpete Valley, whither other companies of from Scandinavia subsequently followed them, and that valley has ever since been know as the headquarters of the Scandinavians in Utah. Still President Young’s advice has not been unheeded, as the people from the three countries of the north (Denmark, Sweden and Norway) are represented, to a greater or less extent, in nearly ever town and settlement of the Saints in the Rocky Mountains. (Millennial Star, Vol. XV, pp. 89, 282, 368; Morgenstjernen, Vol. 1, page 180.)