James DeNoon Reymert

James DeNoon Reymert (October 24, 1821 – March 25, 1896) was an American newspaper editor, mine operator, lawyer and politician. He was a pioneer settler in Wisconsin Territory, early elected official in the state of Wisconsin and founded the first Norwegian language newspaper to be published in the United States.

Reymert was born in Farsund, in the county of Vest-Agder, Norway. Several generations of his forefathers were in succession the pastors of the same church at the Søgne Parish from 1636 to 1738. His father, Christen Reymert, had been a ship owner and merchant in Leith, Scotland and later a customs officer in Farsund. His mother, Jeanette Sinclair Denoon, had been born in Scotland. At age fifteen young Reymert left home to complete a course of study at a commercial college at Christiania. Later he went to Scotland, where he entered the commercial house of John Mitchell and Company at Leith, spending four years there. He studied law and literature at Edinburgh in the law offices of Murdoek and Spencer. He was under the guardianship of his uncle, the Reverend James Young, a Presbyterian minister.

Reymert migrated to the United States during 1842 and in 1844 he married fellow Norwegian immigrant Anna Caspara Hensen. They settled down in the Muskego Settlement in Wisconsin. In 1847, James D. Reymert, Even Heg and Søren Bache agreed to start the Norwegian-language newspaper Nordlyset (The Northern Light). Reymert continued to serve as editor the paper until 1850, when it was sold and was moved to Racine, Wisconsin. In 1852, Reymert founded the village of Denoon on the shores of Lake DeNoon. The town was built around the first two-boiler sawmill in America. The town prospered, but was abandoned following a cholera epidemic. Reynert was also credited with getting a plank road built from Janesville to Milwaukee.

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