Muskego Settlement
The Muskego Settlement was one of the first Norwegian-American settlements in the United States. Situated near today's Muskego, Wisconsin, the Muskego Settlement covered areas within what is now the town of Norway in Racine County, Wisconsin.
John Nielsen Luraas (1813–1890) first led the colony which was founded in 1839, primarily by immigrants from the Norwegian county of Telemark. They had been encouraged to seek their fortunes in Wisconsin by the pioneer Nattestad brothers. Ansten and Ole Knudsen Nattestad had immigrated during 1838 from Veggli in Numedal, Norway, to establish the first Norwegian-American immigrant community in Wisconsin at Jefferson Prairie Settlement of Rock County.
The party staked out 640 acres (2.6 km2) in two sections in Waukesha County. The following year two other settlers, Søren Tollefsen Bache (1814–1890) and Johannes Johannsen, settled in an adjacent area in Racine County, just south of the first settlement, in what is now the town of Norway, Wisconsin. The Muskego Settlement thus came to straddle the county border.
Johannes Johannsen and Søren Bache both played important roles in the life of this colony. It was Johannes Johansen who drafted the Muskego Manifesto of 1845, an open letter by the Muskego colonists to the people of Norway, answering the anti-emigration propaganda of the Norwegian government. The Muskego Manifesto was published in the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet in Christiania on April 1, 1845. Johansen died less than a year after writing this manifesto.
Søren Bache remained prominent in the affairs of Muskego for several years. He served as one of the founders of Nordyset, the first Norwegian language newspaper published in the United States and was the author of a remarkable pioneer diary. Søren Bache returned to Norway in 1847. Bache settled in Lier, Norway, where he died in 1890.
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