DANISH IMMIGRATION AND LIFE IN UTAH
Thor Thorsen
Denmark supplied more immigrants to Utah in the nineteenth century than
any other country except Great Britain. Most of these
Danes--nearly 17,000--were converts to the LDS Church, heeding an urgent
millennialistic call to gather to "Zion."
Generally, Danes were relatively slow to respond to the enticements of
America. But the stirrings of the revolutionary year 1848
left Denmark with a liberal constitution (1849) providing for freedom of
religion, without the repressive backlash that numbed
much of the rest of Europe. This was fertile soil for Mormon
proselytizing, initiated in 1850 by Erastus Snow and three fellow
believers--a Dane, a Swede, and an American. Benefiting from religious
awakenings kindled by Baptists, Methodists, and
reformers within the Lutheran state church, the Latter-day Saints also
moved forward on their own in less-traveled byways,
particularly in northern Jutland. A key to their success was the cadre
of enthusiastic young local recruits--many of them
journeyman artisans--who soon devoted their full energy to proclaiming
the Mormon message. A significant part of that message
was the doctrine of the gathering. Thus Danish Latter-day Saints were in
the vanguard of emigration from their homeland to the
United States.
Danish emigration to Utah began January 31, 1852, when a group of nine
Mormons left Copenhagen for Hamburg, continued by
steamer to England, and eventually sailed from Liverpool with nineteen
additional Danes who joined them there under the
leadership of Erastus Snow. Arriving in New Orleans, they traveled by
river steamboat up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to
present-day Council Bluffs, where they joined a larger company of Mormon
emigrants for the overland journey to Utah. It took
these first Danish emigrants nine months to reach Salt Lake City;
thousands who followed took much the same route. New
Orleans was the American port of entry until New York and other eastern
ports supplanted it in 1855. A few companies sailed
directly from Hamburg to America.
Scandinavian converts traveled together, often as part of larger
companies including British LDS emigrants, on ships chartered by
Mormon agents. After travel by rail or river steamboat, immigrants
reached a frontier outfitting post where arrangements were
made for their final overland trek to Utah. Beginning in 1869 steam
powered the entire journey to Utah, by ship and by rail.
The peak of Danish emigration to Utah came in the years 1862 and 1863,
when tensions in Europe were reaching a boiling point
over Denmark's attempted annexation of Schleswig, and while the Civil
War raged in the United States. In those two years alone
nearly 2,000 Mormons emigrated from Denmark, the vast majority destined
for Utah. Some, subject to military service, were
leaving to avoid becoming cannon fodder in Denmark's armed conflict that
would soon break out with Prussia and Austria.
The heaviest Danish Mormon immigration came during the first formative
quarter-century of the Latter-day Saint settlement of
Utah. No exclusively Danish communities were established, although the
village of Mantua in Box Elder County was
predominantly Danish in its earliest years. Danes played particularly
significant roles in the settlement of Box Elder and Cache
counties in the north and of Sanpete and Sevier counties in the south.
Sanpete County's Danish-born residents made up
twenty-four percent of its population in 1870; with their children born
in Utah they were undoubtedly more than one-third of the
county's population. One-third of all the Danes in Utah were located in
Sanpete County. Droll Danish humor became part of
popular Sanpete folklore. Also in 1870, 10.5 percent of Box Elder
County's residents were born in Denmark, as were 7.8 percent
of Cache County's residents. Although emigration from Denmark to Utah
declined after the 1860s, still 10 percent of the state's
population in 1890 either were born in Denmark or had at least one
parent born in Denmark. Mormon leaders consistently
encouraged assimilation, and many Danish converts began to learn English
before emigrating. After reaching Utah, wherever
possible, they were asked to participate fully in the activities of
local Mormon English-speaking wards (congregations). Still, LDS
"Scandinavian Meetings" organizations served as a secondary focal point
for religious, social, and cultural activities in the mother
tongue. Scandinavians joined forces for outings and reunions, choirs,
and dramatic productions. Partly because of the central place
the Scandinavian LDS Meetings held among the immigrant community, such
organizations as Dansk Broderskab (Danish
Brotherhood) enjoyed only limited participation in Utah.
Periodicals in their native language served combined audiences of Danes
and Norwegians, and sometimes Swedes as well. The
most successful of these was the Danish-Norwegian newspaper Bikuben (The
Beehive), published in Salt Lake City from 1876
through 1935 (under LDS Church ownership in later years).
Whether disaffected or in search of economic opportunities, some Danish
LDS immigrants originally bound for Utah left their
traveling companies in the Midwest, or returned there after experiencing
Utah. Many of these were among early settlers of Iowa
and Nebraska. After a sojourn in Utah and Idaho in the 1860s, Jens
(later James) Borglum and his family settled down in
Nebraska, where he became a physician. His son Solon, born in Ogden,
became a prominent sculptor, as did son Gutzon, born in
southern Idaho, who later created the massive monumental sculpture at
Mount Rushmore.
After the coming of the railroad to Utah in 1869 Presbyterians,
Methodists, Baptists, and Lutherans established churches and
schools in Utah aimed specifically at reclaiming Scandinavians from
Mormonism. This became a significant factor in the education
of many Danish-American youth and won a limited number of proselytes.
The majority of early Danish immigrants to Utah came from agricultural
backgrounds. Among the remainder, artisans
outnumbered unskilled laborers. While some had been prosperous and the
majority were able to at least pay for the ocean voyage
to America, most were relatively poor by the time they reached Utah.
Several devoted much of their means to help with the
expenses of fellow immigrants.
The number of Danish natives living in Utah peaked in 1900 at 9,132 and
then declined gradually as more died than immigrated.
Yet as late as 1960, Danes and their children made up one-tenth of the
state's "foreign stock"--residents who either were born
outside the United States or had at least one parent born outside the
US. While the 1980 census estimated that only 998 Utah
residents were born in Denmark, 137,941 Utahans had at least one Danish
ancestor. Continuing interchange with Denmark was
facilitated by a Danish consulate for Utah and Nevada in Salt Lake City.
The influence of Danes on the development of Utah is mirrored only
slightly in official place-names. Elsinore, Sevier County, was
named after the Danish town housing the legendary castle of Hamlet.
Jensen, Uintah County, took its name from Lars Jensen,
who built a ferry on the Green River. Danish nicknames were more common
in the nineteenth century; Mantua was nicknamed
"Little Copenhagen," and several communities were often called "Little
Denmark."
Anthony H. Lund (1844-1921), who settled in Sanpete County, was Utah's
most prominent Danish-American. An 1862 immigrant,
Lund served as a member of Utah's territorial legislature. As counselor
in the First Presidency of the LDS Church for twenty
years, as Church Historian, and as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles, Lund exerted a significant influence on the
development of Utah and of his church.
In his art, poetry, and social criticism C. C. A. Christensen
(1831-1912) was a representative spokesperson for Utah's Mormons
and Scandinavians. His "Mormon Panorama", a series of historical
paintings accompanied by a lecture, memorialized early
Mormon history.
Andrew Jenson (1850-1941), a self-taught historian, made major
contributions to the preservation of Utah and Mormon history.
Language barriers hindered full participation by many bright and capable
Danish immigrants in Utah society. Frederik Ferdinand
Samuelsen (1865-1929) emigrated to Utah after serving as a member of the
Danish parliament. From 1925 to 1927 he presided
over weekly Scandinavian meetings in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square
in Salt Lake City. A close friend indicated that
Samuelsen was deeply disappointed that his lack of fluency in English
precluded his further involvement in public life.
Other Danes were influential in their communities and made significant
contributions in their professions or vocations. As
long-time bishop in Gunnison (1876-1900), strong-willed Christian A.
Madsen (1822-1907) helped shape that town. Sophie
Valentine (1861-1940), a poet and author of short stories, served as
associate editor of Bikuben. Christian Daniel Fjeldsted
(1829-1905) was one of the First Seven Presidents of Seventies in the
LDS Church. Peter W. Madsen (1852-1922) founder of
Madsen Furniture Company, was prominent in business affairs in Salt Lake
City.
See: William Mulder, Homeward to Zion (1957) and Mulder, "Scandinavian
Saga," in Helen Z. Papanikolas, ed., The Peoples of
Utah (1976).
Richard L. Jensen
Thor Thorsen
Gedion
Vh
Gedion!!!
Thor Thorsen <"Thor Thorsen"@ItDoesNotReallyMatter.com> > skrev i
meddelelsen <38E50103...@ItDoesNotReallyMatter.com>...
Henrik Larsen
>Var det ikke bedre at poste denne mail i en Engelsk talende
>nyhedsgruppe!!!
Og det var måske også bedre IKKE at genposte hele idiotens indlæg.
Vh Henrik
Arcana Dragon
nyhedsmeddelelse:DOYF4.1744$N74....@news.get2net.dk...
> Var det ikke bedre at poste denne mail i en Engelsk talende
nyhedsgruppe!!!
Jeg har manden i mit killfilter (ca. 15 forskellige alias'er), og vil gerne
være fri for at du citerer hans indlæg.
GB
Konrad
> Var det ikke bedre at poste denne mail i en Engelsk talende nyhedsgruppe!!!
>
Og det skulle du quote 180 linier for at skrive?
hilsen,
--
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