Vilhelm Moberg - The Settlers

Even though services were being conducted in the new church it was far from finished inside. There were only a few pews and most of the participants must stand during the sermons; church bell and organ were missing, for the parish was short of cash. Concerning the color of the exterior paint for the building, a long-drawn-out argument had arisen among the parishioners.

Three different groups each wanted a different color for the new Swedish church. The first group wanted the church washed red to remind them of Christ’s blood and wounds which had redeemed Man from eternal condemnation and effected atonement with God. The second group wanted to see the temple walls green as grass, the color of sweet hope, leading their thoughts to the eternal joy of heaven, helping them to find comfort in the Father. Finally, the third group wanted to paint the church white, the color of purity, innocence, and angels’ wings. This would always remind them of Christ’s saying: Even though your sins be blood-red they shall be washed as white as snow.

For a year and a half the arguments had gone on among the reds, greens, and whites. Many stormy meetings were held, long speeches and heated arguments were heard. Pastor Törner regretted this disunity but he himself took no definite stand. He tried to calm the stirred-up emotions by pointing out that their salvation in no way was dependent on the color of their church. In the end the third group gained a majority, mainly because the parish business manager, Petrus Olausson, was the leader of that group. Consequently the new church had been painted white.

Later, a rumor had it that Olausson, long before the strife began, had happened to buy a large quantity of white paint.

“The settlers fight about any little thing,” exclaimed Kristina. “The Swedes are hopeless that way!”

“We must follow the American order of things,” said Karl Oskar. He approved of that order, however cumbersome and time-consuming it might be to make many heads agree. At least here they ran their own church without interference from high lords. What did the congregation have to say when churches were built in Sweden? The bishop decided almost everything. And Ljuder parish was run by three or four mighty men. Here three or four hundred people took part and made decisions about their parish and their church. It might take more time, but individuals should have the right to put their fingers in their own pies.

As a member of the parish council, Karl Oskar had suggested the erection of a lightning rod as a protection for the new church; since it was built of wood it could easily burn should lightning strike it. Long ago in Sweden, his meadow barn, filled with hay, had been destroyed by lightning fire; he had never forgotten it. In this country lightning seemed to be more frequent and of greater intensity than in Sweden, and he had put up lightning rods on both his main house and barn. It would be very simple to have a similar protective rod for the church. A copper wire would follow the side of the steeple down and into the ground; if lightning should strike, it would run along that wire and disappear into the earth.

Petrus Olausson was immediately against Karl Oskar. To put up a lightning rod on the church would be to show disrespect and suspicion toward God. A person who failed to believe that the Lord would be capable of averting lightning from his temple and would rather trust a copper wire, such a person could not be a faithful Christian. A true Lutheran must trust God, not a copper wire. If they put up a lightning rod they would commit the grave sin of weak faith. They should trust in the Almighty himself to protect the church they had built for him.

Karl Oskar replied: Was a person then not to use the protective remedies invented? That meant one couldn’t use warm clothing against the cold. Nor could a person swim to shore if he happened to fall into the lake. It meant they could not harvest their crops in the fall but must starve during the winter. If this were the Lutheran religion, then he was no true Lutheran.

“Yes, we know,” agreed Olausson with sad finality. “You and your wife harbor sectarians and evil preachers in your house. The soul fiend has put it into your head to use the lightning rod in an attempt to make us give up the true religion. When the devil wants to snare a person, a thin copper wire is quite sufficient.”

Olausson thus having raised a doubt in the mind of other council members concerning Karl Oskar’s religious beliefs, one by one they refused to vote for his motion. Only Jonas Petter stood by him. Because Karl Oskar and Kristina still opened their door to the wife of the Baptist minister in Stillwater, no lightning rod was erected for the new church. The parish left it to the Lord to protect his temple against lightning.

There was still much disorder and confusion in the Swedish Lutheran parish in Chisago Township. There were members without any respect for the church’s holiness, who acted within its walls as though it were a worldly house. Who could rebuke the impudent and shameless since no one had a right to give orders? The pastor himself was hired by the parish as its servant. At last it was agreed that vulgar behavior in the church would be punished with fines. To avoid hurting anyone’s feelings it was called a tax, a nuisance tax. If anyone brought dogs into the church during the service he must pay a dollar for each animal. A gun was allowed if put in the corner, but dogs were not suffered since they disturbed the service by growls and barking. If one entered the temple with dirty boots and made marks on the floor he paid fifty cents for this offense. But most expensive of all was to come drunk to the service: this was taxed at two dollars. It was difficult to decide when someone was to be considered drunk; if one was quiet and orderly he need not pay this so-called nuisance tax, however much whiskey he had consumed. But if anyone raised his voice in talk or laughter, or interrupted the minister at the altar or in the pulpit, it was considered a two-dollar sin.

During the first year the nuisance tax was in effect, it brought the parish forty-five dollars. This money was kept in a special savings box; in time it would be used for the purchase of a church bell. Thus evil was turned into good: the more disorder in the church, the sooner church bells would peal for the Swedish settlers at Chisago Lake.

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The colony grew with each year’s immigration. The newcomers were mostly relatives and friends of earlier arrivals, lured here by the description of the fertile country. They would arrive during the spring and summer and their log cabins would be built by fall. The immigrants came from various countries, but the majority were Swedes. In Chisago Township there were now five hundred Swedes, and fifteen hundred in the whole valley: a good-sized parish had moved from Sweden to the St. Croix Valley.

The settlements sprang up ever closer to the new church. On the peninsula opposite Nordberg’s Island, that had been named for the first landseeker at this lake, a new town site had been surveyed and named Center City. It was a rather boastful name but the settlers felt the town would in time live up to it. The site was at the center of the settlement and was planned to become the county seat of Chisago County.

A group of houses rose quickly in Center City. A few enterprising Swedes built a sawmill and a flour mill, both run by steam. The settlers need no longer drive long and difficult roads to have their timber sawed or their grain milled. An Irishman opened a lodging house where travelers could sleep and obtain food; a German wagon-maker built a shop with a lathe and other machinery. An American opened a tailor shop, a Norwegian blacksmith arrived with his tools. The Chisago people could now obtain clothing and implements near home.