Knute Nelson
Knute Nelson was a Norwegian-born American attorney and politician active in Wisconsin and Minnesota. A Republican, he served in state and national positions: he was elected to the Wisconsin and Minnesota legislatures and to the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate from Minnesota, and served as the 12th governor of Minnesota from 1893 to 1895. Having served in the Senate for 28 years, 55 days, he is the longest-serving Senator in Minnesota's history.
Nelson is known for promoting the Nelson Act of 1889 to consolidate Minnesota's Ojibwe/Chippewa on a reservation in western Minnesota and break up their communal land by allotting it to individual households, with sales of the remainder to anyone, including non-natives. This was similar to the Dawes Act of 1887, which applied to Native American lands in the Indian Territory.
Early life and education
Knute Nelson was born out of wedlock in Evanger, near Voss, Norway, to Ingebjørg Haldorsdatter Kvilekval, who named him Knud Evanger. He was baptized by his uncle on their farm of Kvilekval, who recorded his father as Helge Knudsen Styve. This is unconfirmed. Various theories persist about Knud's paternity, including one involving Gjest Baardsen, a famous outlaw.In 1843, Ingebjørg's brother Jon Haldorsson sold the farm where she and Knud lived, as he could not make a living, and emigrated to Chicago. Ingebjørg took Knud with her to Bergen, where she worked as a domestic servant. Having borrowed money for the passage, she and six-year-old Knud emigrated to the United States, arriving in Castle Garden in New York City on July 4, 1849. The holiday fireworks made a lasting impression on Knud, who was listed in immigration records as "Knud Helgeson Kvilekval". Ingebjørg Haldorsdatter claimed to be a widow. She and Knud traveled by the Hudson River to Albany, New York, and then via the Erie Canal to Buffalo.
They continued across the Great Lakes to Chicago. There her brother Jon, now working as a carpenter, took them in. While with him, Ingebjørg worked as a domestic servant and paid off her debt for passage in less than a year. Knud also worked, first as a house servant, then as a paperboy for the Chicago Free Press, which gave him an early education, both because he read the paper and because he learned street profanity.
In the fall of 1850, Ingebjørg married Nils Olson Grotland, also from Voss. The family of three moved to Skoponong, a Norwegian settlement in Palmyra, Wisconsin. Knud was given the surname Nelson after his stepfather, which eliminated the stigma of being fatherless.
By then 17 years old, Nelson was street-smart and rebellious, with a proclivity for profanity. He was accepted to the school held by Mary Blackwell Dillon, an Irish immigrant with linguistic talents. Nelson proved himself an apt though undisciplined student; he later recalled being whipped up to three times a day.
Still in his teens, Nelson joined the Democratic Party out of admiration for Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The family moved to the Koshkonong Settlement, which by 1850 had more than half of Wisconsin's Norwegian population of 5,000. Nils Olson had bad luck with land purchases and became sickly. Nelson picked up most of the work of the farm, but maintained his commitment to education. Olson was not supportive and Nelson often had to scrounge to find money for schoolbooks.
Nelson's academic interests led him to enroll in Albion Academy in Albion, Dane County, Wisconsin, in the fall of 1858. The school was founded by the Seventh-day Adventist Church to provide education to children who could not afford private school; Nelson was deemed "very deserving." To earn his keep he did various jobs around the school.
After two years, Nelson took a job as a country teacher in Pleasant Springs, near Stoughton. Teaching mostly other Norwegian immigrants, he was an agent of Americanization.
Military service
Nelson returned to Albion in the spring of 1861, when the American Civil War had started. By then, he had developed his position as a "low-tariff, anti-slavery, pro-Union Democrat," but was in the minority in a pro-Abraham Lincoln region. In May 1861, he and 18 other Albion students enlisted in a state militia company known as the Black Hawk Rifles of Racine, to fight with the Union Army in the war. Appalled by its debauchery, the young men refused to be sworn into the army under this militia, and eventually succeeded in being transferred to the 4th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. This was an "all-American" regiment, made up generally of native-born men.Nelson's parents opposed his volunteering, but he saw it as his duty. He sent half his soldier's pay to his parents to help retire the debt on the farm. He seems to have enjoyed army life, noting that the food was better than at home. He shared his fellow soldiers' frustration at not being put into battle soon enough. His unit moved from Racine to Camp Dix near Baltimore, Maryland. From there they moved to combat operations in Louisiana.
On May 27, 1863, after the 4th Wisconsin became a cavalry unit, Nelson was wounded in the Battle of Port Hudson, captured and made a prisoner of war. He was released when the siege ended. He served as an adjutant, was promoted to corporal, and briefly considered applying for a lieutenant's commission.
Military service sharpened Nelson's identity as an American and his patriotism. He was deeply concerned about what he considered the ambivalent attitude among Norwegian-American Lutheran clergy toward slavery, and thought that too few of his fellow Norwegian Americans from Koshkonong had volunteered. He read the Norwegian translation of Esaias Tegnér's Friðþjófs saga ins frœkna and found it enthralling. Its unsentimental depiction of character and virtue he found to be a synthesis of his Norwegian heritage and American home.
Within two years after he mustered out, Nelson acquired his United States citizenship. His disdain for the Copperheads contributed to his becoming a Republican after the war.
Political career
Local politics in Wisconsin
Nelson returned to Albion and completed his studies as one of the oldest students, graduating at the top of his class. He gave his first campaign speech of record on behalf of Lincoln, and drew praise from the faculty.Deciding to become a lawyer, Nelson moved to Madison, where he studied law in the office of William F. Vilas, one of the few academically trained attorneys in the area. In the spring of 1867, Judge Philip L. Spooner admitted him to the Wisconsin bar.
Nelson opened his law practice in Madison, where he appealed to the Norwegian immigrant community, advertising in the Norwegian language newspaper Emigranten. He also became Madison's unofficial representative of the Norwegian community. With Eli A. Spencer's help, he successfully ran for Dane County's seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly, starting its session on January 8, 1868.
He was reelected to a second term in the Assembly, as he had quickly learned how to get things done in politics. He got involved in a divisive debate about public and parochial schools in Norwegian communities, taking the "liberal" side that promoted public, non-sectarian schools rather than those run by Lutheran clergy. After his second term in the Assembly, Nelson decided not to run for a third.
Marriage and family
After being elected the first time, Nelson married Nicholina Jacobsen, originally from Toten, Norway, in 1868. She was five months pregnant by the time of their marriage and, because of Nelson's poor relations with local Lutheran clergy, they were married by Justice of the Peace Lars Erdall in a private home.A national recession limited the couple's financial success. While Nelson slept in his office in Madison during his legislative and professional career, Nicholina and the newborn Ida stayed with her family in Koshkonong.
Minnesota frontier
Nelson was already interested in moving further west when in 1870 he was invited by Lars K. Aaker to set up a practice in Alexandria, Minnesota, in Douglas County, part of the state's "Upper Country." Nelson was attracted by the possibilities afforded by the opening frontier, especially the prospect of the railroad. After also visiting Fergus Falls, he moved his wife and newborn son Henry to Alexandria in August 1871.He was admitted to the Minnesota bar in October and set up a legal practice primarily around land cases referred to him by Aaker, the land agent. He also bought a homestead in Alexandria, a claim that was contested but which he won. He also became an accomplished trial lawyer, was elected the Douglas County attorney, and acted as the county attorney for Pope County. As was typically the case at that time, Nelson's legal work on land issues got him involved in political issues. He became a champion for the economic development of the Upper Country through the introduction of the railroad.
Minnesota state senator
The so-called "Aaker faction" within the Upper County Republican party found in Nelson a capable politician, with connections to the immigrant community, experience in land-office issues, and political background in Wisconsin. He was put forward as a Republican candidate for the Minnesota Senate in 1874, running against banker Francis Bennett Van Hoesen, who was aligned with the Grange movement and state Anti-Monopoly Party. Though Nelson did not get unanimous support from his Norwegian-American constituency, he carried 59% of the vote and four out of five counties in his constituency.Nelson's first challenge in the state senate, whether to reelect Alexander Ramsey to a third term in the United States Senate, was contentious, as it was against Governor Cushman Davis's wishes. Nelson was caught between his allegiance to the Douglas County Republicans, who were staunch Davis supporters, and his land office constituency, who favored Ramsey. Nelson voted for Ramsey, the dark-horse candidate William D. Washburn, and finally for the victor, Samuel J. R. McMillan.
Nelson spent more time on the issue of extending the railroad infrastructure into the Upper Country. His constituents elected him in large part to resolve the gridlock that prevented the completion of the railroad extension from St. Cloud west to Alexandria and beyond. The railroad company, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, had run out of funds to complete the St. Vincent extension, and the bondholders were unwilling to invest further. The Minnesota legislature agreed on the need for the railroad but were not in a position to pay for its completion.
In 1875, Nelson introduced the Upper Country bill, which gave SP&P added incentives in the form of land to complete the line, but also imposed a deadline after which the rights to build the railroad were forfeited, presumably in favor of Northern Pacific, whose plans would bypass Alexandria. The bill met with controversy from both sides of the issue and was ultimately amended to the point that Nelson first sought to table it and then abstained from voting on it. The bill was enacted and was considered a success in its time, with most of the credit going to Nelson.
It took several years for the various financial and political matters to be sorted out for the railroad, and Nelson played an active role throughout, both as an elected official, attorney, and businessman. He secured rights-of-way for virtually the entire line from Alexandria to Fergus Falls, negotiating with many stakeholders for every tract of land. This proved to be an all-consuming effort for several years, though he ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of Minnesota in 1879.
In May 1877, three of Nelson's five children died during a diphtheria epidemic. The two oldest, Ida and Henry, survived.
In November 1878, the railroad finally reached Alexandria, thanks in large part to Nelson's close working relationship with James J. Hill. Several Minnesota towns were founded as a result of these efforts, including Nelson and Ashby.