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Danish Farmers In The Middle West, Erik Helmer Pedersen

The Bridge

A former Danish carpenter and farmer, Niels Madsen, his wife, Anna, and their six children, aged 15 to 3 years, were among the passengers on board the America wooden paddle-steamer "Northern Light" when the ship on May 1, 1869, left Copenhagen. It was bound for New York, but enroute it had to call at Gothenburg in Sweden and Christiana in Norway. The Madsen family had left their native village of Klippinge at Stevns, in the company of about 30 other emigrants, headed by a so-called "yankee," Mr. A. Clausen, who during the spring of 1869 had formed an emigration group. …