Fun Facts

Met in prison:

The two sailors Lars Gjeilane and Elias Eliassen Tastad (mentioned here), who had a significant impact on the journey with Restauration, were captured and met during a 7-year imprisonment on English prisoner ships. They had been captured from Denmark and used as prisoner ships after being partially destroyed on the return journey in a terrible storm in the Kattegat.

They accidentally found the book “Apologien” by the Quaker Robert Barclay translated into Danish in a chest on the prisoner ship “Fyen”.

This laid the foundation for their conversion and the start of the Quaker congregation in Stavanger, of which several of those who traveled in 1825 were members. The same Stavanger congregation still exists, being Norway’s oldest congregation outside the Norwegian church and its affiliated congregations.

Utstein Monastery:

Elias E. Tastad, 19 years old, had departed from Utstein Monastery with timber.
The quay at Utstein Monastery Hotel is now home port for Restauration.

Siblings disembarked from Restauration on the first day:

A couple of siblings in the Madland family changed their minds and managed to convince their way to disembark in Dusavik. There they left their other siblings and parents who sailed on to America. Read more at the end of the article The American journey that ended in Dusavik. (And possibly more on pages 57-61 here.)

Jens Tormodsen Madland, who disembarked from Restauration in 1825, emigrated to America about 23 years later with his wife and their children. (More info.)

Restauration sold to the Caribbean in 1825

When it arrived in New York, it was sold to St. Thomas and then to St. Croix. Read more on pages 133 – 139 (from Folk in Ryfylke, Yearbook for Ryfylkemuseet 2016, Ernst Berge Drange).

The President of the White House mentioned the ship Restauration:

At least on three occasions in the Proclamation on Leif Erikson Day:
See the 2nd paragraph in both 2011 and 2014. And the 3rd paragraph in 2020 when the voyage in 1825 and the families on board were mentioned.

Leif Erikson Day, which is October 9th, was chosen because it is the arrival date of Restauration in New York City in 1825.

President John Quincy Adams issued a handwritten order to release the imprisoned captain of “Restauration” and forgive the fine when they arrived in New York in 1825. See the original handwritten document here (scroll down, use Google translate.)

In addition: the Norwegian Prime Minster’s New Year Speech 1st of January 2025 started with the emigration to North America and the voyage across the Atlantic in 1825.

Two sisters saved their brother from a stormy sea – now his descendants live in the USA

With great courage and skilled seamanship, two sisters rowed out in a small boat on a winter stormy sea and rescued their little brother, who had been shipwrecked along with their father, the lighthouse keeper at Flatholmen Lighthouse in Rogaland. This Med stort mot og dyktig sjømannskap rodde to søstre ut i en liten båt på vinterstormfullt hav og reddet sin lillebror, som hadde kullseilt sammen med sin far, fyrvokteren på Flatholmen fyr i Rogaland. Denne famous rescue in Norway in 1894 is still relevant today as descendants of the little brother visited Flatholmen Lighthouse in 2024, traveling from the USA. (Article in the local newpaper Solabladet). (Use Google translate in the links.)
(Additional fact: This fun fact was published on board Restauration during a voyage near Flatholmen Lighthouse.)

“Uff Da”

The Norwegian American expression, a common expression in US. What does it means?
Uff Da in North America and in Norway, including picture of Uff da Maritime Museum. Or Uff Da on Wikipedia.
Uff Da explained in a stand up show (video).
Uff-Da Airport in Wisconsin.

The town Stavanger, the road Stavanger Road, and the village Norway in Illinois:

– In the flat prairie of the USA, there is a town called Stavanger. With the approximately 1.5 km long Stavanger Road east of the town.
See pictures here. And in photo reportage “Stavanger – in the USA” (Stavanger Aftenblad A-magazine). (Or more about the photo project and background: watch a video recording of the lecture with the photographer.) “A town called Stavanger“. Join the great “time travel” and experience the traces of Norway in the USA. (Stavanger Aftenblad – Pluss, 2005, pdf file.) And reports from 1975 with pictures, including Stavanger Landhandel (Rogalands Avis). And possibly Stavanger on the prairie (Rogalands Avis, 2011).
See satellite image of the town of Stavanger in Illinois here.

Norway in Illinois (see satellite image of Norway here) is a village, near Stavanger.
One of the / the first permanent Norwegian settlements in North America was in Norway, where several of those who traveled with Restauration settled in 1834.
See Norway Improvement League in Norway’s website with a picture of, among other things, a large road sign “Welcome to Norway”.

In Illinois, there is also a Norwegian Museum. And Norway Ski Club. See other examples of organizations with partly Norwegian names in the same area in the list of members of the Norwegian National League.

Chicago, near Stavanger and Norway, as the third-largest city in the USA, is the largest in the state of Illinois in the Midwest. In 1920, around 50,000 immigrants from Norway lived in Chicago, making it the third-largest “Norwegian” city after Oslo and Bergen.

Cleng Peerson residences:

Cleng Peerson lived, among other places, on Finnøy, and the Cleng Peerson house is still inhabited, the farm he lived on until his death is owned by Norwegians residing in Norway:

Cleng Peerson was married to over 30 years older Swedish-born Ane Cathrine Sælinger and lived on Finnøy. But he was born and raised in Tysvær.

In the Cleng Peerson house on Finnøy, people still live. (The house in Tysvær was not in such good condition for a while but is now at Sandbekken Bygdetun.)

The farm where he lived the last years of his life in Clifton, Texas, is owned by a Norwegian family living right next to where Cleng Peerson was born and raised in Tysvær. See more about Cleng Peerson’s farm in Texas.

Names of post offices in the USA with Norwegian origins;

See examples of some of the many hundred post offices with names that can be linked to Norway. Including in Illinois with stamps on letters from the closed Stavanger, IL post office and Norway, IL post office.

Inventions and innovations by Norwegian-Americans in the USA:

Your creativity and inventiveness have resulted in well-known products of great utility. Some examples:

the first outboard motor with practical utility built by Ole Evinrude in 1907. Which has turned into over a 100-year industrial adventure with Evinrude outboard motors. And was honored with the Red Dot Design Award both in 2015 and 2018. Read more about Ole Evinrude’s upbringing and the invention of the outboard motor in The story of the world’s most famous “hunndøling,” Oppland Arbeiderblad. And about the ice cream for his girlfriend that melted as he rowed before he invented the outboard motor – see point 7 in the article “Norway’s top 10 in the USA”.

– John J. Tokheim’s famous gas pump which as early as 1901 could accurately measure the amount of gasoline delivered and determine the cost of the gasoline to the customer through a calibrated visible glass cylinder.

More about a meeting with, among others, the daughter and other close family members and papers after John J. Tokheim and the story of the gas pump invention here. More info in the video Tokheim – 100 Years of the Gas Pump. And a video about how Tokheim gas pumps were built in the 20th century.
Other products and the Vesterheim exhibition in the USA about Norwegian-Americans as Innovators and Inventors in the fall of 2021.

Ping golf putter. Kartsen Solheim developed his own putter, which was called ping after the sound when the club hits the golf ball. Ping Anser putter is perhaps the world’s most famous putter.

Hilton hotels:

The father of hotel king Conrad Hilton grew up at Hilton in Norway before immigrating to the USA. (Or more info about the hotel chain.)