Jens Evensen Kraft
Jens Evensen Kraft was an officer of the Norwegian infantry. His career is set out in Ovenstad's Militærbiografier of 1949, the reference work on officers of the Dano-Norwegian army. He was born in Norway on 14 July 1722. He was a corporal by 1736, at fourteen.
He served in the Opland and the Vestenfjeldske regiments of national infantry, the regiments raised by conscription from the farms. In 1744 he became captain and chief of the 2nd Østre Telemark company. In 1755 he was given the character of major, the title of the rank without the post. He later served as premier major, the senior major of his regiment. In 1765 he was put on half pay at 275 riksdaler a year, which ended his active service. In 1768 he was living at Schouwig near Skien. The probate after him calls him Obrist Lieutenant, lieutenant colonel.
On 28 January 1751, as a captain, he married Anne Maria Moss at Kongsberg. She was a daughter of the merchant Anders Moss, who had been buried four weeks earlier, and his probate names the captain as her fiancé. The clerk wrote: "Hr. Capit. Jens Kraft & Jomfr. Anna Maria Moss, med Kongl. dispensat. uden foregaaende Trolovelse copul. hiemme i Huuset." They were married at home, by royal dispensation, without the betrothal that normally came first. The family kept its ties to Kongsberg. Two of the daughters were confirmed there, Lovise Christentze in 1768 and Christine in 1775.
He died at Eg in Bamble on 22 October 1778. On 13 November the Bamble probate court came to the farm to register and value his estate, for division between his creditors and his heirs. The heirs were his widow, "Enken Anne Maria født Moss", and six children. A son of sixteen, his given name lost in the binding of the book, was living at home on Eg. Magdalena Andrea was "udi Ægteskab med Sr. Nils Simonsen boende i Riisøer", married to Niels Simonsen of Risør. Lovise was married to Niels Boesen Møller of Kragerø. Susanne, twenty-one, was living with the Møllers at Kragerø. Christine, eighteen, was living at Kongsberg, and Christiana, sixteen, was at home. Niels Simonsen is named again lower on the page among the men acting for the heirs.
His daughters married into the merchant towns of the coast. Magdalena Andrea married Niels Simonsen in 1773. Lovise Christence married Møller in 1774, and as a widow Georg Christian Heuch. Christine became Niels Simonsen's third wife in 1792, after her sister's death.
His own parents are disputed. In 1929 a query in Norsk slektshistorisk tidsskrift called it "ganske utelukket", quite out of the question, that he was a son of Colonel Even Kraft, and said his father was unknown. Twenty years later Ovenstad named him the son of the farmer Even Jensen Kraft of Baarstad in Eidsvoll and his wife Magdalena Chortogæa. His eldest daughter's name, Magdalena, would fit that account, but it was also the name of his wife's mother, Anne Malene. No record settles it.
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Cite: Heirology, "Jens Evensen Kraft (1722-1778)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/jens-evensen-kraft-1722-1778-c44809.