Ole P. Bolkan
Ole Petersen was born on 19 January 1849 at Bolkgjerdet, a cottar's plot under the farm Bolkan in Skatval, the northern parish of Stjørdal in Nord-Trøndelag, Norway. He was baptised in the Stjørdal church on 18 February 1849, the forty-ninth child christened there that year. His father, Peter Christian Christoffersen, was the husmann at Bolkgjerdet: a cottar who held the plot from the farmer in return for work and owned none of it. His mother was Anne Olsdatter, from Myhr in the same parish. Among the sponsors at the font were an Anders Olsen of Myhr, probably his mother's kin, and a Christopher of Bolkgjerdet, his grandfather's household.
He was the eldest of six. Christoffer, baptised at Christmas 1850, died young; Kristoffer came in 1854, Johan Martin in 1857, Gustaf in 1860 and Anne Petrine about 1863. The family moved from the Bolkan ground to Hvidhammermyren, a cottar's place on the Kvithammer farm, and it was as Ole Pettersen Hvidthammerpl. that he was confirmed in Skatval church on 4 October 1863, aged 14, born at Myhr. The priest graded his knowledge of Christianity meget god, very good. At the census of 1865 he was 16, at home with his parents, three brothers, a sister and a servant girl.
On 7 April 1866 the parish recorded the family's departure for America: the husmann Peter Kristoffersen, 41, his wife Ane, 43, Ole 17, Kristoffer 12, Johan Martin 9, Gustaf 6 and Anne Petrina 2. Ole gave 1866 as his year of arrival in every later census. In America the family dropped the patronymic and took the farm's name, Bolkan.
They farmed first in Rock County, Wisconsin, near Orfordville, twenty-five miles south of Madison, and then in Brookfield Township, Worth County, Iowa, where the five children were counted with their parents in 1880. On 1 January 1881, in Scott County, Iowa, on the Mississippi, Ole P. Bolkan married Mary E. Evarts. The licence is dated 27 December 1880 and the return is entered at volume 1, page 17. His father died in Worth County that August.
His brother Christopher had walked into the Sheyenne valley of Dakota Territory in April 1880 and taken a claim in Washburn Township, and Ole followed. He filed on land in Dakota Territory on 19 November 1888 and again on 27 September 1893. His son Gustavus was born in Griggs County on 6 March 1889 and his daughter Angeline in 1896. In June 1900 he was a farmer in Broadview Township, Griggs County, aged 51, married nineteen years, with Mary, 37, born New York, Angeline, 14, and Gustavus, 11. In 1910 the farm was in Sverdrup Township and his mother Anna, 88, had come up from Iowa to live with them; she died there in 1911. In 1930 he was 81 and living with his daughter Angeline and her husband, a Severson, and their children, among them his grandson Harland, 9. Ole died in 1930 in Griggs County and was buried at Ness Lutheran Cemetery near Cooperstown. Mary followed him in 1935 and lies beside him.
Children
Sources
Find a Grave, memorial for Gustavus O Bolkan, b. 6 Mar 1889, d. 1963, Redland Pioneer Cemetery, Redland, Clackamas County, Oregon
Proves: States Gustavus Ole Bolkan was born to Mary and Ole P. Bolkan in Griggs County, North Dakota, and links Ole P. Bolkan (1849-1930) as his father.
Find a Grave, memorial for Ole P Bolkan, b. Jan 1849 Norway, d. 1930 Griggs County, North Dakota, Ness Lutheran Cemetery, Cooperstown, Griggs County, North Dakota
Proves: Names Gustavus (b. 1889) and Angeline as children of Ole P. Bolkan and his wife Mary/Marie E. Preston, married 1889, of Washburn, Griggs County.
If Ole P. Bolkan is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Ole P. Bolkan (1849-1930)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/ole-p-bolkan-1849-1930-c6dc4a.