Ancestors

Peter Larssen Tønder

Peter Larssen Tønder, born in 1699 on the Rogaland coast, at Vikedal in Ryfylke or at Stavanger, and dead at Kragerø on the other side of the country on 29 May 1770, buried there on 2 June. The Kragerø town history calls him the Norwegian progenitor of the Tønder family, Slægten Tønders norske Stamfader er Byfoged i Kragerø Peter Tønder.

He was a son of Lars Gudmundsen Ile, a lensmann and farmer at Vikedal who is described as a rich man, and of Anna Maria Pedersdatter Tønder, who died at Ile in 1700 when Peter was a year old. The surname came from her: he took his mother's family name and his father's patronymic and carried both, Peter Larssen Tønder.

As a young man he worked as skriverkarl, a writing clerk, to the bailiff of Ryfylke, Frederich Tønder, and the account of him says he conducted himself as a decent fellow. He then went east to Kragerø, where he married Elisabeth Giønge, daughter of the byfoged Jacob Giønge, and in 1720 his father in law obtained royal permission to make over both the magistracy and the customs controllership to him. He held them from 1720 until he died in 1770, half a century in the same two offices.

He got rich in them. An assessment of the 1760s puts his fortune at five thousand rigsdaler and his income at a hundred and ninety, and the percentage tax levied on the town's officials on 14 May 1768 caught him among the largest payers. A household count of the period gives him three maidservants, more than any merchant in the list. Of his six children, Jacob Giønge Tønder followed him as byfoged of Kragerø.

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Cite: Heirology, "Peter Larssen Tønder (1699-1770)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/peter-larssen-tonder-1699-1770-6abbc7.