Elling Eielson Sundve y.

Burial record:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15337867/elling-eielsen

As early as 1839 Elling Eielsen, a pious (Lutheran) layman, came to conduct inspirational meetings among the Norwegians and in 1846 the first church body, known as Eielsen's Synod, was established at Jefferson Prairie, Wisconsin. http://www.naha.stolaf.edu/pubs/nas/volume14/vol14_9.htm

Despite the stone's spelling of "Eielson" it should be Eielsen. He was born in Voss, Norway. He built the first Norwegian Lutheran Church in America in 1841. He became the first Norwegian Lutheran pastor in America. Organized the first Norwegian Lutheran Synod at Jefferson Prairie, Wisconsin in 1846, calling it the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, also the "Eielsen Synod" or "Elling Synod" and serving as its first president from 1846-1883. Helped to found Lisbon Seminary, Lisbon, Ill.; Eielsen Seminary, Cambridge, Wis.; Hauge College and Eielsen Seminary, Chicago, Ill.

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https://nbl.snl.no/Elling_Eielsen

http://www.foxriverlutheran.org/images2/Elling%20Eielsen.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elling_Eielsen

1839 to the U.S. (Chicago).

1843 Ordained.

1843-1846 Muskego & Racine, Wisconsin.

1846-1872 Jefferson Prairie, Wisconsin.

1873-1883 Chicago, Illinois.

Elling Eielsen (September 19, 1804 – January 10, 1883) was a Norwegian-American minister and Lutheran Church leader. Eielsen was born and raised on the farm of Sundve (Sundve på Vossestrand) in Voss, Norway. The son of Eiel Ingebrigtsen Sundve and Anna Ellingsdatter Sundsvaal, he was brought up in the Lutheran religious tradition of Hans Nielsen Hauge. After his own religious awakening at the age of 25, he moved to Bergen, where he apprenticed as a carpenter and blacksmith and also enlisted in the army. He acted as a spiritual leader among his fellow soldiers, and in 1832, he accepted his first mission as a lay preacher. He traveled for several years extensively throughout Norway and also preached in Denmark where he was arrested and briefly imprisoned.

Eielsen immigrated to the United States during 1839 and in 1843, he was formally ordained as a Lutheran minister by Francis Arnold Hoffmann, a German Lutheran pastor. Under Eielsen's leadership, a house of worship for Norwegian-American Lutherans was constructed at Fox River Lutheran Church near Norway, Illinois. Eielsen was resident pastor at the Jefferson Prairie Settlement from 1846 to 1872. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Eielsen Synod) founded in 1846 at the Jefferson Prairie Settlement, was to bear his name. He remained with the synod over the next 30 years and also continued as pastor-at-large for Norwegian-American communities in Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Texas.

In 1873, he was living in Chicago where he died during 1883.[4] [5][6][7]

Eielsen was a leader in the Haugean pietistic Lutheran church reform movement which encouraged evangelism and vigorous lay leadership. His piety and reliance on lay leadership long remained a dominating influence for much of upper-Midwest Lutheranism.[8]