Gregers Anderson

Smed. Bosatt på "Næseie" i 1865.

Gregers Anderson, a pioneer, for many years a resident of Section 26, west, Dovre Township, was born in Norway, and came of a line of iron workers, blacksmiths and machinists. He was reared in his native country, and as a youth, like his ancestors before him, became an iron worker.

He married Helen Olson, who was born in the same neighborhood, and they had eight children, three of whom died in Norway. The survivors were, Andrew, Jerry, Ole, Martha and Anton.

Mr. Anderson brought his family to America in 1869, coming to this region by way of Quebec, Canada, Milwaukee, Wis., and Reed's Landing, Minn. For a part of the first summer, they lived with an uncle, John Anderson, who had a farm on Little L. Creek, near Menomonie, Dunn County, this state. From there, Mr. Anderson moved his family to Eau Claire, County, this state, where he worked at his trade as a blacksmith and as an engineer in the mills for two years.

In 1871 he went to Minnesota, but did not get what he wanted. That fall he came to Barron County and found a location that just suited him. In 1873 he drove his family up here, installed them in a log house on the place, and provided suitable quarters for his yoke of oxen and two cows. Then he went back to Eau Claire and worked there for another year. In the meantime his wife and children started to clear up the place and got in the first crop. In 1873 he located here permanently, and here spent the remainder of his life with the exception of two different periods when he was away working. He built up a good place, and became a substantial man in the community.

He and his wife were both devout members of the Norwegian Lutheran Church, and he served the congregation at Sand Creek as a trustee. He died March 30, 1891, at the age of sixty-one, and she in January, 1918, the age of eighty-six.

In addition to the children named, they had a daughter, Inga, born in this county, who is the wife of Henry Soberg of Dovre Township; also a son named George, who died in infancy.

Copied from page 678 of The History Of Barron County, Wisconsin, published in 1922 by H.C. Cooper, Jr. & Co., Minneapolis, Minnesota.