Johannes Hansen Brostuen

1851 / 1852 https://www.digitalarkivet.no/view/255/pd00000025127200

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/62736241/johannes-brustien-hanson

One of the first to take land for himself was Johannes B. Hanson. He was born in Skabo, Northern Frohn, Gudbrandsdalen, Norway. He emigrated to the U.S. around 1873 and went to Skogdalen in Vernon County, Wisconsin and was there for several years. In 1882, he married Karoline Evensdoter Norbo who was born in the same place in 1863, and that year he traveled to Grafton, North Dakota and began blacksmithing there with a Lars Dalen from Skabo. In 1882, when the eastern part of Polk county was opened to settlement, he took land there, but in 1893, he was among the first to file for a homestead in Township 16, R. 32 in Section 31. He moved there in the summer of 1894 and the first Norwegian services were held in his home. His life was cut short by cancer in 1908, leaving a wife and an adopted son. http://bemidjihistory.com/wordpress/?p=471