Gunnul Olsen VINDEG

   Cause of his death was killed by a loaded wagon tipping over on him.

   Other names for Gunnul were Gunnul Olsen VINDEGG, Gunnel Olson VINDEIG and Gunnulf Olsen VINDEIG.

  Death Notes:

Koshkonong area

  Noted events in his life were:

• Immigration: from Norway, 1839, America. ³ Leaving Rollag...

20 Apr 1839, to Nordamerica
46) Gunnul Olsen Vindeg, 30
47) Guri Pedersdr, 28
48) barn Berit, 2 mths

Through the illness of a child, he was prevented from emigrating with Nattestad, as he had intended. Coming later in the year, he went via Chicago, directly to Jefferson Praire where he remained during the winter.

• Reference: An Immigrant Shipload of 1840, 1839. An Immigrant Shipload of 1840
Anne O. Windag (44) came from Numedal. Her brother, Gunnel Olsen Vindeg, who came to America in 1839, is well known in Norwegian immigrant history as a writer of boastful, but influential America letters. {39} Another brother, Helleik, gained fame, or rather notoriety, along another line of endeavor. Together with two companions he decided to try a quick and easy way to riches. "During the winter of 1841 these three unmarried men, all from Numedal, spent their time partly at Koshkonong and partly in Whitewater, making Norwegian money. . . . They wore the money as soles in their boots in order to make the bills look old and worn." {40} In the spring of 1842 or 1843 they returned to Norway to cash in on their cunning but landed in prison for long terms instead. Anna Vindeg married the Vossing, Nils Larson Bolstad, in 1841; he was one of the pioneers in the famous Koshkonong settlement. They settled in the town of Deerfield, Dane County, Wisconsin, where they remained until Bolstad died in 1865. Shortly afterwards Anna Vindeg Bolstad sold the farm and moved to North Dakota, where she died in 1912. She had three daughters and three sons, one of whom joined the Fifteenth Wisconsin Regiment and died in battle, June 28, 1864. {41}

[http://www.naha.stolaf.edu/pubs/nas/volume14/vol14_3.htm]

• Reference: The first chapter of Norwegian immigration, (1821-1840). p344-345
Helleik Vindeg was a brother of Gunnul Vindeg. Gunnel Vindeg had a sister who married a Swede, by name John Smith, a man of doubtful character, who officiated both as minister and physician. Gunnul Vindeg had another sister, Anna, who was married to Nils Bolstad, and lived near Cambridge, in the neighborhood of Magne Bystölen, Kolbein Saue and Nils Gilderhus.
[...]
"And now a word about Gunnel Vindeg going by boat from Beloit up Rock river, and Koskonong creek. I am familiar with the report, but I have doubts as to whether he feat was actually accomplisted. There was certainly no necessity for choosing such a way of getting to Koshkonong in 1840."
p347
[...]I believe Gunnul Olson Vindeg was the first Norwegian to locate in Dane county. I take this to be the fact, largely for the reason that he had so short a distance to go to get there. He had come from Norway to Jefferson Prairie, in the fall of 1839, and as soon as the weather permitted, the next spring he and Gjermund Sunde went in a boat up to the township of Christiana, and if he started as early as I think he did, there was nothing to binder his getting located on his homestead with his family, in the month of April.
p351
The were followed by Gunnul Olson Vindeg, who entered his land sixteen days later, on May 22, 1840.

• Reference: Nordmændene i Amerika by Marin Ulvestad, 1907, Dane County, WI. In 1839-40, Norwegians poured into the southeast corner of this county, where
they founded the so-called Koshkonong settlement, one of the best known
Norwegian settlements in America. The founders were: the brothers Gunnulf and
Knud Olsen Vindeig from Rollaug parish, Nummedalen, Gjermund Sunde
similarly from Nummedal, Tosten Olsen Bjødland, Lars Schin, Amund
Rossaland, Lars Dugstad, Bjørn Andersen Kvelve, Amund Andersen Hodnefjeld
all from the Stavanger area, Nils Sjursen Gilderhus, Nils Larsen Volstad, Magne
V. Bystølen and Lars Davidsen Reque all from Voss as well as Lars Kvendalen
whose birthplace in Norway is unknown. Those from Nummedal came via
Jefferson Prairie, Wis. while the others came from Illinois, most from the Fox
River settlement where they had lived for a time. They did not all come at the
same time but over a short period.

[Nordmændene i Amerika by Marin Ulvestad;
Olaf Kringhaug's translations of "First Norwegian Settlements in America"]

• Reference: History of Norwegian Immigration by George Flom, 1909. pp172-173
CHAPTER XIX
The Settling of Koshkonong by Immigrants from Numedal and Stavanger in 1840. Other Accessions in 1841-1842

Among the immigrants who came from Rollaug, Numedal, in 1839, was Gunnul Olson Vindeig, though, as we have seen, he did not come in Nattestad's party. Through the illness of a child, he was prevented from emigrating with Nattestad, as he had intended. Coming later in the year, he went via Chicago, directly to Jefferson Praire where he remained during the winter. In the early spring of 1840, about the time our Vossings, spoken of above, are moving north to locate on their claims, Vindeig built or bought a boat at Beloit, and this being ready, he, with a companion, Gjermund Knudson Sunde, rowed north along the Rock River, up Koskonong Lake and Koskonong Creek, into the Town of Christiana.

That the journey should have been made in a boat up Rock River against the stream, may sound like a legend; why not have walked this comparitively short distance (about forty miles), just as Gilderhus and party had walked the much longer distance from La Salle County! The Norwegian pioneers were good walkers and seem to have loved walking. Vindeig evidently did not. That he actually navigated up stream I take, however, not to be merely a local or family legend, for it is vouched for by his subsequent neighbors and comes down to us on good authority. I myself visited Ole Gunnulson, Vindeig's son, who is still residing on the old homestead, last August (1908), and also received his confirmation of the route his father took in the spring of 1840. Lars Lier, a neighbor of Ole Gunnulson, is cited by Prof. R. B. Anderson as having been told by Gjermund Sunde himself, that they had tied the boat a little below the Anikstad ford, where the Funkeli bridge was afterwards built. Evidence comes also from some of the oldest pioneers of the locality, as Halvor Kravik and Jens P. Vehus.

Gunnel Vindeig and Sunde returned soon after to Beloit, as they had come, by way of Rock River. Thereupon Vindeig, with his wife, Guri, and two sisters, moved from Jefferson Prairie via Milton, to Koshkonong, driving a covered wagon, and proceeded to take possession of the land he had selected. He soon had erected a cottage of one room, with an attic accessible by ladder. The land which Vindeig located on is the south half of the northwest quarter of section thirty-four. There he lived until his untimely death by accident in October 1846^<135>.

^<135> He was killed by a loaded wagon tipping over on him.

• Reference: East Koshkonong, 1995, Koshkonong Prairie, WI. Gunnel Olsen Vindeg was the first sexton at East Koshkonong. Following his death in 1846, he was succeeded by Ole Severtson Skatter.

[http://www.eastkoshkonong.org/History.pdf]

Gunnul married Guri Pedersdatter WEDHUUS, daughter of Peder Olsen WEDHUUS and Christi Gundersdatter HØYSET, on 4 Jan 1838 in Rollag, Buskerud, Norway.¹ (Guri Pedersdatter WEDHUUS was born on 11 Sep 1811 in Rollag, Buskerud, Norway ⁴, baptized on 4 Oct 1811 in Nore, Rollag, Buskerud, Norway ⁴ and died on 12 Sep 1853.)