Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Pederson, Knud 1827 - 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com May 6, 2007, 3:02 pm

Author: Portrait & Bios Album, 1890

KNUD PEDERSON derives a comfortable income from his farming operations, which 
he is carrying on very successfully in Will County. He is a representative of 
the Scandinavian element that has played so important a part in the settlement 
and development of the great West, and his thrift and industry make him a most 
desirable citizen. Mr. Pederson was born October 7, 1827, in the province of 
Thronhyem, Norway, a son of Peter and Anna (Knud) Lawson, also natives of that 
country. His father was a tailor by occupation, but in the Swedish Norwegian 
War he served as a soldier four years. He departed this life in 1839. He and 
his wife were the parents of eight children, three of whom died young, five of 
whom are still living, as follows: Mrs. Emily Erickson, of Evanston, Ill.; 
Knud and Lewis; Mrs. Anna Hanson, of Chicago; Mrs. Regana Schellstad, of 
Seattle, Wash. The paternal grandfather of our subject was Lewis Pederson, a 
native and a farmer of Norway. He was the father of three sons and two 
daughters, of whom two sons and one daughter reared families. The mother of 
our subject came to the United States with him, and died in his home in 1871, 
at the venerable age of eighty-three years. She was a daughter of Knud Garmo, 
who took his name from the farm on which he lived. He and his wife reared a 
large family of sixteen children. The subject of this brief biography passed 
his early life on a farm, and after his father's death, worked out as a farm 
laborer by the month until he was twenty-seven years old. He then took to a 
seafaring life, which he abandoned after being wrecked in 1862, and 
subsequently came to America to try his fortunes here, accompanied by his 
mother and sister Anna. They located in Chicago, to which place his other 
sisters had preceded him some three years before. After settling here, he 
again became a sailor, and was engaged on the lakes three years. In the spring 
of 1866, he came to Will Township, having decided to resume the calling to 
which he had been bred. He bought one hundred and fourteen acres on section 6, 
and since then has been busily engaged in its improvement, and has wrought a 
great change, putting the land under excellent tillage and providing it with 
suitable buildings and everything needful to carry on his operations 
successfully. Mr. Pederson has had the assistance of a good and faithful wife 
since his marriage, February 14. 1864, to Inga Margretta Olson, a native of 
Norway, and a daughter of Ole Schinner. She crossed the waters alone from the 
land of her nativity in 1863, her parents following her in 1872, with three of 
their children. Our subject and his wife have been blessed by the birth of six 
children, four of whom are living—Peter, Oliver, Louie N.and Arthur W. The 
great sorrow of their wedded life has been the death of their daughter Clara, 
at the age of fifteen years, and their son Arthur (second), at the age of two 
and one half years. Mr. Pederson has managed his affairs shrewdly and well 
since turning his attention to agriculture nearly a quarter of a century ago. 
and may well be pleased with what he has accomplished by his own hands with 
steady and persevering toil. He and his wife are greatly esteemed in the 
neighborhood, and are among the respected members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church.

Additional Comments:
Portrait and Biographical Album of Will County, Illinois, Containing Full Page 
Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens 
of the County; Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1890

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/will/bios/pederson1364nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/

File size: 4.1 Kb