Nobles County MN Archives Biographies.....Fauskee, Ole 1842 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com October 18, 2006, 9:45 pm

Author: Arthur P. Rose (1908)

  OLE FAUSKEE. When Ole Fauskee, farmer, residing in Indian Lake township on the

north bank of Ocheda lake, became a resident of Nobles county, the settlers were

few and far between. The only portions of the county in which there were

settlers were Graham Lakes and Indian Lake townships, and, according to the

federal census taken just about the time he arrived (1870), there were 117

inhabitants. Mr. Fauskee ranks as one of the pioneers of pioneers, and there are

only a very few men in the county whose settlement antedates his.



  Mr. Fauskee is a native of central Norway, where he was born Oct. 19, 1842,

the son of Andrew O. and Gertrude (Fortness) Fauskee. Both his parents are dead,

his father having died in Stearns county, Minn., and his mother having died in

Norway when her son was thirteen years of age. In his native land Mr. Fauskee

resided until nearly 25 years of age. He secured a common school education, and

his boyhood days were spent assisting his father on the farm. Three years before

coming to America he bought a small farm and engaged in farming for himself.



  With the hope and expectation of bettering their condition he and his father

came to America, arriving in Quebec, Canada, about the first of June, 1867. Ole

went at once to Winneshiek county, Iowa, of which Decorah is the county seat,

and there for three years he worked for wages as a farm laborer. Many residents

of Decorah and vicinity were moving west and seeking homes in northwestern Iowa,

and Mr. Fauskee decided to do likewise with the intention of becoming a land

owner. He and his family, consisting of a wife and three children, and his

brother, Ole A. Fauskee, started out to make the trip overland with one young ox

team. When the party arrived at a point in Iowa, just south of the Nobles county

line, the team gave out, and it was due to this accident that Mr. Fauskee became

a resident of Nobles county. When the team gave out the brothers decided to look

for suitable locations in the immediate vicinity and to abandon the idea of

trying to reach the land for which they had started. They left the family and

oxen at the point where they then were, and on foot set out for the north. They

arirved [sic] at lake Ocheda, liked the looks of the country, and decided to

locate. In the immediate vicinity they had been preceded by only two settlers,

John Chris Johnson and Ole Ellingson. There were two or three families residing

on Indian lake; otherwise the nearest settlers were miles away. The two Fauskees

walked to Jackson, where the land office was then located, and on June 8, 1870,

filed on their claims. The subject of this sketch took as a homestead the

northwest quarter of section 6, Indian Lake township, on the north bank of the

lake, which his brother preempted a quarter on the same section.



  After making their filings the brothers walked back to the camp, and from that

point drove up to their new homes. Finding a few logs that had been left by the

Indian trappers, who by that time had left the neighborhood, the Fauskees

erected a house They banked sods up around the logs and covered the whole with

hay. In this the family lived five years, at the end of which time a house of

lumber was erected; Jackson was then the nearest town, and there all the trading

was done until Worthington was founded. Before the coming of the railroad, Mr.

Fauskee farmed on only a small scale, and raised nothing for market. The

grasshopper days and prevailing hard times proved a severe blow to the Fauskee

family, but the storm was weathered, and today Mr. Fauskee is in comfortable

circumstances. He has made his home on his original claim ever since taking it

up, but has added to it, until he now has a well improved farm of 255 acres.



  Mr. Fauskee was married in Norway Dec. 26, 1863, to Ingeborg Snortum. To them

have been born thirteen children, as follows: Ole, of Indian Lake; Julia (Mrs.

Collier), of Chicago; Newton, of Worthington; Merle, died in infancy; Mary, of

Wisconsin; Albert, died January, 1907; Lena (Mrs. M. Wright), of Spencer, Iowa;

Anna, of Canada; Emma, deceased; Gilbert, deceased; Emma, at home; Emil, of

Worthington; Joseph, deceased.



Additional Comments:
Extracted from:



AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF NOBLES COUNTY

MINNESOTA

BY

ARTHUR P. ROSE



NORTHERN HISTORY PUBLISHING COMPANY 

WORTHINGTON, MINNESOTA 

PUBLISHERS

1908



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