- Eric Jansson
Eric or Erik Jansson or Janson (
21 December 1808 [According to "Nordisk familjebok", the birthdate was19 December .] —13 May 1850 ) was the leader of a Swedish pietistsect that emigrated to theUnited States in 1846.Life
Jansson was born in
Biskopskulla inUppland , nearUppsala , the son of Jan Mattsson, a farmer, and his wife, Sarah Eriksdotter. After believing that he was miraculously cured ofrheumatism , he became devoutly religious, and developed beliefs that were contrary to the LutheranChurch of Sweden . He believed that theBible was the only proper book, and was several times arrested by the authoritiegs for burning the works of Luther and other writers in public and encouraging his followers to do the same. From 1844, he claimed to be a trueprophet speaking the Word of God. After repeated brushes with the law in Sweden, and having outraged followers of the Church of Sweden, he departed for the United States in 1846, condemning his homeland to eternal damnation and taking 1,200—1,500 followers with him. [The lower figure is from "Nordisk familjebok", the higher from Barton, 16.]A trusted follower,
Olof Olsson , was sent ahead to scout for a suitable place to settle. He arrived inNew York on the "Neptunus" on16 December 1845 . He met a countryman,Olof Gustaf Hedström , who sent Olsson to meet his brother,Jonas Hedström , inVictoria, Illinois . Other followers were not so lucky: several vessels foundered during the journey, consigning hundreds of Janssonists to the deep. Many others were killed bycholera on the journey, or soon after they arrived.Jansson arrived in New York in June 1846. With 400 of his followers who had survived the journey, he founded the village of
Bishop Hill, Illinois , named after his birthplace. 96 died in the first winter, but others arrived from Sweden to swell their numbers. The villagers lived as a collective religious colony for 15 years, from 1846 to 1861, tilling the soil, tending their animals, and building their settlement with bricks that they made by hand. Local pioneers were amazed at their lifestyle and the relative success that it generated. Jansson sent 9 followers toCalifornia in 1850, hoping that they would bring back funds to support the community from theCalifornia Gold Rush .But the idyllic life in rural Illinois was not to last. Jansson was shot and killed by John Root, an educated Swedish immigrant from
Stockholm who had married Jansson's cousin, Charlotta Louisa. Root wanted to move away, but the other colonists prevented him taking his family. Root shot Jansson dead at the courthouse in thecounty seat ,Cambridge, Illinois , on13 May 1850 . Root was convicted ofmanslaughter , but was released after serving just one year in prison.Legacy
The village continued and prospered for several years, but suffered in the 1857 financial crisis. It was dissolved in 1861, after the
American Civil War broke out, although court cases dealing with the division of the colony's property were not resolved until 1879. The village is now astate park . The surviving buildings are listed on theNational Register of Historic Places .While there had been several Swedish immigrant colonies earlier in US history, notably the short-lived colony at
New Sweden inDelaware , the Janssonist emigrants were an early group of Swedish immigrants that triggered a larger wave of immigration in the latter half of the 19th century. Letters home from Janssonists to their friends and family, telling of the fertile agricultural land in the interior of North America, stimulated substantial migration for several decades and the formation of a distinctSwedish-American ethnic community of the American Midwest.The transformation of the Bishop Hill Colony from religious sect in Sweden, to fledgling outpost, to prosperous economic engine, and finally to Swedish-American community, marks a unique pattern of
Americanization and assimilation. Swanson (1998) has argued that this transformation and Americanization resulted from the degree of interaction between the colonists and the local citizens of Henry County: the colony was not insular, as the many documents held in archives of Bishop Hill demonstrate. The Bishop Hill Colony makes a useful contrast to theMormon s atNauvoo, Illinois and the Amanas inIowa , both rough contemporaries to Bishop Hill.Descendents
Descendants of Erik Jansson still lived in the colony of Bishop Hill until December 20th, 2005 when Erik's great-great grandson and Bishop Hill volunteer fireman Theodore Arthur Myhre Sr. died south of the colony while on a fire service call. Other known descendents remain elsewhere in Illinois.
The pietist practices of Bishop Hill's founding father did not make a lasting impact on Erik's descendents nor remain in the practical lives of his followers.
Notes
References
*Barton, H. Arnold (1994). "A Folk Divided: Homeland Swedes and Swedish Americans, 1840—1940." Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
* [http://www.thezephyr.com/backtrack/bishophill.htm Bishop Hill - Swedish Roots in Illinois Soil]
* [http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/1999/iht629902.html Doorway to Illinois]
* [http://www.illinoisancestors.org/swedes/bishophillhistory.htm The History of Bishop Hill]
*Troy Swanson's "Those Crazy Swedes: Outside Influence on the Bishop Hill Colony" in "Nobler things to View: Collected Essays on the Erik-Janssonists", published by the Bishop Hill Heritage Association in 1998.External links
* [http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/republic/Swedish/TSC-RF.html Religious Freedom] , by Rolf Strand of Edsbyn, Sweden
Eric is not related to Grant Jansson.
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