ELWYN B. ROBINSON DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
CHESTER FRITZ LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA
GRAND FORKS, NORTH DAKOTA 58202
COLLECTION: OGL#1211
DATES: 1868-1879
SIZE: .25 linear feet
ACQUISITION: Sten Hofto Papers were deposited in the Orin G. Libby Manuscript Collection by Dorothy Hulteng (via Dr. Playford Thorson), East Grand Forks, Minnesota on July 9, 1990 (Acc. #90-1714) and Dr. John Lunseth, Grand Forks, North Dakota, in June 1992. (Acc. #92- 1832)
ACCESS: Available for inspection under the rules and regulations of the Department of Special Collections.
The Sten Hofto Papers detail the Hofto and Tweten famililies as they immigrated from Norway, eventually settling in the Dakota Territory. The families began their journey near the town of Viki and traveled to Oslo, where they continued by boat across the Atlantic Ocean until they landed on an island near Quebec. From Quebec they traveled aboard steamboats until eventually reaching the town of Qaupaca, Wisconsin. Here they raised cattle, but farmed no land.
In the fall of 1869, the familes moved to Waseca County in southern Minnesota, the Twetens near Richland and the Hoftos near Willton, where they bought homesteads. The families farmed there for six year until swarms of locust ravaged large tracts of land in southwestern Minnesota. Rather than risk another locust attack the familes decided to move west to the Red River Valley in Dakota Territory. They finally settled on a homestead in Americus Township of Grand Forks County.
One day in October of 1878, a neighbor showed up at thier house and collapsed from smallpox on floor of the Tweten house. This incident eventually led to the infection of Martin, the oldest child, who survived the disease. The father, Solomon, and his two daughters, Gunhild and Ingeborg, eventually died from smallpox. The Hoftos didn't suffer any losses from smallpox but were good friends with both the Tweten's and the nieghbor who collapsed at the Tweten farmstead. A total of 26 people in Grand Forks County were infected, eight of whom died.
The portion of the Stan Hofto Papers deposited by Dorothy Hulteng (folder 1) consists primarily of family history, from both Norway and the United States, and correspondence from the 1870's and 1880's. The portion of the Stan Hofto Papers donated by John Lunseth (folder 2) examines the effect the smallpox epidemic had on the Hofto and Tweten families.
Box 1
Folder
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