Welcome to
Isanti County
The
Surnames and Resources have been updated. 29 Nov 2008
Gerdin Cemetery
Tombstones Photos Added!
Thank you Glenn Larson!
Please click the Cemeteries
in the drop down box!
This page was last updated:
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Hi my name
is
Colleen
and I am the Volunteer Coordinator for Isanti County Minnesota. I am
working on making this a more informative site. If you have any
information, photo's, Surnames, etc. Send them to me and I will add
them to the site. If you have any suggestions, please send them. I am
always looking to add information to this site.
Isanti County is sometimes called the Dalarna of America,
but its first Swedish settlers were from the province of Hälsingland.
They arrived as a group in 1860 and claimed land just south of Cambridge.
They had come to America a few years earlier, settling first in the Chisago
Lakes area. It was not until the Civil War ended (in 1865) that immigrants
from Dalarna began to comprise the greatest number of settlers. From the
parish of Rättvik alone, more than 85 families settled in the country,
most around Cambridge but also in the townships of Isanti, Athens and Spring
Vale. Their settlement patterns have been well documented in a book by Robert
Ostergren (University of Wisconsin), who terms the Rättvik/Isanti connection
"a community transplanted"
The community of Stanchfield claims almost as strong
a connection to Orsa in Dalarna, and Dalbo has definite ties to both Venjan
and Älvdalen, also in Dalarna. The 1895 census indicated that of 10,915
people in the county, more than 4,300 had been born in Sweden.
In spite of it's strong Swedish heritage, many place
names such as Bradford, Oxford and Cambridge reflect the influence of the
folks from New England who came to the county before the Swedes. Only one
township, Dalbo, was given a Swedish name. Thought to be named in honor
of the immigrants from Dalarna, it is more likely that Dalbo comes from
the place of the same name in Dalsland. Throughout the county there were
a number of other small communities (now extinct) that had names of Swedish
origin. Among them were Bodum, Walbo, Andree and Blomford.
A Guide to Swedish Sites in Kanabec and
Isanti Counties, Kanabec - Isanti Swedish Tourism,
1996
Previous Isanti Coordinator: Teri Cleaveland
~Teri, Thank you for putting so much time and effort into Isanti County.
Teri's home page
