JOHNSON FAMILY

One of the very first pioneer families to settle in the Ellsborough township was the Gustav Johnson family, who immigrated here from Oppeby (Norra) Kinda, Ostugotland, Sweden in 1863, and came to Ellsborough in 1869, having filed a homestead in Section 14 NE quarter. (West of Current Lake) Members of the family included Gustav and his wife, Ann Louise Perdotter, and their children: Hilda, Louise Carolina, Johann Christian, Frederick, Ann Sophia, Emma Olivia, Per Otto, Carl Wilhelm, and Alma Charlotte.

They came with two teams of horses and wagons. Gustav and his eldest son, John C. worked for the Northwestern Railroad in Mankato.

They lived one room dugout on a side hill facing the South and East overlooking Current Lake. The dugout consisted of one large room in which the family ate and slept. Fieldstone lined the walls, sod covered the roof, the floor was packed dirt, and boards had been obtained for a proper door. The only other building was an enclosure for the livestock, which also had a door of boards.

In January of 1873 trying to better their living conditions, Gustav and his second eldest son, Fredrick, went with a team of horses and sled to Rush Lake, near present day Florence, to collect logs to use for a home. While they were there a blinding blizzard came up and they were forced to leave for home. Realizing they could not find shelter they turned their animals loose and tolled together in buffalo robes under the sled. Three days later their frozen bodies were found in a drift of snow.

The bodies were brought home and thawed out in the dugout. The door was used for the coffin and they were laid to rest in the prairie about ¼ miles south of the dug out.

In 1911, Henry Raymond, an infant son of John C. and Sarah Ann (Hendren), is also interred in the small family graveyard. The graves are marked today with a granite marker.

This above information is form Mrs. Elizabeth Hock's HISTORY OF ELLSBROUGH TOWNSHIP, family clippings, and MURRAY COUNTY HISTORY.

Note: From an article in GOPHER HISTORY (Winter of 1963-64) the Blizzard of 1873 began on January 1873 and lasted for 3 days. The temperature was from 18 to 40 degrees below zero. The blizzard was one of the most terrible storms in the State's history.

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