Barto Thompson, of Freedom township, is a living example of that
remarkable and wonderful prosperity that follows some of the sons of
semi-illiterate, but industrious pioneers of a new country. He was born July
27, 1836, in Christiansand stift, on a place called Mosey, in Norway. His
parents were Knute Thompson Mosey and Sarah Thompson. At the age of eight
years he emigrated with his parents to this country. His father had been
induced to take the southern route, with the intention of locating in Texas,
but, on reaching New Orleans and learning of the advantages to be had in the
north, changed his course and started up the Mississippi river. This trip
was an experience of bitterness and suffering; their boat stuck on an island
and they came near starving and freezing to death before they could be
rescued! Then one of their companions, a generous fellow from the old
country, fell overboard and was lost, and this threw a damper over the whole
company. When they were released from the ice gorge the company hired
another boat and arrived at Alton, Illinois, after a long voyage. The family
came up the Illinois to Ottawa, and reached the town of Freedom nearly one
year after their embarking in Norway.
After buying one hundred and
sixty acres of land from the government, the hardships can better be
imagined than told. It would require a small volume to relate all that took
place to bar the settlement and progress of civilization and to add to the
discomfiture of the white settlers in the west — First, their efforts to
reach their intended location; then their troubles while getting a cabin
ready to shelter them from the beating storms. In this case their first
house was a dug-out; and this filled with water when it rained; in winter
snow obstructed its entrance; in hot weather its walls were filled with
living reptiles; and there scarcely could have been a time when the family
felt secure and happy. Through all this the family survived and lived with
the will of their Maker in mind until the summer of 1849, when that terrible
plague, the Asiatic cholera, called four of the family — father, mother and
two sisters. Our subject and a brother, Thomas T. Mosey, now of Leland,
Illinois, were the only members of the family who survived.
Being
left an orphan at the age of thirteen, he had to make the best he could of
the schools in winter and working in summer until he reached the age of
twenty-one, when he commenced life for himself. At the age of twenty-three
he married Tarbar Baker, a daughter of Halver Baker, who came to Freedom
from Thelemarken, Norway, in 1854. They were blessed with four children.
Charles M., who died March 30, 1895; Hattie J., the wife of Fred Mathieson,
who is farming in Dayton township; Joseph E., also a farmer, in Freedom; and
Sarah E., the wife of Professor L. H. Chally, of Red Wing, Minnesota.
Mr. Thompson's success as a farmer has been all that could be desired,
and as he acquired the means he added to his domains until he now owns two
as good farms as lie in LaSalle county — one in Freedom and one in Dayton
township.
Extracted 13 May 2019 by Norma Hass from Biographical and Genealogical Record of LaSalle County, Illinois, published in 1900, volume 2, pages 617-618.
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