Why did our ancestors leave Telemark for America?
Why did they leave Norway? The reasons are complex and we just begin to touch on them here. John Evansen Mli of Tinn described his reasons for leaving Telemark for America to Professor Rasmus Anderson in 1895, long after his work as a pioneer had been completed. “I remained at home to help my father work his land until I was nineteen years old, when I began to wonder what I should do in the future. I loved the pleasant old homestead, the goose that had laid so many golden eggs for us through the generations, but alas! I was obliged to leave the old nest with no hope of getting a nest of my own near home. My oldest brother, according to the law of primogeniture (odelsret), would take the farm unincumbered, and there was not enough cash or personal property on hand for me and my sisters with which to buy another farm, for we were seven children. I thought often, ‘Oh, where shall we younger children go? What will become of us?’ We had not thought of North America then. The labor market wa
