The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1955, Side 48

46
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Spring 1955
Two Icelandic Settlements
The following are two excerpts from an historical account “Icelandic Emigration and Frontier
Settlement in America”, by JOHN B. MEYER, of Madison, Wisconsin.
WASHINGTON ISLAND,
WISCONSIN
Washington Island is about six
miles square off the tip of Door
County, Wisconsin. Formerly it was
densely inhabited by Indians, but
about 1850 white settlers moved in and
began a fishing industry, They con-
fined their settlement to the coast.
Then in 1868 seven Danes came to
the island, homesteaded their plots
and started clearing the dense forest
growth so that they could become
farmers. When the Icelanders arrived
on the island in 1870, there were only
189 acres of cleared land1. On this
land was produced the previous
season 30 bushels of wheat, 1151 bush-
els of potatoes, 53 tons of hay and
1,628 pounds of butter2.
Mr. William Wickmann was one
of the Danes who had come to Wash-
ington Island, and who was the person
instrumental in bringing the Iceland-
ers to this place. “At first some of the
Icelanders were disappointed, and had
they been able would have returned.
But before they had obtained the
means to do so, they had adapted
themselves to the changed conditions
and grown contented.”3 The new ar-
rivals from Iceland helped expand the
settlement, but many of these pioneers
did not remain, wishing, instead, to
!. H. R. Holand, History of Door County,
Vol. 1, Chicago 1917, p. 287.
2. ibid.
3. Harry K. White, Wis. Historical Collection,
Vol. XIV, “The Icelanders on Washington
Island,’’ Madison, 1898, p. 338.
homestead the prairie lands to the
west. Nevertheless the Icelandic pop-
ulation in 1917 was near 200, or about
one-fifth of the entire population on
the island.4 Although no figures are
available of the present number, it
seems likely that the normal increase
of one percent per year would have
made the total now about 260 to 280,
if most of this expected increase has
remained on the island. However,
ration book issuances during World
War II indicated a total population
on the island of only about 600, where-
as the pre-war figure stood at over
1,100 inhabitants,5 so the figure of 260
would appear to be too high.
The first economy of the Icelanders
depended on fishing, as was the case
for other nationalities on the island,
but as fish began to get scarce, many
fell to tilling the soil, cutting timber,
and building vessels, of which sixteen
were owned in 1898.6 7 Several of these
vessels were engaged in carrying away
the lumber and shingles which were
cut on Washington Island.T In the
1920’s the fishermen (all nationalities
—there are very few statistics, and very
little written on the Icelanders alone)
caught as many as four thousand
pounds of fish in one day, thus making
from $15,000 to $16,000 a season. To-
day they catch from one hundred to
six and seven hundred pounds a day,
4. H. R. Holand, op. cit. p. 293.
5. The Icelandic Canadian, Vol. 4, No. 3,
Winnipeg, Mar. 1946, p. 15.
6. Harry K. White, op. cit. p. 338.
7. ibid.