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Swedish families, some coming directly from Sweden
and others from states in the East.[1]
The year 1868 began a new era in the history of
Swedish colonization in Kansas and is therefore a
convenient point at which to stop. In that year a
colonization society was organized by a number of Swedes in
Chicago, and was called the First Swedish Agricultural
Company. A similar organization was formed at Galesburg,
Illinois, and was named the Galesburg Colonization
Company. Both these societies secured large tracts of
land in the Smoky Hill Valley in the vicinity of
Lindsborg, partly by purchase from the Kansas Pacific
Railroad and partly by individual claims under the
homestead law. Low railroad rates were secured through the
assistance of J. B. McAfee, the adjutant-general of the
State. He said in his report to the legislature of Kansas
in 1868, “The great famine in Sweden has been causing
tens of thousands to immigrate to this country. A great
portion of them might with proper effort be secured to
this State.”[2] Largely to his credit it may be said that
the proper effort was made and thousands of Swedes
came in the next few years to make their homes
permanently in Kansas.
A few words may be added about the conditions in
which the pioneers passed these early years. Many
difficulties and dangers beset them. The Indians were
sometimes hostile. In Scandia, near the Nebraska border,
about a dozen Swedish families were scalped by the
redskins.[3] Prairie fires often threatened the young
settlements. Medical aid was at a great distance or
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