Peterson, Andrew, 1818-1898

Andrew Peterson was born in Sweden on October 20, 1818. In 1850 he emigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Burlington, Iowa. In 1854 he joined the Swedish Baptist congregation led by Fredrik Olaus Nilsson, who had been the first person in Sweden to become a Baptist minister. Peterson and many others in the Burlington congregation followed Nilsson to Carver County, Minnesota Territory, in the summer of 1855.

Peterson settled on a claim near Clearwater Lake (now Lake Waconia), where he developed a farm with special emphasis on making maple sugar and growing apples and grapes. On September 15, 1858, he married “Elsa.” Andrew Peterson died at his farm on March 31, 1898. All of the Petersons’ nine children, eight of whom were alive in 1898, died childless.

The above sketch was taken from the Andrew Peterson papers; from Grace Lee Nute’s article, “The Diaries of a Swedish-American Farmer, Andrew Peterson,” in the Yearbook of the American Institute of Swedish Arts, Literature, and Science (Minneapolis, 1945), pp. 105-132; and from the essay “En Svensk Farmares Levernesbeskrivning,” in Vilhelm Moberg’s Den Okända Släkten (Stockholm, 1959), pp. 39-61.

From the guide to the Andrew Peterson and family papers., 1850-2007 (bulk 1850-1898)., (Minnesota Historical Society)