The following story is about my great-great grandfather, Peder Christian Nielsen. It was written by May Nielsen Anderson in May 1968, with edits made by Frank Merrill Nielsen in 2019. Peder Christian Nielsen was born April 21st, 1823 in Sadinge Parish, Maribo, Denmark. This is on the island of Lolland. The town of Maribo where Peder came from is right between the two “l’s” in “Lolland” in the map seen below of Denmark. Peder was the youngest son of Niels and Anne Hansen Nielsen. He was a medium-sized man with jet black hair and hazel blue eyes. He had an alternating disposition, it’s said, sometimes morose and sometimes jovial. He was given the nickname of his birthplace Sadinge, and in his youth worked in the flax business, preparing it for the spinning wheel. He also worked with butchers and did some carpentry. Later he took up the trade of basket-making.
On December 28th, 1844, he married Magdalene Rasmussen in Skjoringe Parish, in Maribo, Denmark. In this place he took up farming on a small scale and later moved to Bukkehaye in Nebbelune Parish, Maribo, where he was a small farmer, but stayed with his basket-making, which proved to be a pleasant and profitable vocation. They were members of the Lutheran Church, which was the popular church in Denmark. Joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints In 1855 he and his wife and family joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After they embraced the Gospel, life became very hard for them. They were the only family in that vicinity to accept the Gospel, and their friends and neighbors turned against them for the most part. It became almost impossible for him to sell the baskets that he had previously found ready buyers for. He and his family were persecuted in many ways, but they held fast to their convictions and longed and prayed for the day when they could begin their journey to Zion (the company of the Latter-day Saints in Utah). Their last two children were born during these years of hardships and suffering. Three sons and four daughters were born to this couple, but two of the girls died in childhood while they were still living in Denmark. It was eleven long years from the time that they joined the Church until they were able to leave Denmark. The brightest spots in their lives during this time were the visits, and words of comfort and courage, which they received from the missionaries. And though these visits made them happy and fed them with spiritual food, they proved to be physical hardships on their children, who were often sent to bed hungry because they had given the missionaries the last food that they had in the house. From Denmark to Utah To their great joy, in the spring of 1866 two missionaries came to their home and told them that it was possible they would have an opportunity to emigrate to Zion that year. This announcement was met with mingled emotions of deep gratitude and loud exclamations of joy. Four of the children were booked to go, and it was understood that the eldest son, who was twenty years of age, should remain behind. But before the time of departure arrived, they were notified that their second son, who was just fourteen years of age, must remain also. Plans were made for the time of leaving, and in May 1866, they began their long-looked-for journey. They took a boat from their island Lolland to Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark, and stayed there for a few days. From there, they sailed to England via Hamburg, Germany, landing in Hull, and went from there by rail to Liverpool, where they boarded a sailboat bound for America. It was a tedious journey. Niels Nielsen, a missionary returning to Brigham City, Utah, was Presiding Elder. After ten long weeks of sailing, they reached New York City. From there they went by rail and boat to Florence, Nebraska. There they were met by oxen teams sent by the Church. These teams and wagons hauled the provisions and the very small children, but all who were able to walk did so. Shortly after they left the Missouri River, the dreaded disease cholera attacked the company to an alarming extent. For a time there was never a day that went by without someone having to leave a loved one in a lonely grave on the Great Plains. Terrible was the suffering and sorrow that the Saints had to endure. The deaths totaled more than one hundred, and in history it has gone down as the “Cholera Train.” As they neared the Rocky Mountains, the disease abated, but it left practically every family broken up. Magdalene took two families of children into her care, whose parents had been taken from them. They arrived in Salt Lake City on October 19th, 1866, and were happy to know that at last they were in Zion. Life in Utah The day that they arrived in Salt Lake City, an old time friend met the Nielsen family and took them out to Big Cottonwood, now Holladay, in Salt Lake County, Utah. There he was able to take up his old trade of basket-making, and always found a ready market for them. In the spring of 1867 he was able to buy ten acres of virgin land and began to build a home. In the fall of 1867 he bought a cow, which was the first that he had ever owned. In the spring of 1868, he moved to Brigham City. Soon after he arrived there, he joined up with some other men, and went to Weber Canyon to work on the railroad, leaving his family behind in Brigham City. He didn’t get any pay for a long time, and his family had to subsist on very meager rations until fall, when circumstances at last improved for them. In the early fall of 1868 he came home from the railroad and found out about a new settlement called Bear River City, in Utah not far from Brigham City. He went there and built a log cabin, and in the late fall of 1868 moved his family there. In the spring of 1869 they lost their eldest daughter, and she was one of the first to be buried in the Bear River Cemetery. During the early summer of 1869 there were excellent indications of a bounteous harvest, when suddenly a cloud of grasshoppers descended, and in spite of the heroic efforts of the citizens, the insects managed to almost completely eat or destroy the crops and gardens. So once again, the living was tough. It could have been worse had it not been for the little railroad town of Corinne, located a few miles south of Bear River City, which was built that summer. The people sold lots of wood there, also butter, eggs, and wild hay, which the grasshoppers had not molested, and which was plentiful near the river bottoms. A medium-large log house was built, which was used for meetings, school, dances, and other entertainments. During winter evenings the people often met and revived their spirits with dances, parties, and even spelling contests. The warmth, and much of the time the light, was produced by burning sage in the fireplace. During the summer of 1869 Peder and Magdalene’s younger son who had remained behind in Denmark arrived in Utah, the first they had seen him in three years, but their eldest son never had that privilege as he died in the spring of 1871. In the spring of 1870 the people again put in their crops and planted their gardens, wondering what the outcome would be, as they knew that the ground in the field was full of grasshopper eggs. And surely enough, as soon as the ground warmed up sufficiently to hatch them, myriads of grasshoppers were again destroying the crops. But the people united, and by persistent efforts they managed to kill enough of them that their crops soon began to look green and encouraging. Then one Sunday morning the men were all ordered to repair the dam on the river. To this call they promptly and heroically responded, but in spite of all their efforts, they could not save it, and out it went. It was too late to put in another dam that year, on the Malad River, which had alkaline water that was fast filling the land with alkali, rendering the land where the water flowed useless. After all these drawbacks however, there was some grain raised, and some corn and molasses cane. Peder’s grain was considered the best in the locality, and after threshing was done, it had yielded him six bushels to the acre. He was farming on shares, so he didn’t have much left for his summer work. Some people began to move away from Bear River City, with many going to Cache Valley, where Logan, Utah is located. In the spring of 1871, he decided to move back to Big Cottonwood, much worse off than when he left there three years earlier. He rented a small farm and raised a fair crop, and made adobe for another home. He got his land cleared of oak brush, and set out currant bushes, fruit trees, and also shade trees around his new home. Being permanently established again in the ward where he first lived when he came to Utah made him feel more contented, and it was not long until he and his family were fairly comfortable and in a small way independent. In the year of 1877 he remodeled his house, making it more comfortable. He was in a war with Germany for three years as a younger man, and had contracted a lung disease in that war, which gradually worsened through the years until he became bedfast and suffered greatly. His son later related that he was a skeleton of skin and bones when he finally passed away in the early morning of August 6th, 1879, and he was buried in the Big Cottonwood Cemetery. Notes by Frank M. Nielsen: Although May Nielsen Anderson's father, John Nielsen, died at the age of 90 in 1948, twenty years before this biography about his father Peder Christian Nielsen was written, I think John provided much of what May wrote from years of family story telling. Also, since John's little sister Tora lived until 1961, and since Tora and May were very close, Tora was probably a great source of information as well. My Grandpa Frank (John Franklin Nielsen, son of Rasmus Nielsen and nephew of John Nielsen) was known as quite the genealogist and family historian too, so no doubt he added to May's stories. I owe cousin Mary May (May) Nielsen Anderson (1891-1983) a debt of gratitude for her effort to remember our Nielsen pioneer ancestors. It is also of note that many more historical records and stories of the Nielsens from Denmark may be found posted on FamilySearch.org. As an additional note about my Nielsen Mormon pioneers, I've looked at the roster of their "Down-and-Back Oxcart Company" at the Church Pioneer History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. May Nielsen Anderson wrote that they crossed the Great Plains with the Abner Lowry Company. I counted 300 members on that company’s roster, and found that 54 died along the emigration route, mostly of the dreaded cholera, and mostly close to the outset of the journey. This was a disaster that infamously gave this company the terrible name "Cholera Train." Although it is not the 100 plus deaths as remembered by both John and Tora, who were children at the time, the 54 deaths out of 300 pioneers (18%) may have been the highest mortality rate of any emigrant company other than the Willie or Martin Handcart Companies of 1856.
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