Lekvattnet

The missing Emigrants from Lekvattnet have been found

The emigration from Sweden to America began in about 1845. They traveled away from poor economic conditions, religious and political persecution. During this big emigration, that coincided with the year of famine at the end of 1860, they traveled in search of something new and hopefully better: the post civil war expansion of the USA. Emigration became particularly popular when poor times in Sweden coincided with good times in America. This applies particularly to 1868-71 when approximately 100,000 people emigrated and by 1880 almost 350,000 people had left Sweden. 

In emigrations earliest stages most people came from the countryside and applied for farming spaces in the middle west. The possibilities to acquire land for a cheap price, especially the Homestead Act 1862, played big role in emigration. The early emigrants took up residence in Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa and Kansas. In Chicago about 1900, more Swedish emigrants lived there than the existed in Gothenburg.

From the middle of the nineteenth century and until 1930 approximately 1 ¼ million Swedish people emigrated to America, of which approximately 100,000 came from Värmland and approximately 1,000 from Lekvattnet. 

More than the half of Lekvattnets population emigrated to the USA between the years of 1860-1900. The first left in 1852, but the big crowd emigrated during the year of famine in 1860, which must meant a long procession of horses, men, women and children. Between 1860-1900 emigrated 872 people from Lekvattnet. The Lekvattnet parish was one of the hardest hit throughout Sweden, with 53% of the population its left home. 

Those that didn't leave have always wondered were they went?

ALf Brorsson has found them. Read his book "some about Fryksande and Lekvatten in a north American perspective", 2. , uppl. 2005. The information about Lekvatten is quoted from his book. Many emigrants from Lekvattnet emigrated to Minnesota and took up residence in Red River Valley in Douglas County, Minnesota.