Swedish American Historical Society of Wisconsin

The Wisconsin State Historical Marker honoring Gustaf Unonius, New Upsala and the Scandinavian Parish is scheduled to be unveiled on June 1, 2024, at 1 PM at St. Anskar’s Episcopal Church, N48W31340 Hill Rd (Hwy 83) in Hartland, Wisconsin. This is a public event, and all interested are welcome.

Dedication and Unveiling Ceremony Program

The purpose of this historical marker is to recognize the pioneers and missionaries that in the early 1840’s laid the grounds for the immigration of Swedes to Wisconsin. In 2012 Census there were 150 thousand Wisconsin residents who claimed Swedish ancestry.

The project to establish the marker was initiated in October of 2020 at the SAHSWI annual meeting, and after much research and documentation the application was submitted in July of 2022. After several discussions with Wisconsin Historical Society and resolving suggested modifications in the text, the final approval was received in May 2023 and the marker was placed on order and was delivered it at the end of December 2023.

In October of 1841 Gustaf Unonius arrived at Pine Lake, travelling from Upsala, Sweden with his wife Charlotta, and friends. Within a year several other Swedes arrived in the area, and they established a second Swedish settlement in the United States, and the first in Wisconsin, they called it New Upsala. This was over 200 years after the establishment of the first Swedish settlement in USA “New Sweden”, founded in 1638 by the Delaware River.

Unonius, being a devoted man, held religious gatherings at his cabin for family and friends, including settlers from Norway and Denmark. A priest was needed and in 1842 Unonius met James Lloyd Breck, an Episcopal Missionary, who would assist with ministerial services such as communions, baptisms, and marriages. In 1844 Bishop Jackson Kemper visited New Upsala, the Holy Innocents cemetery was consecrated for the Scandinavian community, and the Pine Lake Scandinavian Parish was established. Mr. Breck founded the Nashotah House Seminary in 1842.

Nashotah House played an important role supporting the Scandinavian Parish through the years of the settlement. Later the church was renamed Holy Innocents Episcopal Church.  In 1968 a new church was built together with Grace Episcopal Church and the two congregations merged naming the church Grace Holy Innocents Episcopal Church. In 1975 the congregation had grown to gain the status of a parish in the union with the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee. Grace Holy Innocents name was changed to St. Anskar’s Episcopal Church, named after St. Anskar (801-865) who was the Archbishop of Hamburg, Germany, and a missionary to Scandinavia near the beginning of the Viking Age.