Harry H. Anderson, age 93, died peacefully on May 21, 2024. Harry, who is of Swedish descent, is one of the founding fathers of Swedish American Historical Society of Wisconsin and served as the president from 1975 to 1980 and more recently from 2004 to 2008. He has written and presented many stories related to Swedish American immigration and traditions. Many of these stories can be found on the SAHSWI website. https://sahswi.org/bits-and-pieces-of-swedish-american-history/.
At the SAHSWI annual meeting on October 19, 2024, a program was presented by SAHSWI member and Historical Projects Committee chair and Author Martha Bergland. Harry’s Daughter Susan Anderson Clayton and Granddaughter Julie Clayton and about 30 SAHSWI members attended meeting. The program included stories both written by and about Harry. Both Susan and Julie spoke in remembrance of their Father and Grandfather.
Founder of Swedish American Historical Society of Wisconsin
Harry was one of the founding fathers of SAHSWI. Martha Bergland reviewed a presentation of Harry’s story The Early days of Swedish American Historical Society of Wisconsin.
Gustaf Unonius’ Homemade “Snoose”
This is a short story written by Harry, about Gustaf Unonius homemade snuff (Swedish Snus). Gustaf Unonius was the founder of New Upsala, the first Swedish settlement in Wisconsin, and of The Scandinavian Parish at Pine Lake.
“The use of snuff (or “snoose” as it was known to many Scandinavians) was a form of chewing tobacco
popular among many of the male immigrant generation. Gustaf Unonius, leader of the Pine Lake Swedish colony, was one of these who regularly used snuff when it was available from local sources. When not, during his early years in Wisconsin when winter snows isolated the remote Pine Lake settlement, or his purse lacked sufficient funds to purchase the article, he was forced to develop a formula for a homemade version of his favorite habit. The process he followed in manufacturing this substitute was as follows: obtaining a package of long leaved black smoking tobacco which he dried on the stove and then ground up finely in the household coffee mill. Then he dampened the ground-up tobacco with a mixture of water and refined potash. This mixture was then placed in a closed container which was, in turn, put on the stove to ferment until suitable for use.
Unappealing as the finished product may sound, it apparently satisfied his needs until the weather and/or his pocketbook permitted Unonius to obtain a new supply of the real thing.”
Paul Hayes writing about Harry H Anderson
Paul Hayes was a science reporter at The Milwaukee Journal and a good friend of Harry. He often relied on the work of Increase A. Lapham, whose home had been three blocks north of the newspaper office. Paul was also Martha’s collaborator on their book “Studying Wisconsin the biography of Wisconsin naturalist Increase Lapham”.
“I remember Harry” by Paul Hayes
I first encountered Harry H. Anderson in the mid-1960s when I was a relatively new reporter for The Milwaukee Journal, and he had just been hired by Milwaukee County as executive director of the County Historical Society. He attended county board committee meetings to report on progress he was making on his most important early project: To move the County Historical Society’s collection of local history information and artifacts from an unfinished fourth floor of the County Building into a neoclassical stone building on the Milwaukee River.”
I remember Harry, the rest of the story
Possessions of a Swedish Pioneer by Harry H Anderson
This story written by Harry was published in Swedish American Genealogist, 1988. The story is about Bengt Peterson’s (New Upsala Pioneer) detailed property inventory that was submitted as a part of probate after Bengt’s sudden death in December of 1845. Cletus Hasslinger is a 6th generation descendant of Bengt Peterson and has researched the family tree extensively and following Harry’s writing, presents his findings, of information that needs to be corrected or clarified.
In the lonely corner of a rural cemetery in Waukesha County, Wisconsin stands the neglected gravestone of one of the tragic figures of early Swedish immigration to the Midwest. The stone’s inscription identifies the deceased as ” K. M. Peterson/BORN Sept. 2, 1797/DIED Dec. 12, 1845.” Remarkably, almost every bit of this information is either incorrect, incomplete, or at least misleading, and deserves to be corrected.
The Possessions of a Swedish Pioneer – The rest of the story
Cletus Hasslinger research and comments
Bengt Petterson is my great, great, great grandfather—3 greats added to one grand. In other words, I am of the sixth generation to follow Bengt. He emigrated from Sweden to the United States and to the northwest quarter of what is now Waukesha County in 1840. In 1988, Harry Anderson wrote a short article for a magazine named the Swedish American Genealogist. The article concerned the probating, by Bengt’s wife and her lawyer, of Bengt’s estate when he died, and it was titled Possessions of A Swedish Pioneer.
Swedish American Historical Society of Wisconsin 