Margrét Gísladóttir and Samúel Bjarnasson were the first Icelandic couple to immigrate to the United States. Our captain got superstitious on account of the long passage, and ordered that there should be no singing on board the mate said that all the ships that had preachers on board were always sure of a bad passage. On the whole, we enjoyed ourselves first-rate, notwithstanding the many gales and hurricanes we experienced, from the breaking up of the fine weather. Meetings were also frequently held in the Danish, English, and Italian languages during the voyage. The Saints were at the sound of trumpet called to prayer morning and evening. Notwithstanding that our company consisted of Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Icelanders, Italians, English, Irish, and Scotch, the rules adopted proved efficacious in maintaining a strict “entent cordiale” among us all. Savage reported the following about this voyage: I often heard the emigrants ask if the Icelander was still alive and the usual answer was, ‘It won’t be long until he is gone.’” Charles R. I was very sick myself and so afraid I would die that I could not sleep. Concerning his voyage, he said, “The weather being so bad nearly all the passengers became seasick. He sailed from Liverpool on the December 12, 1855, voyage of the John J. In July of 1855, another Latter-day Saint Icelandic convert named Þórður Diðriksson left his native land for America. Courtesy of the Icelandic Association of Utah. Helga Jónsdóttir was one of the first three Icelanders to immigrate to the United States. It is estimated that 410 Icelanders immigrated to Utah in 1854–1914, just prior to the outbreak of World War I, but this represents only a small fragment of the Scandinavian Saints who gathered during this period. The immigration and settlement of these first three Saints paved the way for others to follow. However, Palmyra (early Spanish Fork region) and Spanish Fork Church membership records provide no evidence for any LDS Scandinavians in this local prior to the arrival of these Icelandic Saints who were not only the first Mormon Icelanders to gather to Utah, but also the first known Icelanders to immigrate to the United States and establish a permanent settlement. According to an unsubstantiated tradition, President Brigham Young directed them to settle in Spanish Fork, feeling they would fit in well, with the Danish Saints who had settled there. On January 7, 1855, they embarked on the ship James Nesmith and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on September 7, 1855. Early converts Samúel Bjarnason and his wife Margrét Gísladóttir, along with Helga Jónsdóttir, left the Westmann Islands in 1854 for Liverpool. Fred Woods, “Immigration to Utah and Early Settlement of Spanish Fork,” in Fire on Ice: The Story of Icelandic Latter-day Saints at Home and Abroad, (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2005), 31–46.Īlthough Guðmundur Guðmundsson was one of the first two missionaries to Iceland, he was not the first Latter-day Saint Icelander to reach America.
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