If you missed Part 1 of the story, go here . . .
The family of Peter Olsen Moe and Anna Augundsdatter Lad were farmers from the fiord's of Norway. They would leave their home and venture to America between 1862 and 1864, settling in the Town of Blue Mounds in south-central Wisconsin. Son Ole came first, but he was not an early settler to Blue Mounds. The first settlers had come as early as the 1830's and were mostly "easterners" that were heading west after America's independence. Later, starting in the 1840's and accelerating in the 1850's and 1860's, European immigrants from Germany, Switzerland, Norway and other places began to populate the Blue Mounds area.
When Ole Peterson purchased 200 acres at, what is now, the western third of the Village of Mount Horeb, the area was just fields with a small cluster of buildings about 1/2 mile to the east. As the years went on, Ole and his family would put their imprint on the emerging community.
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| The Peterson farmhouse; built in the late 1870's or early 1880's. It still stands today on what is now Grove Street in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. |
