News and Events
Descendants of Bachelors Grove settler return to northeastern North Dakota for reunion, share family history
Posted 7/27/23 (Thu)
McCANNA, N.D. — From all over the country, about 35 descendants of Hans Hanson, one of seven men who settled in rural Grand Forks County in an area later known as Bachelors Grove, are returning here for a family reunion this weekend.
Hanson’s great-grandson Joseph Bouchard, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, organized the reunion after spending several years researching his family history.
Much of this weekend’s reunion will take place at or near Elk Valley Lutheran Church in McCanna, northwest of Larimore. The church — where family members plan to meet for lunch Saturday, July 22 — was built in 1891 by Hanson and other farmers who settled in this area.
“To stand where they worshiped and where they lived is very meaningful,” Bouchard said, as he and his second cousin, R. Keith Kibbe, of Knoxville, Tennessee, stood in the church vestibule Tuesday, July 18.
Kibbe, the sole surviving grandson of Hans Hanson, said: “I’m still getting used to it all. It’s kind of overwhelming, connecting with your family roots and seeing where they lived.”
“Looking around at all of this,” Kibbe said, “I wonder, what part of this did my grandfather have a part of?”
Hanson was well-known for his wood-carving pieces and other capabilities. Both men presume that some of the intricate ornamental wooden pieces, still visible in Elk Valley Lutheran Church, were created by Hanson.
The church was the center of social life in Bachelors Grove, Bouchard said. Services were conducted in Norwegian until the 1930s.
Rush to claim land
In 1878, the federal government opened the Dakota Territory to settlers, Bouchard said. Under the Homestead Act of 1862, settlers could claim acreage if they agreed to live on it for five years and farm it. The standard claim was 160 acres.
“If you wanted to take advantage of the Homestead Act, you had to wait until the survey was done, and the federal government had to open a land office,” Bouchard said.
Hanson and the six other men who came here were quick to seize that opportunity; land that had been available in Iowa and Minnesota under that act had already been claimed.
The men “lived in a very basic, probably one-room cabin they built,” where they spent the winter of 1878-79, Bouchard said.
In the spring of 1879, the men boarded the train to Grand Forks, where they filed their claims, he said. They then sat for a group photo, which later appeared in a March 1, 1942, article published in the Grand Forks Herald. In the photo, Swen Thompson filled in for P.L. Peterson, who was away at the time, according to the article.
The original settlers “had an agreement amongst themselves who would take what land,” said Kibbe, who’s visiting this area for the first time. In addition to Hanson, the group included John Crawford, Iver Gunderson, John Anderson, Jim Christianson, Christian Bang and P.L. Peterson.
Bouchard said six of the men were from Minnesota and one was from Iowa.
All of them became lifelong friends, Kibbe said. “It’s quite a story.”
Not all bachelors
Bachelors Grove was called “Taylor’s Grove” — for the man who surveyed the land for the government — for only about a year, Bouchard said. “But everyone called it ‘Bachelors Grove.’ ” The name that stuck.
Despite the name, not all of these seven settlers were bachelors when they arrived and, contrary to local lore, not all were Norwegian, Bouchard said. Chris Bang was from Denmark.
“Hans (Hanson) was probably the only married guy in the group,” Bouchard said.
Hans and his wife, Petra, and their first child lived in Freeborn County, Minnesota, where Hans was born. His parents emigrated from Norway.
At Bachelors Grove, “in 1879, there was a flurry of cabin-building,” Bouchard said. And, in 1880, Hanson returned to Minnesota to get his wife and their son Sivert and bring them to Bachelors Grove.
The Hansons’ second child, Agnes, was born in 1880 at Bachelors Grove. She was the first child born to settlers in this part of Grand Forks County, Bouchard said, and the township is named for her. Agnes was born in the Hanson farmhouse, about a mile north of Elk Valley Lutheran Church. That farmhouse no longer exists. About a year and a half ago, a tree fell on it and it had to be torn down, Bouchard said.
“One of my missions is to find the foundation of the farm home,” Kibbe said. Bouchard has pictures of large gatherings of farm families — especially on the Fourth of July — at the Hanson farmstead.
Kibbe also has a photo of his mother, Lila Rudella Hanson, as a toddler about 2 years old, outside the house.
“It means a lot to stand on the ground where something really happened,” he said.
Highly regarded for technical skills
In the late 1800s, as the Bachelors Grove settlement grew, Hanson became well-known for his technical skills, Kibbe said. “He built a beautiful farmhouse.
“He was very talented. There was hardly anything he wasn’t skilled at doing in (terms of) designing and craftsmanship,” he said.
Hanson was also innovative, Kibbe said. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, farmers were exploring “better ways of threshing for wheat — he was always on the front of that.”
He was a founder of Agnes Township School, which was established in 1896, Bouchard said.
Hans and Petra Hanson had 12 children, one died in infancy. Through his research, Bouchard has identified 262 descendants of the couple; of those, 204 are living — he’s been able to locate 90 of them.
His great-grandmother, Petra, a native of Norway, came to the U.S. at age 13, on her own. A brother had gone before her, he said.
Thriving entertainment center
Decades after the first settlers arrived there, Bachelors Grove became a thriving social center. In the early 1900s, a community park was developed that served as the site for baseball games, which was very popular among rural Americans, Bouchard said.
A pavilion, built in the ‘20s or ‘30s, evolved as an entertainment center where many big-name jazz musicians — including Duke Ellington — performed, Kibbe said. It was in use until the ‘50s. Eventually, the pavilion was sold and later transformed into a Bible camp.
Over the years, the Hanson family has “scattered to the four winds,” Bouchard said.
During the Hans and Petra Family Reunion, visitors are planning to tour the Grand Forks County Historical Society museum and grounds, he said. “The farmhouse they have looks a lot like the Hanson farmhouse.”
After dinner Saturday, they will spend time sharing stories and exploring their family history.