GENESEO, HENRY COUNTY
Like Andover, Geneseo was founded by American colonizers from the state of New York, with headquarters at Genesee, from which place the new settlement was named. In 1836 a company sent three men west to look up a locality suitable for a settlement, and this was the choice of the emissaries. A tract of land, embracing the present site of Geneseo, was purchased, whereupon the committee returned home to report the results of their expedition. Fifty settlers immediately started for the new colony site, arriving in the middle of winter, subject to many hardships. Two thousand acres of land were bought up and parceled out among the settlers, who provided their own dwellings according to their means. In the spring they began tilling , the soil, gathering their first harvests the following summer and fall.
Geneseo dates back to 1837, when the first houses were erected there. The place did not receive a postoffice until 1839. Its growth was slow until 1853, when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Rail way was built through the place, stimulating a more rapid development for the next few years.
In the early fifties Swedes began settling in Geneseo. In 1852 John Gustus, Lewis Johnson and Carl Johnson were living there the first named, who was from Opphem, Ostergotland, first had a shoemaker's shop, then opened a store, and in 1862 sold this business to N. P. Rosenstone. In the late seventies he removed to Iowa, where he was not particularly favored by fortune. Lewis Johnson came from Småland and Carl Johnson from Vermland; the latter settled on a farm just outside the town.
In 1853 Lars Jönsson came over from Skarstad, Småland, and bought a farm of 80 acres north of Green River. Carl Toline, who served as a volunteer in Company D, 57th Illinois Infantry, was among the early Swedish settlers here, and was still living in Geneseo in 1880. Another pioneer was Adolf Säfström from Ostergiitland who lived on a farm not far from Geneseo.
Most of the Swedes who came to Geneseo to farm were poor and, in consequence, had to be satisfied with the low, badly drained lands, the early colonists having picked out the most desirable tracts. Nevertheless, the Swedish farmers in this neighborhood have been doing well: The Swedish people in Geneseo engaged in business and the trades also have prospered and have as a class attained a respected and prominent place in the community.
In the spring of 1855 Swedish Lutheran mission work was begun in Geneseo but not until 1859 was a church organized. Five years later, a Swedish Methodist church was established. This congregation began to decline in the eighties, and is now dissolved.
At the close of 1905, there were approximately 560 Swedish Americans living in Geneseo and vicinity. The total population at the last census was 3,356.
Swedes in Illinois
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