Medelpad, Sundsvall, Ljustorp

The following text is only a summary of some important events in the history of Sundsvall City and the province of Medelpad and not a complete scientific thesis. However, these events may be interesting to know to get a better picture of our ancestors in this area. The adjacent photo is from Vängåvan Park, Sundsvall.

Medelpad Province

Taxation "Gärder och hjälper år 1535" is the first tax roll in King Gustav Vasa's efforts to lay a firmer foundation for taxation. For Medelpad, this is of historical importance in terms of knowledge of Medelpad and its common people. It was followed in 1540 by a new form of taxation, which was based on the carrying capacity of agriculture. For Medelpad, the “måltal” was introduced, which indicated the surface area of a piece of land after seed. From time immemorial, the whole province had been required to pay a fixed amount of tax to the Crown, which amounted to around 300 marks. After 1540, the Crown was able to collect much larger amounts from Medelpad, where the number of independent farmers in the latter part of the 16th century was around 750. In addition to this basic tax, there were also extra levies in the form of bride tax, connubial union money, and much more. Judges and lay assessors (twelve men) were required to keep a record of each farm, how much land it had, and the owners. By the end of the 16th century, the tax was calculated in “mantal” of land. The Älvsborgslösen (The Älvsborg Ransom) was an imposition that heavily burdened the farmers of Medelpad. In 1571, Sweden had to pay the Danes a total of 150,000 riksdaler to recover the Älvsborg fortress on Sweden's west coast, which had been lost in the war. This is equivalent to SEK 600,000, which in today's money would be equivalent to SEK 3 - 3 1/2 million. Medelpad's contribution to the Älvsborg settlement in 1571 was, however, modest in comparison with neighboring provinces. Medelpad had a relatively low population at this time. Of the 17 parishes in the province in 1571, only half had anything to report in the form of money, which was what the authorities primarily wanted to get hold of. In the assessment of movable property in the form of silver, Ljustorp's pastorate showed just over a third of the entire province's holdings. Ljustorp was also the best in the tax group of money, which amounted to 882 marks (2/3 of the province's entire taxed sum). The number of horses and mares in the Medelpad province was 652 (compared to Ångermanland’s 2,315 and Hälsingland’s 2,538). The number of cows was 3,526. In Medelpad, there were 758 independent homesteads in 1571. If each homestead consisted of 5 - 6 persons, Medelpad would then have had a population of about 5,300 persons.

The City of Sundsvall was Founded in 1621

One of the many ways in which business was regulated in Sweden during the reign of King Gustav II Adolf was the founding of new towns in Norrland, i.e. the Northern half of the country. At this time, in the vastness of Norrland, apart from the old town of Gävle, there were the towns Hudiksvall and Härnösand from the 1580s. In the spring of 1620, the King commissioned Councillor Johan Skytte to travel along the Norrland coast to investigate where trading posts and new towns could best be established. An interim town privilege for Sundsvall was signed on August 23, 1621, and this date is considered the date of Sundsvall’s foundation. The town privilege was ratified on April 15, 1624, by Gustav II Adolf, who personally visited Medelpad to see the site of the town, and listened to what the population had to say on the matter. The creation of new towns was not always welcomed by the population, as they (mainly craftsmen and tradesmen) were forced to settle in the new towns. Strong opposition to the founding of a new town in Selånger, Sundsvall, arose from the peasants in the neighboring parishes, not least from the farmers in Ljustorp and Njurunda, who were strongly dissatisfied. In the city privileges, the city was granted the right to fish along large parts of the Njurunda coast, including Brämön and Lörudden, which forced the Njurunda farmers to fish in other places. This gave rise to many recurring disputes between Njurunda and Sundsvall. The city name Sundsvall: The village of Sund was located north of the Selånger River. The new town was built on the village's “vall” (grassland). So the name became Sundsvall. About ten crown gunsmiths in Medelpad were forced to move to Sundsvall. Their income came from forging rifle barrels and musket fork rests for the Crown. The gunsmiths were later moved to Söderhamn, but this first industry has given Sundsvall its city coat of arms, two crossed rifle forks under a helmet. The image shows the city coat of arms of Sundsvall. Image: Wikipedia. The location of the new town in Selånger proved to be poorly chosen to maintain sea connections, as was already clear in the 1630s. The land uplift caused Selånger Bay - now Selånger River - to become shallow, preventing larger ships from entering the town. In 1646, Chancellor Oxenstierna commissioned an investigation into the possibility of moving the town closer to the sea. By 1650, the move was largely complete to the area that central Sundsvall occupies today between the church and the harbor. At that time, only 40 burghers lived in the town. Throughout the 17th century, Sundsvall remained a fishing village. It was not until well into the 18th century that crafts and trade became important to the town. In 1670, 194 people were living in the town. The real development of the town only begins with the export of bar iron, water-sawn timber, and beams. In the 18th century, trade began to dominate the city's economy. Particularly favorable years were the time of King Karl XII’s Great Northern War 1700 - 1721. The armed forces needed large quantities of iron for cannons and wood for shipbuilding. With the steam saw industry in the 19th century came the great migration to the steam saws in the Sundsvall district. There are two events in the history of the town and the region that are still remembered by the people. These are the ravages of the Russians in 1721 and the devastating disaster that occurred in the Indal River, when in 1796, after an unsuccessful excavation, Lake Ragunda was emptied of its water in a matter of hours and the Great Rapids (Storforsen) was transformed into the Dead Fall (Döda fallet). The merchant Magnus Huss in Sundsvall had undertaken to divert the water of Lake Ragunda past Gedungsen to make a canal for log-driving past the rapids by excavating a sand ridge. The water that had begun to flow in the unfinished canal eroded the sand at an uncontrollable rate. This led to a terrible disaster when, on June 6, 1796. The sand ridge gave way and the whole of Lake Ragunda above the rapids was drained of all its water in just four hours. The Great Rapids dried up and became silent and the Dead Fall was created. No people were killed by the flood wave. No people were killed in the incident. After this Magnus Huss was called Wild Huss (Vild- Hussen). The image shows the drained waterfall, Great Rapids, which has a height difference of 35 m (105 ft). Thereafter known as the Dead Fall. Photo in October 2006. Image: Wikipedia. Another disaster struck Sundsvall on Monday, June 25, 1888, when the city burned down. At 12.25 p.m., the church bells rang to warn the inhabitants of the fire. This fire is considered the worst fire to hit any Swedish town. The weather on the morning of the fire was very hot and the wind was very strong. The fire is believed to have spread with such enormous speed that it leveled both the western and eastern parts of the city in a matter of hours. According to various accounts, the fire may have been caused by sparks from the steamboat Selånger, and in the strong winds little could be done to contain the fire. There were only a few stone houses in the town at the time, the rest were wooden. The image shows Sundsvall after the fire in June 1888. Image: Wikipedia. The fire left 9,000 people without homes. Five people died in the fire. When the city was later rebuilt, they were very keen to at least build the city center in stone. And they built along lines that attracted attention all over Sweden, and which in themselves are a piece of Swedish architectural history. The flourishing sawmills in the area had made many sawmill owners very wealthy so many magnificent houses were built in the city. The material on Sundsvall is foremost from "Medelpad", Allhem Publishing Firm, Malmö, 1975, (pages 119 - 129) and "Den sista staden, En bok om Sundsvall", 1989 (page 6). The adjacent image shows Sundsvall (1690-1710) from Erik Dahlbergh's work Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna.

Ljustorp Parish

Ljustorp is located about 30 km north of Sundsvall, Västernorrland, in a beautiful valley. Ljustorp is mentioned in 1314 as a pastorate without an annex. After 1316, however, Hässjö and Tynderö became its annex. 1919, Hässjö and Tynderö were separated into a separate pastorate. Typical of the Ljustorp area is that the residential and farm buildings are located far up on the mountain slopes or heights. Forestry and agriculture should be roughly equal in terms of employment conditions. The image shows Högland village in Ljustorp from the early 1900s. The image is a postcard and is shown here with the permission of Carol Kemp, USA. The village name Högland means “High land”. Population figures In 1580, there were 58 farmers in Ljustorp parish, which at that time also included the parishes of Hässjö and Tynderö. After the Seven Years' War (1563-1570), which claimed many victims, the number of farmers had fallen to 44 by 1571. In 1601, the number of independent farmers was 42 and in 1605 there were 64 people aged between 16 and 64. Then the population increases to 289 in 1670 (including soldiers, boatmen, paupers, and old people but not children). In 1758 Ljustorp including Lögdö had 926 inhabitants. The material about Ljustorp is, among other things, taken from "Ljustorp förr och nu" by SPF Höstsol, 1989 (pages 81-82) and "Sällsamheter i Medelpad" by Olle Wickström, 1982 (page 45).

The Russians' Ravages in Spring 1721

In 1717, Sundsvall became the center of the Armfelt rearmament for the Swedish attack on Trondheim in central Norway. This was part of a larger campaign on Danish Norway during the Great Northern War (1700 - 1721). King Karl XII had returned from Bender and was planning a new campaign, this time against Danish Norway. Southern Sweden was under serious threat. By taking Norway, Denmark and its allies would be defeated. However, after the king was killed on November 30, 1718, at the siege of the Halden fortress in Fredrikshall (southern Norway), the army was ordered to return to Sweden. On the return of Armfelt’s army across the mountain chain between Norway and Sweden in early 1719 in the cold winter, Armfellt’s army was surprised by a severe snowstorm. In the bitter cold, over 2,000 men of this Carolinian army perished. In the uncertainty created by the change of power after the death of Charles XII, the Russian archipelago fleet attacked the entire Swedish east coast to force Sweden to make peace. More than 10,000 Swedes were made homeless by the Russian raids. Rumors had long circulated that the Russians would come and burn Sundsvall and all the buildings in its vicinity. The farmers in the surrounding parishes had no weapons with which to defend themselves and were vulnerable to panic, especially in the spring, when the ice broke up and a Russian fleet could be expected. Faced with these rumors of the Russians' arrival, the peasants fled to nearby and protective forests. In anticipation of the Russians' raids in 1721, the villagers of Mellberg, Björkom, and Lövberg (Ljustorp parish) had prepared to move the animals to their pastures on Älgåsen, which lay deep in the forest. There, iron loops had been hammered into the trees to tie the animals. Better still, the Russians turned around in Stavre and headed north towards Härnösand, so the people of Ljustorp never had to make the move. However, the loops remained in the trees well into the 19th century. In the spring of 1721, the people of the Sundsvall district had the war on their doorstep. In mid-May, a Russian galley squadron under the command of Peter von Lacy had been sighted at the Sea of Åland on its way north. After burning the towns of Söderhamn and Hudiksvall, the Russians continued to Medelpad and arrived at Galtström iron mill on the morning of May 25, where the buildings were burned down and the blast furnace destroyed. The squadron thereafter sailed on to Sundsvall, where it arrived at midday. The image shows farms being burned down by the Russians. Most peasants hid in the forest while the Russians set fire to their farms. 'The Village is Burning', a painting from 1862 by Franciszek Kostrzewski. National Museum, Warsaw. The defense of the city had been entrusted to Major Johan Henrik von Fieandt (b. 1683) of the Savolaks and Nyslott Regiment. At the last moment, he had received orders from Gävle, which was then the seat city for Norrland proper, to go to Sundsvall and gather the inhabitants of the city and the farmers from the adjacent parishes for its defense. Around 150 men turned up from the parishes of Selånger, Tuna, and Attmar. In addition to some 80 navy seamen from the second part of the First Norrland Boatmen's Company under the command of Navy Captain Herman Wibbling, the Jämtland Regiment's Cavalry Company (about 80 horsemen) was in Sundsvall under the command of Lieutenant Johan Lindstedt. The cavalry force from Jämtland also included Cornet Daniel von Nandelstedt. Navy seamen and cavalrymen were the only military personnel Major von Fieandt had to rely on for the defense of the city. Before the Russians arrived in Sundsvall, the storehouses had been burned and two merchant ships and a larger ship loaded with iron and timber had been sunk. The galleys that the navy seamen had were taken into Selånger Bay but had to be set on fire so that they would not fall into the hands of the Russians. The decisive battle was fought at Nävsta and Valla villages in Selånger, but when the battle began, most of the peasantry disappeared. In the general confusion, they went home to salvage their property. They panicked and tried to save what they could from their houses and homes. The Russian squadron consisted of 33 galleys, 33 smaller boats (lodja), and 33 sloops with about 600 Cossacks and 6,870 infantry. The balance of strength between the Swedish defenders and the Russian attacking force was thus uneven, to say the least. Major Fieandt had no artillery support except for a few small pieces that fired from nearby farms and boats. The cavalrymen from Jämtland offered very stiff resistance to the much larger enemy. The Swedish force held off the landed Russians for an hour at the western City Bridge at Åkroken. The cavalrymen defended themselves well and managed to stop the Russians with two counterattacks. The Swedes then had to retreat via the Selånger valley to the villages of Nävsta and Valla in Selånger parish, about eight kilometers west of Sundsvall, where they once again put up a fight. When Major Fieandt, with his limited resources, was threatened with being overrun by the Russian Cossack and Russian infantry at the Western Bridge, he ordered a retreat on the road to Jämtland and a 70-man detachment to take up a fighting position in the forest at Holmbron. This would prove impossible as the peasants and seamen fled, leaving the Jämtland cavalrymen alone to fight with Fieandt against the Russian superiority. Two counterattacks succeeded in stopping the Russians, but after the Russians had received reinforcements they had to fight a hopeless battle against the superior force. 22 Jämtland cavalrymen were cut down on the highway at Valla. About ten men managed to cut their way through the Russian lines and escape. In the battle, Lieutenant Lindstedt was mortally wounded and 22 horsemen were killed. A further 20 cavalrymen later died of wounds sustained in the battle. Some of the officers (including Lieutenant Lindstedt who died on board the Russian ships) and 7 horsemen were captured and taken to St. Petersburg. After about 10 months of captivity, they were allowed to return to Jämtland, among them Cornet Nandelstedt. Cornet is a cavalry Second Lieutenant. There is no information on how many seamen from Medelpad were killed. The majority of Medelpad's seamen were in Stockholm and served in the Stockholm squadron when the Russians ravaged the Norrland coast in 1721. About 40 men from the Russian force were killed in the battle. Major Fieandt survived his severe injuries but was later killed at Lappeenranta, Finland, during the Russo-Swedish War in 1741. At Widesbron's landfall at Åkroken on Västermalm district in Sundsvall there is a memorial to the battle of Selånger in 1721, with the inscription "Major Johan Henrik Fieandt fought here against the ravaging enemy on May 25, 1721." There is also a memorial stone to the 22 fallen Jämtland cavalrymen at Selånger's old church ruins. Two days earlier, on 23 May, 9 cavalrymen of the Jämtland Regiment had clashed with Cossack at Hög Church in Hudiksvall town, 70 km south of Sundsvall, when they were scouting for the Russians. Two of the Jämtland cavalrymen were killed, as well as 14 Cossacks. Before the Russians left the area, Sundsvall was plundered of whatever they could get their hands on. Much had already been secured and most of the provisions etc. that had not been carried away were burned by the townspeople when the Russians were sighted at sea outside the town. When the Russians sailed, they had set the town on fire. Only the church and the belfry survived. Selånger and Sättna were also set on fire. Reconstruction of the city began that same summer. The Estates of the Realm granted tax relief for a certain number of years to the Norrland towns burned down by the Russians. The new Sundsvall that was built was similar to the old one, with wooden houses built in one and in some cases two stories. On May 26 the Russians continued their raids in Skön, Alnö, and Timrå. On May 27, the Russians tried to get to Lögde mill but did not succeed as the fairway was too shallow. However, Hässjö was ravaged. The next day, Tynderö and Åvike mills and 10 neighboring villages were burned. According to the governor's report to the King on June 19, 1721, in Medelpad, in addition to Sundsvall and Galtstöm mill, 18 homesteads in Selånger, 4 in Sättna, 70 in Skön, 60 in Alnö, 42 in Timrå, 15 in Hässjö and 34 in Tynderö were ravaged. A total of 243 farms were destroyed by the ravaging Russians. The material about the Russians' ravages is, among other things, taken from "Ljustorp förr och nu" by SPF Höstsol, 1989 (pages 81-82) and "Medelpad", Allhems Publishing House, Malmö, 1975, (pages 129 - 130) and "Båtsmanshållet i Ångermanland och Medelpad" by Carl Hamnström, 1972, pages 153 - 155.

From the keeping of boatmen to

Conscription

After the Dacke Feud 1542 - 1543, King Gustav Vasa decided to set up an army, to which each province would contribute a certain number of soldiers in proportion to its population. King Gustav II Adolf then decreed in the 1620s that the Navy should be manned from some coastal areas. From 1641, the coastal parishes of Medelpad were placed under the keeping of boatmen (navy seamen - Båtsmanshållet). Eventually, all of Medelpad's parishes except Tynderö were transferred to the naval defense. The keeping of boatmen (Båtsmanshållet) was not abolished until 1887. In 1687, the parish of Ljustorp consisted of six so- called Navy “rotar”. Each “rote” was made up of several farmers who together maintained a boatman with payment in kind, wages, and a boatman's croft (cottage) with associated land for one seaman. In the 17th century, Jämtland had a dragoon regiment with a cavalry company. The dragoon regiment had some “rotar” (homesteads) in southern Ångermanland that provided some of the regiment's soldiers. The cavalry company similarly had “rotar” in Medelpad. Even in the 1690s, several men from Medelpad and Ångermanland were still serving in these two regiments. However, the main burden for the two counties of Västernorrland County was to provide boatmen for two companies of boatmen established here. Medelpad belonged to Norrland 1. Boatman Company and Ångermanland to Norrland 2. Boatman Company. Source reference: Svenska knektar, indelta soldater, ryttare och båtsmän i krig och fred av Lars Ericsson, 1997, page 61. More about the keeping of boatmen in Medelpad and Ångermanland: Båtsmanshållet i Medelpad och Ångermanland (Swedish).

The Sawmill Era

The Swedish land reforms didn’t aim to transfer land ownership away from owners but merely redistribute the farmers’ various strips of agricultural land in a village into larger undivided parcels per farmer. The basic idea of the land reforms was to make farming more efficient by limiting the number of fields and meadows per farm and instead grouping the individual farm units' properties into larger undivided parcels. The land reforms also included the ownership of the forest, which became the property of each farmer. Previously, the forest and outlying land were owned jointly by the farmers in the village. The booming lumber industry in Norrland made the sawmill owners interested in the farmers' “new” forests. The farmers in Norrland often owned very large areas of forest, which they received when the Crown drew the line between crown forest and peasant forest. It was only the sawmill owners who understood how much the forest was worth. They bought forests very cheaply from farmers. There are many stories of how farmers were practically tricked into selling for pennies. Yet the farmers thought they were getting a good deal. Previously the forests weren’t considered financially valuable; the farmers used them for firewood and lumber for building materials. Only the lumber tycoons saw the true value of the forests. However, since the farmers didn’t see this, the lumber industry managed to buy forestland from the farmers for next to nothing. Sawmill owners also took the opportunity to buy up ironworks and smelters that closed down in the 19th century. The mills often included large forests where charcoal had previously been made. The forest became valuable in the mid-19th century when the first steam saws were built on the Norrland coast and wood was exported to England and elsewhere. Around 1850, with the introduction of steam- powered saws in Norrland, the production capacity of sawmills considerably increased. Increased production also increased the demand for more timber to the mills. Therefore, both logging and log driving expanded and it was now that forestland became truly valuable. The first steam sawmill in Sweden was built in 1849 in Tunadal, just north of Sundsvall. Previously, all saws were powered by water. It was no longer dependent on fixed hydropower for location but could build the saws where it was most suitable from all points of view. When the technique of making paper pulp and paper out of wood was introduced at the end of the 1800s (sulfite and sulfate methods) at the end of the 19th century, forests became even more valuable. The sawmills used lumber from pine trees, now there was a demand for spruce trees too since the pulp mills used spruce lumber. The image shows timber floating at the Bergebom sorting plant (log boom sorting), Indal River, 1900-1910. Image: Sundsvall Museum, ID: SuM-foto033652. With the introduction of steam saws, Medelpad quickly grew as the major center for the lumber industry. The work at the sawmills was labor-intensive and many people were employed by the sawmills. The great need for laborers in mid-Sweden caused a great migration from other parts of Sweden to look for jobs at the many sawmills in this region. The lumber industry needed many laborers. They felled the trees by hand and transported the logs by horse to the rivers. There they floated the timber down to the coast. In the forest provinces, crofters and farmers often combined farming with forestry work in winter. Sawmills also needed a lot of laborers to sort and saw the lumber and then load it onto boats. The huge demand for labor meant that people came from all over the country to work in the sawmills in the Sundsvall area. The booming sawmill industry was able to pay higher wages than other industries and they had no problem in acquiring the necessary manpower. An exceptionally large amount of people, not the least from Värmland province and Finland, migrated to Sundsvall to look for jobs with the many lumber firms in the region; sawmill laborers, loggers, log drivers, and charcoal makers. The Sundsvall region became the Klondike of the lumber industry. The image shows sawmill laborers and stacks of boards at the Gustavsberg Sawmill on Alnö Island, Sundsvall, in 1908. Image: Sundsvall Museum, ID: SuM-foto021393 The population of Västernorrland increased over a 40-year period from about 100,000 inhabitants in 1850 to 200,000 in 1890. Lumber tycoon (also Sawmill tycoon) [Swe: Träpatron] was a term for the owners of large sawmill and lumber businesses that were established along the Norrland coast during the second half of the 1800s. The lumber tycoons made a fortune in connection to the industrialization of lumbering and among these tycoons were several of the wealthiest men in Sweden. With the flourishing of the sawmill industry, many stately estates were built in the Sundsvall district, owned by the sawmill owners, the lumber tycoons. Hotel Knaust in Sundsvall is a well-known hotel & restaurant frequently visited by the wealthy lumber tycoons around the turn of the century 1900. The lumber tycoons also have been associated with shady business practices which at the time was nicknamed “baggböleri” in Swedish, but also with the rough treatment of the laborers in the Sundsvall sawmill strike in 1879. Almost all produced lumber was exported. Between 1850 and 1900, the export of lumber increased tenfold. The Swedish trade of lumber became the largest in the world. The production of lumber in Medelpad province was higher than the logging capacity there, so the sawmills in Medelpad had to acquire timber from other Swedish provinces such as Jämtland, Västerbotten, and Norrbotten, well even from northern Finland. In 1870, more than 40% of Sweden's exports consisted of lumber. Sundsvall grew rapidly as a settler community in the Klondike of the lumber industry. At the beginning of the 1890s, fully 10 million logs were processed annually by the sawmills in Medelpad, and in 1900 about 15 million logs. The material about the sawmill era is, among other things, taken from "Nyfiken på Sverige", Utbildningsradion (page 4) and "Ådalen, industrihistorisk inventering", part 3, 1980, (pages 20 - 21). Top of page

Related Links

• Armsjö murder 1849, Njurunda (Last execution in Medelpad) • Witch trial in Njurunda 1642 • Logging, log driving & sawmills • Land reforms • The Concept of Socken • Map, Medelpad parishes • The subdivisions of Sweden into lands, provinces and counties • The County of Västernorrland • Map, Swedish Counties (Län) • Map, Swedish Provinces • Plants and Animals as symbols of the Swedish Provinces

Source References

• "Ljustorp förr och nu" by SPF Höstsol, 1989 (pages 6 and 81-82) • "Medelpad", Allhems Publishing House, Malmö, 1975, (pages 129 - 130 and pages 119 - 129) • "Båtsmanshållet i Ångermanland och Medelpad" by Carl Hamnström, 1972, pages 153 - 155. • "Den sista staden, En bok om Sundsvall", 1989 (page 6). • "Sällsamheter i Medelpad" by Olle Wickström, 1982 (page 45). • “Svenska knektar, indelta soldater, ryttare och båtsmän i krig och fred” av Lars Ericsson, 1997, page 61. • "Nyfiken på Sverige", Utbildningsradion (page 4) • "Ådalen, industrihistorisk inventering", del 3, 1980, (pages 20 - 21). • Wikipedia