Bernhardson Cabin

The Bernhard Bernhardson Cabin is a Historic Site in Holy Cross Township, Minnesota, just outside of Comstock, today being one of the oldest standing buildings in the County. Built in the fall of 1870 by Bernhardson and his family, it served as temporary housing for a period of four years before a two-story house was built in 1874. Today, it stands as the best-preserved example of a log cabin as subsistence architecture in the county.[1] Furthermore, it is by extension a legacy of Swedish immigration to the United States, specifically the Midwest, in the nineteenth century, and that is a story worth elaborating on.

           Bernhard Bernhardson’s story is typical of many other Swedish immigrants. He was born September 23rd, 1840 in Sweden into a peasant family. He was raised to be a farmer, married his wife Kerstin, and had three children while in Sweden, John, Lars, and Ingeborg. His family owned a small tract of land that was difficult to farm and increasingly crowded, making it tougher and tougher to make a living. Seeking opportunity for his family, especially his children, Bernhard decided to do what many before and after him did; he sold his portion of the family land to pay for passage to America, becoming one of the 21,000 Swedish emigrants in 1868.[2]

           So why would he leave and risk everything? There were a variety of push and pull factors to infiltrate the decision-making process at the time. Geographically, Sweden had poor farmland in most cases and a lack of it, which is most likely the primary reason Bernhard left.[3] Other push factors included religion, social hierarchies, and a lack of opportunity to advance in society. The primary pull factor was, of course, the passing of the Homestead Act in 1862, offering a quarter section (160 acres) of land or more almost entirely for free to any citizen or immigrant with the intent of becoming a citizen who had signed the appropriate documents. The only other requirements by law were that the homesteader must have “resided upon or cultivated the same for the term of five years,” in other words, you had to live and farm on the land for five years.[4] This provided the opportunity so many like Bernhard sought to improve their standing. Furthermore, the Bernhardsons would have been encouraged to make the leap by Swedes already in America, affordable travel fares, and failing crops at home at the time they left.

           There is no surviving testimony on the Bernhardsons' journey to America, but we do know the family landed in Quebec before taking a train to St. Cloud, Minnesota. From there, the family went by wagon to Pope County, where they lived with relatives in a hillside dugout. Afterwards, Bernhard went on foot to Alexandria to file a Homestead claim, riding out to the Red River Valley to select a site. He then walked to Detroit Lakes to file the claim of 163.3 acres with the Land Office before returning to the claim and then to his family back in Pope County.[5] When the Bernhardsons returned to their claim on July 3, 1870, all they had was the wagon they rode on, its contents, some livestock, and seventeen cents. They lived in the wagon, working the land and completing the task so important to any Swedish immigrant on the frontier, constructing a temporary shelter, be it a sod house or in this case, a basic log cabin.[6]

           In and of itself, the cabin is rather unimpressive. Being only 14’x23’x4.5’, it’s pretty small and very primitive, as the gaps between the logs were effectively sealed with mud.[7] For four years, the Bernhardsons lived in the cabin until a more permanent two-story house was built in 1874. In that time, they established themselves as key figures in the development of Holy Cross Township and Comstock, MN. Bernhard was an active member of the church, at one time the director of the school board in Comstock, and at another time the postmaster for the area. That was the only other use the cabin served besides storage after the newer house was built; it was the post office from April 1878 to April 1889, and Bernhard’s son John was the mailman.[8]

           In short, the Bernhardson Cabin is so much more than a log cabin, it’s a stand-in to represent the story of thousands of Swedish immigrants. It’s the site of a family that was instrumental in the making of a larger community. It’s a physical representation of life in the Red River Valley. The Bernhardson Cabin is a historical site that provides the opportunity to see an almost unchanged piece of history from the local area and that alone justifies its place on the National Register of Historic Places.

[1] nps.gov. “Minnesota MPS Bernhardson, Bernhard, House.” National Archives and Records Administration. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93200246.

[2] Barton, Arnold H., Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840-1914, (Minneapolis: Published by the University of Minnesota Press for the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society, 2012), 107.

[3] Barton, Letters from the Promised Land, 10.

[4] The Homestead Act of 1862 (1862). 

[5] Clay County Family Album, 1976. Lars Bernhardson Collection. Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, Hjemkomst Center, Moorhead, MN.

[6] Barton, Letters from the Promised Land, 14.

[7] Nps.gov. “Minnesota MPS Bernhardson, Bernhard, House.”

[8] Clay County Family Album, 1976. Lars Bernhardson Collection.

Barton, H. Arnold. Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840-1914. Published by the University of Minnesota Press for the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society, 2012.

Clay County Family Album, 1976. Lars Bernhardson Collection. Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County, Hjemkomst Center, Moorhead, MN.

Nps.gov. “Minnesota MPS Bernhardson, Bernhard, House.” National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed March 18, 2021. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93200246. 

The Homestead Act of 1862 (1862).