Lawson—Thure Kumlien. 
667 
berg, born in the Parish of Tibia in Uppland, Sweden, April 21, 
1820. Her father was an officer in the Swedish army and in 
charge of the training of horses for the cavalry in Sweden (11). 
His family consisted of eleven children. Subsequently he lived 
to exceed the age of eighty years. Christina had gone through the 
only school open to girls. This was similar to our domestic 
science schools. 
Young Kumlien, while a student at Upsala, had met this 
splendid girl, who was of about his own age; and a mutual at¬ 
tachment led to a betrothal. Her people were agreeable to the 
union, but his people objected; and so, as they had other plans 
for him, no marriage was possible under the laws of church and 
state in Sweden. Both were communicants in the Lutheran faith 
and church. Thure Kumlien’s mother died when he was twenty 
years old, and his father died one year later. 
In this dilemma it was determined that they would sail for 
America. Her family sent Sophia Wallberg, her sister, with her 
as companion. 
“With the girl he loved and her sister as her companion, he took pas¬ 
sage in an old sailing vessel for the United States. The old vessel, which 
he afterwards learned had been condemned, was ten weeks at sea. While 
they were becalmed at mid ocean for several weeks, their drinking water 
gave out, and the passengers suffered of thirst. When the storm came 
they were nearly shipwrecked” ( 10 ). 
On their arrival in America, August 20, 1843 (4), they pro¬ 
ceeded at once to Milwaukee, where they were married September 
5, 1843, pursuant to a license, before William A. Prentiss, Justice 
of the Peace (12). They arrived at Milwaukee by boat and 
walked seventy miles to Lake Koshkonong, where Kumlien selected 
and bought a government forty acres, afterward adding another 
forty acres of virgin forest in the town of Sumner, Jefferson 
County, on the shore of Lake Koshkonong. When his log house 
was finished, 
“it was the nicest log house around here, for we had an extra bedroom 
besides our one big room. Under the stairs we had a pantry, which was 
more than most of the pioneers had.” 
The newly married pair were very happy in their new home. 
They lived in the log house until 1874, when a frame house was 
erected near the site. Thure Kumlien brought with him many 
beautiful water-color paintings of the flowers and birds of Swe- 
