immigrant leader, pioneer Norwegian settler, b. Numedal, Norway. He migrated to the U.S. with his brother in 1837, and joined a group of Norwegian immigrants led by Ole Rynning who settled in Iroquois County, Ill. In 1838 Nattestad's brother returned to Norway to encourage immigration; during the same year Rynning died and the Illinois settlement, hard hit by malaria, broke up. Ole Nattestad moved northward into Wisconsin, and there, in July, 1838, entered a claim in Clinton Township, Rock County. He was joined by his brother and a new group of Norwegian immigrants in 1839; the settlement soon came to be known as Jefferson Prairie, and represented the first Norwegian settlement in Wisconsin. Nattestad farmed in this area until his death. T. C. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to Amer. (Northfield, Minn., 1931); R. B. Anderson, First Chapter of Norwegian Immigration (Madison, 1895); Wis. Mag. Hist., 1; WPA MS.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]