Below is a photocopy of the title page of an 1884 edition available at the BYU Harold B. Lee Library
Here follows the translated story
HISTORY
OF THE FORSGRENS
This history was translated by Mona Jardine from the "Morgenstjernen---Et historisk-borgrafisk Tidsskrift. Redigeret og udgivet af Andrew Jenson---1884."
(See online:
http://archive.org/details/morgenstjernenet00jens
for a sample of a
volume that is in the BYU library.
This is the “Morning Star; a Historical-Biographical Journal" – Danish version. Edited by Andrew
Jenson) Some changes or comments
have been made in italics by Adele Austin as I retyped the version given to me
by Clara Forsgren Reeves in June of 2013.
I have also taken the liberty of adding some paragraph breaks for
readability]
The First
Saints in Sweden
Peter
Adolf Forsgren, a son of Johan Olaf and Christina Forsgren was born 26 July
1826 in Gefle, Sweden. His mother died
in 1832, when he was about six years old and since the father was a sailor and
was seldom home, strangers mainly raised the children and Peter got a poor
education. When he was ten years old he
began to work at a linen fabric [factory?] in Gefle, where he worked for
almost 5 years. Then he got a job on [in]
a canvas factory where he worked as a foreman when his brother John in the
summer of 1850 came to the country as a missionary from America to preach the
gospel.
John
had twenty years earlier left home as a sailor and even though his family was
overjoyed over his return, they were surprised that he came back as a
preacher. He had in his travels met
with the Latter Day Saints in America where he was baptized and then went to
Nauvoo. Now, in addition to everything,
he was along with Erastus Snow and two other brethren come back to start a
mission in his homeland. He star[t]ed
right away to preach to his family and others and it wasn’t long before he was
known as a false prophet that had come from America to deceive people[.]
His brother Peter was influenced by his
brother’s circular [circulating?] rumors and was scared away for a while
even though he knew the Gospel that his brother preached was true. While he thus staggered and didn’t know
whether he should be baptized or not, one day while he stood by a loom he was
suddenly attacked by terrible pain and cramps in his stomach and was totally
helpless. His lungs were next attacked
to the point where all that saw and heard him decided that he couldn’t possibly
live. In this lifeless condition, he
was carried to his brother John, who had rented an apartment in Staden. He practiced great faith in God in behave [behalf]
of his dying brother and in a miraculous manner, with ointment (oil) and prayer
he soon was strong enough to go to work in a Swedish mill.
By [In] the harbor outside the
city [he was] there baptized for forgiveness of his sins. This happen[ed] July 19, 1850. Peter Adolf was also the first to be
baptized by divine authority in [all] the Scandinavian Countries. It was more than three weeks later that
Erastus Snow baptized the first twelve people in Kobenhavn. That same night he received the laying on of
hands. This mode of baptism soon became
well known. Peter Forsgren soon became
the object of people’s conversation, the object of curiosity and people’s
feelings was [were] that he was insane, that someone with good sense
could let someone baptize him by immersion in our day.
Among his
strongest opposition was his sister Erikka, who was later also baptized. When his brother was arrested and Peter was
brought in for questioning to give his testimony in regards to his health
because there was much talk against John E. Forsgren, because there was also
talk about him having healed the sick.[,] Peter freely bore witness that he had
been healed by the power of God by his brother’s laying on of hands. There was a doctor, whose name was Nordbald
[who] was encouraged to examine him, which he did with the help of
instruments – and announced that he was well.
Peter continued to bear witness about
the truthfulness of the Gospel to many [,] especially to the people who worked
in the factory. But it was against the
law to preach, so he showed them the scriptures so they could read for
themselves. He soon made friends.
In the
meantime his dad came from America to look for his son John, back from his tour
and in the summer of 1851, traveled to Kobenhavn, where he was soon
baptized. Then he traveled back to
Gefle and there was happiness in the family.
None other
than Forsgren and his sister, along with two others was [were] baptized
there in the district until Elder Mikael Johnson in 1852 came as a missionary
from Denmark. He baptized an elderly
woman and a couple of others in Helsingland, where he was born. But when Brother Johnson after a short time
was deported and sent to Malmo in chains, the preaching of the gospel was
stopped in that part of the country.
It is reserved Skaane and the other
southern providences of Sweden to be “the cradle” for Sweden’s concerns and not
before more years there after the missionaries could have footings in the
northern provinces. In September 1852,
Peter Adolf and his sister Erikka left their birthplace and traveled to
Kobenhavn, where they immigrated to Utah in the John E. Forsgren Company.
Peter settled in Brigham City, where
he lives as one respectable and trustworthy man. He works as first counselor to the Bishop in the First Ward plus
other important callings.
Christina
Erikka Forsgren was born April 26, 1820 in Gefle, Sweden. When she was ten years old she began to work
for strangers and when her brother John came back in 1850, she was working for
a grocer in Gefle. She was very surprised
to see him, because everyone thought he was dead since nobody had heard
from. Some of the first things he told
his sister was that he was sent from God to save his family and relatives and
that he had forgotten that his mother had asked of him on her death bed that he
should see to it that his younger brothers and sisters wouldn’t fall into
transgression. Now he came to keep his
promise.
The
happiness to see her brother after so many years was hard to describe, but she
had in a strange way been prepared for his coming. In January 1850 or about six months before his coming, she was
sitting in church [and] she was influenced by an earnest concern with
her soul’s salvation and the minute the preacher entered the pulpit she was
overcome with a strange feeling, a kind of weakness that started in her head
and went clear through her body, clear to her feet. Her bodily strength left her completely and she was carried away
in a vision where she three times saw a big black dog, which she thought should
be the devil and this made her decide that never again would she go to the
Lutheran Church. Then she heard a voice
that said the present church was wrong, but on June 26th there
should come a man with three books and all who wanted to be saved must believe
the gospel he preached. The voice also
said that everyone who was saved must travel far away over the ocean. It was not until they sang the last song in
church that her strength came back.
When the
mentioned time arrived, the people in the area knew right away that he was the
man and that the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants that
he brought with him were the three books she had seen in the vision. In spite of everything she still resisted for
a while, but it wasn’t long before, after several conversations with her
brother, that she was completely pierced with happiness and contentment that
she wanted to completely turn to the Lord and her brother’s hands, plus show
obedience to the gospel. So on the
fourth of August she was baptized. In
the very minute her brother let her down in the water, she saw a bright light
that filled her soul with indescribable happiness. That same evening when she received the Gift of the Holy Ghost
her eyes were opened and she understood the principals of the Gospel clear and
plain and when she read the Holy Scriptures it was like something whispered in
her ears and explained the scriptures to her.
After
Mikael Johnson’s arrival she was invited to come talk to the Dean, who would
try to [convince her to leave] “Mormonism”. To embarrass and humiliate her, she was taken between two police
officers to the Dean’s residence. Here
she gave cheerful answers and bore a strong testimony to the Dean and to those
that were present, and the results of it was that the Dean who thought he could
change her mind about Mormonism, was shamed by her and was glad when she
finally went away.
When her dad, during the harvest in
1852, was in Kobenhavn, John told him about polygamy which was practiced among
the Saints in Zion[.] After he came
home he told his daughter about it. She
had at that time made the decision that she would never marry and[,] having a
disgusted attitude towards matrimony, it was therefore hard for her to
understand about Celestial marriage.
The following night she laid awake wondering about the new religion and
the following day she could think of nothing else[.] But that evening before she went to bed, she prayed sincerely to
the Lord to manifest to her that the doctrine was from him. While she was on her knees, she saw two
persons in long white robes standing in form of white clouds in front of
her[.] One was a woman [,] the other
seemed to be an older man with a bald head.
In the same minute she heard a voice that told her that the older person
was to be her future husband. She
jumped up and walked back in the room, whereupon the woman form walked right by
and seemed to disappear into the next room, while the man form came nearer and
nearer to her until a maid opened the door and the vision disappeared. She was thus left to think about the strange
thing that she had just seen and the thought that she[,] a moral and virtuous
girl[,] should some day marry a man who already had a wife was disgusting to
her. But [she] now came to the
conclusion that polygamy was right.
After she arrived in Utah in 1853 the vision she had came true because
she became the second wife to an elderly man with whom she lives as faithful
member of the church in Brigham City, Box Elder, Utah. Sister Erikka was the first woman to join
the gospel in Scandinavia in this dispensation.
After the
dad Johan Olaf Forsgren had been baptized in Kobenhavn on the twenty-ninth of
August, he traveled back to Gefle in the hope he could bring some of his
relatives into the gospel, but he was not successful because of his
persecutors, so he went to sea and sailed different oceans for several years,
then he taught school in the winter. In
1863 he immigrated to Utah with help from his children and lived with his son
Peter in Brigham City until he died in February, 1880. He was born the seventeenth of October 1793
in Gefle, Sweden and started his sailor life at a young age. Three of his four children accepted the
gospel.