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The Roots of Fristad
Written by
Russell Carlson, August 1982
The roots of Fristad reach back to the early Swedish
immigrants who brought their Lutheran faith to the new world and especially to
those pioneers who, beginning in 1851, settled in the
Chisago Lakes area of Minnesota. It
was these pioneers who opened the way to the St. Croix Valley from
Smaland, a Swedish province that was to become a common "homeland" for
Fristad area pioneers. It was in Chisago Lakes in 1854, a first church was
organized in a haymow, which was to have a strong, guiding influence on many
others. Here, in 1858, the Minnesota Conference (a forerunner of the Augustana
Synod) was organized and Chisago Lakes became the center of the Chisago Lakes
District that until 1909 included western Wisconsin. From 1880s onward, many
sons and daughters of Chisago Lakes became pioneers in the Fristad area with
ties of kinship and church memories that remain strong today.
More Fristad roots were planted when, beginning in the
late 1860s, some Swedish immigrants coming up the St. Croix River turned
eastward into Wisconsin and settled in the Sand Lake area of southern Polk
County. Here in 1872, the Bethesda
Lutheran Church was founded with guidance from Chisago Lakes - its first
home was to be log church at East Lake. It was Bethesda that was to become the
mother of Fristad. Its pastors guided the organization of Fristad and provided
worship services for the first nine years. Many Bethesda members became charter
members of Fristad. In the following years, each congregation was to serve the
other with vice-pastors, helping to establish close relations that are existent
today.
Lamar Chapel 1900
The northward progress of settlement toward Deer Lake and
Centuria was held back in part by land
speculators holding land off the market, and it was the mid-1880s before the
founders-to-be of Fristad began to hew and grub farms out of the dense hardwood
forests. Once started, the movement continued into the first decades of 1900,
aided by a strong flow of Swedes from Chisago County in Minnesota. On this
northward march, a community center (store, post office, creamery, school)
developed at Lamar at a crossroad on the Long Lake trail. Here in 1900 a chapel
was built as an annex to Bethesda and the early Fristad pioneers attended the
twice-a-month services, Sunday and Parochial School, Ladies Aid, and other
meetings in the chapel. Here the decision to organize Fristad was made, when the
growth of Centuria had overwhelmed Lamar.
The Swedes were not the first, nor the only pioneers
settlers in the Centuria area. Already in 1856, the Irish began to settle at
Long Lake and the 1880s saw an influx of Germans, Norwegians, Scots, English, as
well as Swedes. Although each ethnic group was to form their own church, they
also learned to live and work together and to help each other in the building of
a new community. Centuria was a microcosm of the American melting pot. Here,
too, Fristad had roots that contributed to its character.
A Church is Born
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