A 2009 Journey to S. M. Hill’s place of birth

Scandinavia map

Östergötland

Old map of Hill’s childhood home

Helgesfall Norra

Helgesfall södra - Red House

Helgesfall södra today

View of Helgesfall södra

Stainless steel plaque

The remains of Hill's house

Cherry Trees

Andrew Peterson

In June 2009 Lars Nordström was invited by Hans-Göran Saldner and Västra Ryds Hembygdsförening to give a talk about Samuel Magnus Hill.

Samuel Magnus Hill came from the province of Östergötland, in an area close to the border of Småland. Västra Ryd is located east of Tranås and Nässjö, and north of Eksjö.

On this map from the late 1800’s, Hill’s childhood home, a leasehold croft named Källstorp is marked out. It is located about one kilometer from Helgesfall. Hill writes in his autobiography that his father had bought a log cabin somewhere, and had it moved and reassembled at this location around 1855. There was a spring (källa) there which gave the place its name. The Hill family were poor tenant farmers and never owned the land on which the house was located.

On this undated photograph one can see the farm houses in Helgesfall the way they probably looked in the mid 19th century. The one where Samuel Magnus Hill was born in 1851 was called Helgesfall Norra. At the time, both his parents worked on this farm as laborers.

In 2009, only one of the four farm houses in Helgesfall remains. It is the house on the far left in the previous picture, Helgesfall södra.

This is what the village road from Helgesfall södra looks like today. 150 years ago, the other farm houses would have been visible in a row to the left.

As one continues the road toward Källstorp and looks back, one can see Helgesfall södra and the surrounding landscape. One realizes that this is a fairly high area, and it explains why it was possible for the child Samuel Magnus Hill, from the sleeping loft window, to see a distant forest fire that raged one summer in his childhood. Much to his chagrin, he writes, he was considered too young to help fight the fire.

The Hill family emigrated to the United States from Källstorp in 1868, after having lived there for a little over ten years. The house was referred to as a backstuga, a small leasehold croft. After the Hill family moved out, other tenants moved in. As the plaque shows, this couple also emigrated to the United States and might have been the last residents.

Samuel Magnus Hill made a return visit to Sweden in the summer of 1901. In the journal from this trip he found that the house was gone. But in 1901 the fields around the house, where the Hill family had grown their food, were still being farmed. The area was farmed for most of the 20th century, until it was planted with trees in the 1980s. There is still a large pile of stones visible from the foundation and/or chimney.

One of Samuel Magnus Hill’s fondest childhood memories was a cherry tree with delicious fruit. When he returned in 1901 the tree was still there and the cherries were ripe and good. He wrote that he lingered and could not stop eating them. There are still old, gnarly cherry trees growing out of the pile of stones where Källstorp once stood, perhaps bird cherries from the original tree.

This famous emigrant came from a small village only a few kilometers from Källstorp. As it turns out, Samuel Magnus Hill’s father was Andrew Peterson’s cousin.