Björn Jónsson

Vesturfarar

About Björn, ÞÞÞ says in the second volume, “Saga Íslendinga i Vesturheimi” p. 124: “When Páll Þorláksson was on his way to Quebec to meet the group from home in the fall of 1873, he was inquiring about this Björn, who had left their group the year before near Grand Haven, and had gone to work there making bricks. (insert: JÞ. Páll Þorláksson led a group of 17 people from Eyrarbakki to Wisconsin the year before) A Danish man gave Páll the information that Björn was not happy with the job, although he received two dollars a day, and went from there to cut down trees, and from the forest work in the new year to at a sawmill in the city of Saginaw, Michigan. He had said that he was tired of this and was talking about going back home. Páll says that his companions thought he was dead, because he had promised to write to them but no line came from him, but when Páll heard this he insisted that Björn had not bothered to let them know about him. – It is likely that Björn is then the only Icelander whose stories are told in the state of Michigan, but during the winter the bookbinder Vigfús Sigurðsson writes home – then just arrived in Rosseau, Ontario – that there are a lot of murders in America and ends that mail thusly: ”I have also heard that an Icelander in Michigan was killed for the 250 dollars he had on him.” (insert: JÞ. This letter dated Rosseau, January 18, 1873 and printed in Frá Austri til Vesturs (From East to West) in Winnipeg 1921). But this news cannot be confirmed anywhere, and it is also not certain that it relates to Björn Jónsson.