The present-day town of Elsmore in Allen County, Kansas, represents an evolution of the original Danish town name of Elsinore. N. P. Wisborg, born in Denmark in 1826, settled on Big Creek in Allen County and later became the postmaster of Odense, a Danish name he must have suggested.
Wisborg probably also named the upstream town of Elsinore where a post office opened in 1866. Presumably because of the corruption of the written form, Elsinore became Elsmore, first as the name of the township and later of the village.22
Conclusion
The Danes who chose Kansas as their home were industrious people who assimilated easily throughout the state. By the beginning of the 20th cen
tury, Danes were to be found in almost every county of the state. A break
down by nationality shows there were 2,914 Danes, 15,144 Swedes, 39,501 Germans and 1,477 Norwegians. However few, those Danes who settled and remained in Kansas contributed to the make-up of the Kansas charac
ter as described by historian Carl Becker:
The confident individualism of those who achieve through endur
ance is a striking trait of the people of Kansas. There indeed, the trait has in it an element of exaggeration, arising from the fact that what
ever has been achieved has been under great difficulties. Kansans have been subjected, not only to the ordinary hardships of the fron
tier, but to a succession of reverses and disasters that could be sur
vived only by those for whom defeat is worse than death, who cannot fail because they cannot surrender.23
Although, as a group, the Kansas Danes were not without strife, as witness
ed by the Schleswig question and the conflict within the Lutheran church,
they settled quietly and inconspicuously in Kansas. For many this was the solution to the social, economic or political problems they faced in Den
mark. The Danes learned of Kansas because the state was actively promot
ing and welcoming Danes and other ethnic groups in order to promote economic development. It is through this interaction of events in Denmark and Kansas that the personal histories of Danish immigrants have been added to the colorful narratives making up the history of the settling of the state of Kansas.
Notes
1. Kansas Historical Quarterly, winter, 1976, p. 425. Excerpt from the Guilford Citizen, April, 1870.
2. Carl Becker, “Kansas,” In: Heritage of Kansas, Everett Rich, ed., Lawrence, Kansas:
University of Kansas Press, 1960, p. 345.
3. Emory K. Lindquist, “Kansas: A Centennial Portrait,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, vol.
27, 1961, p. 22.
4. Ibid., p. 27.
5. Wallace Eden Miller, The Peopling of Kansas, Columbus, Ohio: Press of Fred J. Heer, 1906, pp. 116-117.
6. George R. Nielsen, The Danish Americans, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981, p. 32.
7. Rasmus B. Anderson, “Coming of the Danes,” Chicago Record Herald, 1901? In: Immi
gration Clippings, vol. 1, Topeka, Kansas: Kansas State Historical Library.
8. J. Neale Carman, Foreign Language Units of Kansas, vol. 2, Lawrence, Kansas: Univer
sity of Kansas Press, 1962, p. 626.
9. Nell Blythe Waldron, Colonization in Kansas from 1861-1890, Doctoral Dissertation at Northwestern University, Chicago, 1923, p. 12.
10. Thomas Peter Christensen, “The Danish Settlements in Kansas,” In: Kansas Historical Collections, vol. 28, 1926-28, p. 300.
11. Emma E. Forter, History of Marshall County Kansas, Indianapolis: B.F. Bowen & Co., 1917, pp. 216-217.
12. Ibid., p. 220.
13. J. Neale Carman, op.cit., p. 1275.
14. Ibid., p. 628.
15. All information, except as noted, is from The Denmark Evangelical Lutheran Church pamphlet, The Centennial Anniversary, Denmark, Kansas, 1978, pp. 3-9.
16. Dor the Tarrance Homan, Lincoln - That County in Kansas, Lindsborg, Kansas, 1979, p.
87.
17. According to my 1987 conversation with Mrs. Ariel Nielsen (she and her husband are descendants of the original settlers of Denmark), the present town of Denmark has a population of about 12 people, mostly widows and retired people, and only a few houses. The cooperative elevator, the old Danish church which has about 40 members from the surrounding area, and the community hall are the only remaining buildings.
The bank folded a few years ago and the Free Mission Church no longer exists. The North and South schools, which were just one-room schools, were united in 1917 and
are now part of the Sylvan Grove school district. Mrs. Nielsen further reports that her ancestors came to Kansas from Schleswig/Holstein in 1875 to avoid military service.
When I asked if she spoke any Danish, she replied “only a few words.” She had not learned any Danish as it was not a popular thing to do, especially during the First and Second World Wars. Her parents’ generation was intent on becoming Americanized and did not use the immigrant language of their own parents and thus did not pass on the Danish language to their children.
18. E.F. Hollibaugh, Biographical History of Cloud County Kansas, n.d., p. 786. (All of the information in this article concerning the Nielsen family is taken from Hollibaugh’s account except as noted.)
19. J.P. Paulsen, Memoir of J .P. Paulsen, 1880-1963, California, 1963, p. 29-31. (Located in the Danes Worldwide Archives in Aalborg, Denmark.)
20. Unless otherwise noted, all information about the Kansas Socialist project is taken from K. Miller “Danish Socialism and the Kansas Prairies,” The Kansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 38, Topeka: The Kansas State Historical Society, 1972, and K. Hvidt, Flight to America: The Social Background of 300,000 Danish Emigrants, New York: Academic
Press, 1975, pp. 143-146.
21. Wallace Eden Miller, op.cit., p. 160.
22. History of Allen and Woodson Counties Kansas. Compiled by L. Wallace Duncan, Iola, Kansas, 1901, pp. 478-479.
23. Carl Becker, op.cit., p. 345.