Name/Title
Nelson family: Even A. & Mattie (Hovde) Nelson, early residents of Hillsboro, Traill County, Dakota TerritoryEntry/Object ID
2026.149.1Description
This Nelson family history folder briefly describes the lives of Even A. Nelson and Mattie Hovde, who were married in Hillsboro on 26 July 1894 (wedding photo).
Even A. Nelson (formerly Nilson) was born on 9 July 1866 in Norway to parents Nils Amundson and Mari Evensdatter. At the age of 15, in 1871, Even A. Nilson sailed to Quebec, Canada, and first settled in Wisconsin, working in a Norwegian community as a farmhand. After a couple of years, he went west and worked as a farmhand in the Red River Valley. Saving his money, he went to Chicago and learned to be a qualified optician and jeweler. Even then returned to the Red River Valley, opening a shop in Grandin and then later moved his business to Hillsboro. There, he met Mattie Hovde.
Mattie Hovde was born in 1875 in a log cabin to 1871 Traill County pioneers, Ole O. and Mari (Gulbrandson) Hovde [see TCHS online Catalogit family history entry 2022.372.1]. The Hovde homestead was located on the western edge of what became the City of Hillsboro in 1881.
Even A. and Mattie (Hovde) Nelson had four children (see Traill County History Vol. I, parts 1 & 2). Their children included two sons, Ernest Nelson [see TCHS online Catalogit family history entry 2022.470.1] and Norris Nelson, and two daughters, Marie Nelson who died in infancy, and Mildred Nelson, who married W. G. Wilson.
Ernest Nelson had a son Thurston Dennis Nelson [see TCHS online Catalogit family history entry 2022.472.1]
This Nelson family history folder also features a journal kept by Even A. Nelson for the period April 1898 to March 1940. Written in Norwegian, this journal was translated by Robert Aasen of Hillsboro.Acquisition
Accession
2026.149Source or Donor
Margaret (Wilson) Kurtz, TCHS (Traill County Historical Society)Location
* Untyped Location
Resource RoomBuilding
Plummer House
