Background
Charles Magnus Lindgren was born near Dragsmark in Uddevalla Municipality in the traditional Province of Bohuslän, in Västra Götaland County, Sweden.
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Charles Lindgren
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He was a pioneer in the Great Lakes shipping industry. He went to sea at the age of 14. In 1849, he went to the California gold fields where he engaged in the freight traffic.
In 1852, Lindgren entered into a railway project together with the Bishop Hill Colony and settled in 1854 in Henry County, Illinois, a few miles from Galva.
In 1856, Lindgren came to Chicago, bought a couple of freight vessels and contracted with a lumber company for shipping lumber from Michigan to Chicago. In 1860 he engaged in shipping.
He gradually added vessel after vessel until in 1870 he owned half a dozen ships with a combined tonnage of 4,500. Several of these were among the largest in the Great Lake trade at that time.
In 1871, he had three more large freighters built at Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
One of these, the schooner Christina Nilsson was named after Christina Nilsson, a world-renowned Swedish diva who had visited America that year.
