Johannes Wilhelm Christian Dietrichson

Background

Johannes Wilhelm Christian Dietrichson was born on April 4, 1815 at Fredrikstad, Norway. He was the son of Captain Fredrik Batington and Karen Sophie Henriette (Radich) Dietrichson.

Education

Stirred by the fervent religious instruction of his pastor, the Reverend J. Tandberg, Wilhelm decided to become a minister of the gospel. In 1837 he graduated from the university at Christiania (now Oslo) with high honors.

Career

After spending one year as a tutor at the salt works at Tbnsberg, he returned to Christiania and spent the years 1839 to 1843 in study and teaching.

Thus trained and tested, he did what could least be expected of the aristocratic clergy of Norway at that time. He overcame the hostility of his own social class to emigration to America, and volunteered to embark for the new country when urged to do so by a pious dyer, P. Sorenson.

Securing ordination on February 26, 1844, at the hands of Bishop C. Sorenson, he set ut for America. He delivered sermons in New York and Buffalo, and on Friday, August 30, 1844, in Amund Endresen Hornefjeld’s barn on the Koshkonong Prairies in Wisconsin, preached his first sermon in the American West. From his one-room log parsonage, he immediately undertook to rule and order the vast, though chaotic, virgin church among the Norwegian Lutherans in America. Stressing his prerogatives as the first Lutheran pastor in America who had been ordained in Norway, he scrutinized carefully the ordinations of Elling Eielsen and Claus Lauritz, Clausen, both of whom had been ordained in America in 1843, and found Eiclsen’s ordination faulty, but Clausen’s at least passable.

Thus were sown the seeds of future controversies. With a keen strategic sense which he had inherited from forebears who had been prominent in church and state, Dietrichson drew up a pledge consisting of four points, and on this basis organized various Norwegian Lutheran congregations in Wisconsin.

Each of these congregations was given a constitution, these constitutions revealing such a remarkable insight into American Lutheran congregational needs that they have become the foundation for all subsequent organizational development in this field among Norwegian American Lutherans.

In order to secure pastors for his prolific American field in which new congregations could be organized almost at will, Dietrichson went to Norway in 1845, remaining one year.

By means of sermons, debates, articles in the newspapers, and, finally, a book, the title of which, in translation reads: Travels Among the Norwegian Emigrants in “The United North American Free States” (1846), he sought to interest the young clergy in the new field.

In this endeavor he was successful, attracting to the American Lutheran church some of the finest young clergymen that Norway has ever produced.

In 1850, feeling that his usefulness in America had come to an end, he issued a farewell sermon which was printed, and returned to Norway, where he held two pastorates, and the office of postmaster at Porsgrund from 1876 to 1882. In that year he suffered a stroke of paralysis which in the following year caused his death.

Achievements

• Dietrichson organized various Norwegian Lutheran congregations in Wisconsin. They became the foundation for all subsequent organizational development in this field among Norwegian American Lutherans.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A pioneer churchman: J. W. C. Dietrichson in Wisconsin, 1844-1850 (Publications of the Norwegian-American Historical Association)

    (Hardcover with dust Jacket 1973 265p. 8.75x5.60x1.00. AME...)

Connections

In 1841 Dietrichson lost his wife, Jorgine Laurense Broch, after two years of wedded life. While in Norway he was married again, this time Charlotte Mueller.

Father:

Fredrik Batington Dietrichson

Mother:

Karen Sophie Henriette (Radich) Dietrichson

First wife:

Jorgine Laurense Broch

Second wife:

Charlotte Mueller