Swedish Settlement of Bishop Hill Is a Step Into 19th-Century Illinois

After feverish bouts of spring housecleaning, the villagers of Bishop Hill will throw wide their doors for a new season beginning April 6. And the entire population of 160 (41 are children) will put out the valkommen mat.

A bonfire signals the smoking out of demons of darkness. In their own version of the spring celebration Walspurgis Night, the Swedish descendants of early colonists gather on Saturday night at the Colony School, inviting anyone who has wood to burn.

Each adds a spark to a scrap-lumber blaze kindled by Mayor Rich Robertson, who also is the village woodworker. For the price of a stick, visitors can mingle with old-timers and their families for an evening of movies about Bishop Hill.

A National Historic Landmark about 150 miles southwest of Chicago, the village is open all year, though some of its enterprises close between January and April.

It is more than just a showcase. Restored 19th-Century buildings house a concentration of highly skilled artisans, Swedish-specialty restaurants and import and country-antique shops. Residents dolled up in 19th-Century clothes cheerfully demonstrate the old ways of farming and making foods such as butter and cheese, or the art of crafting handmade bricks and laying them to dry in the Illinois sun.

Special occasions become community events celebrated in museums and shops between free servings of coffee, pepparkakor and mor mors hjartes (both cookies). Restaurants prepare whopping batches of lingonberry pancakes.

As a special treat, musicians demonstrate homemade music with action songs and instruments as simple as kitchen spoons. Or fiddlers saw out one folk ditty after another.

Welcome to the promised land.

Bishop Hill was envisioned as a utopia from the first. When Erik Jansson fled central Sweden with his band of religious dissenters in 1846, he promised a better life with freedom to worship according to their--and his--beliefs.

Inspired by the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament, Jansson’s followers sold their belongings and pooled their kronor to make the voyage, hoping for the salvation offered by this charismatic preacher, who considered himself “as perfect as God is perfect.”

About 400 immigrants survived the arduous journey before the first winter, then one-quarter of them died on the cold prairie. Survivors sheltered in a few tents and simple cabins and caves dug out of a ravine. Jansson named the colony for his birthplace, Biskopskulla.

As others arrived, more than 1,000 in all, a growing housing shortage was met by erecting massive structures of hand-hewn timber and handmade bricks, where colonists worked, ate and lived together, sharing their skills and produce. Jansson thought big. One apartment known as “The Big Brick” contained 96 rooms and two dining halls.

The determined immigrants prospered on this fertile land. The colony’s holdings grew to 12,000 acres from which they exported farm produce, cloth, furniture, wagons and carriages--and their famous corn for making brooms.

Jansson was murdered by a former colonist in 1850 and disappointed his followers by failing to rise from the dead on the third day. Trustees took over the colony and managed it for 10 more years, but they added more to its debts than its faith and members began moving away. The collective was dissolved in 1861, 15 years after it was formed.

The village dreamed along for 100 years. “Big Brick” burned to the ground, and other old buildings were collapsing when one too many baseballs slammed through a window of the communal bakery-brewery. In 1961, it was torn down to make room for a bigger ball field.

Preservationists blew the whistle, organizing the Bishop Hill Heritage Assn. to preserve and interpret the past. The resurrection of Bishop Hill has been a cooperative effort, shared by this group, the Old Settlers’ Assn., Bishop Hill Arts Council and the state of Illinois. Out of 18 colony buildings, 13 still stand, although not all are open to the public.

The state maintains the village park and the architecturally Shaker-inspired Colony Church and Bjorklund Hotel, both open to the public as museums.

Also operated by the state is the Bishop Hill museum, which contains 96 works by the painter Olof Krans. The Henry County Historical Society Museum is open April through October. (Vasa Order of America, a Swedish lodge, has an archives there.)

The Heritage Assn. has rescued the classic Steeple Building, which houses the Heritage Museum and tour information center. Its landmark clock has four faces, each with only one hand. Ask why, and you’ll hear the traditional reply: “We don’t watch minutes . . . .”

The association also has restored the original store and several other colony and post-colony buildings, including the Blacksmith Shop and Poppy Barn, which are active craft centers.

In the Bishop Hill Museum, the grim portraits and primitive paintings of artist Olof Krans suggest that the promised land was not all fun and games. The scene is different today. Historians and entrepreneurs have joined hands, and the results are pure pleasure.

Proprietor Janet Arter started the renaissance when she renovated a century-old harness/shoe repair/barbershop and turned it into a craft outlet and Scandinavian tearoom that she calls The Red Oak.

Now the Valkommen Inn, P.L. Johnson Dining Room and Olson’s Family Tree Tearoom serve meatballs, lingonberry pastries, open sandwiches and other Swedish delicacies.

Local artisans are always ready to demonstrate their craft. Some are descendants, like quilter Marilyn Nelson, whose great-great-grandfather was a colony ox-boy.

Others, like silversmith Mary Davidsaver and traditional potter Gail Hintze, working in the Blacksmith Shop, have simply found a home for their talent.

But Bishop Hill is more than just an enjoyable place to shop and eat. The village shows how one group of immigrants added their distinctive patterns to the vast cultural patchwork of America.

GUIDEBOOK: What’s Happening in Bishop Hill

Getting there: Fly direct from Los Angeles to Chicago on Midway, United or American for about $200 round trip, advance purchase.

Bishop Hill is about 150 miles southwest of Chicago, off U.S. 34 in western Illinois, between Galesburg and Moline.

The five-acre State Historic Site is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Free admission. Shops and restaurants may be closed weekdays between January and April.

Where to stay: Accommodations in Bishop Hill are limited to Holden’s Guest House, a restored 1869 farmhouse at the east edge of town (reservations: 309-927-3500), and Country Hills Bed & Breakfast, a modern home 1 1/2 miles south (309-932-2886). More lodging and dining in nearby towns.

Special events: March 30--Presentation of songs and customs of the Colony dairy maids; handmade paper exhibits and crafts demonstrations. Heritage Museum, Steeple Building.

April 6-7--Season opening. “Homemade and traditional music” program, bonfire, crafts demonstrations, free coffee and cookies in all shops and museums.

June--Sunday afternoon folk concerts in the park.

Sept. 7--Old Settlers Day.

Sept. 28-29--Jordbruksdagna, the harvest festival.

Nov. 22-24, 30 and Dec. 1--Julmarknad, annual Christmas market based on medieval Swedish custom.

Dec. 13-14--Lucia Nights, the Festival of Lights, coffee and sweets served in museums and shops, singing groups and carolers perform.

Dec. 25--Julotta, a nondenominational Swedish/English service in the candlelit (but unheated) sanctuary of Colony Church.

For more information: Contact the Bishop Hill Arts Council, P.O. Box 47, Bishop Hill, Ill. 61419, (309) 927-3345 or (309) 927-3899, or the Bishop Hill Site Superintendent, P.O. Box D, Bishop Hill, Ill. 61419, (309) 927-3345.