Iver Paulsen

Iver Paulsen was born on 17 March 1853 at Snikkerplassen, a small farm at Hundorp in the Gudbrandsdal valley of Norway, and was baptized that May at the Sør-Fron parish church. He was the eldest son of the farmer Paul Olsen and Embjør Iversdater.

In 1873 he and his brother Ole left for America — the parish struck their names from the church books that May. Iver found his first work logging around Black River Falls, Wisconsin. By the family’s account he stood only about a meter and a half tall, “but he did more work than many larger men,” and on that reputation he was made a foreman.

After marrying Maude Irene Wright at Minneapolis in 1891, the couple bought a small hotel at City Point, Wisconsin. They ran it about five years, sold it around 1901, and took up a dairy farm of roughly a square mile and a half across the river. Iver had a restless, improving mind: he is remembered for “unconventional” experiments such as raising sorghum to make sugar for local use. He liked to say that back in Norway he had worked for a “rich” uncle who drove him hard and fed him poorly — and that this was why he came to America. He was a Free Mason, and he died at City Point on 5 April 1931.

This account is drawn entirely from the 2006 family report and its cited sources — Raeburn I. Paulson’s notes, Iver’s death certificate, the Sør-Fron church books, and a 1987 letter from Einar Hovdhaugen. It will be expanded as further research is done.