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via New York and had gone north and west and had sailed along the Great Lakes to Upper Michigan, and although he still had £17 English money in his pocket, he stopped in Calumet to work in the copper mines, to earn money enough to buy himself a piece of land. From Calumet he went on to Minnesota, as so many after him were to do. Delighted with what he found in Minnesota, he wrote a letter to Finland describing the new land. The result was

that two friends of his, Matt Jacobson and John Matson (Lehto)

saved enough money to buy themselves steamship tickets, set forth on their journey, and landed in New York with a slip of paper in their hands - "John Piippo, Moe Township, U.S.A." was written on it - which was all they had to go by. They had no idea of the distance between New York and Minnesota, and since they knew not a word of English, how could anyone have explained it to them? And since they had no money to buy train tickets in any case, they simply started out to hike, in the direction "where Piippo lived," showing their slip of paper many a time on the way. It took them two months to walk to their

destination. 80

Ten years or so later it was much easier for new arrivals. Since the Northern Pacific Railroad was aware how important would be the reports these immigrants sent back home in maintaining a continued influx of population into the area, everything possible was done to give the immigrants a warm reception and to make further travel arrangements for them. Evidence of this appears in the letter George Sheppard wrote Karl Möllersvärd in 1873: after mentioning that he has received notification of the group's departure, he stated his pleasure at their impending arrival, by which time arrangements would be ready for their trip inland to their final destination : the railroad's Quebec representative, Mr. Holloway, had already been assigned to meet the group there and to assist them, while Captain Ward of the Central and Pacific had been instructed to reserve enough space for them on the ship to Duluth, where they were again to be met and their trip expedited. This particular group did run into some difficulty, however: the lake steamer broke down before their departure and caused some delay, and the new escort for the group, a Mr. Swanberg, was furious because it had been overlooked to send along an interpreter for a group in which no one spoke a word of anything but Finnish.

80. V. G. Barberg, op. cit.

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