From Orsa to Stanchfield

Welcome

This project is a joint effort between Dave Marshall, the former sexton of the Stanchfield Baptist Cemetery and Lynn Fergusson, granddaughter of a Baptist immigrant from Orsa, Sweden. To date, over 1000 of the persons buried in Stanchfield have been identified, their families researched, and their connections to others in the cemetery documented. The resulting community tree has over 11,000 names, all connected in some way to each other. Many of the families have been traced back to the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

To archive the history of the SBC and its members

To document the chain migration from the parish of Orsa to the town of Stanchfield

To be a resource both for Americans looking for their Orsa ancestors, or Orsa descendants wondering what happened to relatives who emigrated to the US in the 19th and early 20th century.

Short History of the Stanchfield Baptist Church

In June 1862, shortly after the signing of the Homestead Act, a group of thirty-five men, women and children left Orsa bound for Minnesota. Among them were 3 Baptist families, seeking not only land but a chance to practice their faith in peace. They set up their homesteads in young Isanti County, and in the following years were joined by more arrivals from Orsa, many of them also Baptists. In 1866 the Stanchfield Baptist Church was officially founded, with 25 charter members.

Against all odds, and despite many setbacks, the fledgling church survived and thrived, and by the mid-1880s had become one of the most active, and certainly most homogenous, Swedish Baptist communities in Minnesota. According to author Robert Ostergren, over 80 percent of Stanchfield households in 1885 were immigrants from Orsa and nearly 60 percent of those were members of the Stanchfield Baptist Church. The SBC was, in effect, another Orsa parish.

In the fall of 2021 the church will proudly celebrate its 155th anniversary.