dedicated in Kendall About fifty people, some Norwegian, met on a raw afternoon Saturday, October 16 to dedicate a historical marker that commemorates the settlement of the first group of Norwegian immigrants to North America in October 1825. Located at the corner of Bald Eagle Drive and Norway Road in Kendall, the maker is placed on the former farm of Jacob Anderson Slogvik, one of the original immigrant group. It memorializes the 52 Norwegians who took a three month and five day journey across the Atlantic on the sloop Restoration, hence the nickname "Sloopers." After arriving in New York City on October 9, 1825, they continued on by boat on the Erie Canal to Holley and then overland to the Kendall area where they settled on land alongside Lake Ontario from Norway Road to Kendall Road. They were the first immigrant group to travel on the Erie Canal. Norwegians stayed a few years and most then went west to the Fox River Settlement in Illinois. The marker was placed as a result of the combined efforts of the Sons of Norway Lodge in Rochester and Kendall Historian Joette Knapp. The brief ceremony started with an invocation by former minister George Utech, a Norwegian, some comments from Bill Andrews, president of the Sons of Norway Lodge in western New York, who led a small group singing the Norwegian National Anthem, and an entertaining history of the settlers by Kendall Town Historian Joette Knapp. A short prayer and the singing of "America" wrapped up the event. Photographs by Walter Horylev.
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