October 21, 2025, 5:00 PM MDT
On October 9, 1825, Kari Pedersdatter and Cornelius Nilsen set sail from Stavanger, Norway, in a sloop, or one-masted sailing ship, called the Restoration and landed in America. They were one of the first groups of Norwegian nationals to immigrate to America.
On October 9 of this year, exactly 200 years after the original restaurant arrived in New York, Mr. Pedersdatter and Mr. Nilsen’s third great-grandson, Steve Washburn, and his daughter, Olivia, witnessed the arrival of the sloop replica in Lower Manhattan, New York. The ship left the same port in Stavanger on July 4, the same day as her first voyage, and spent 70 days on the open sea.
Seeing the replica arrive was especially meaningful to Olivia Washburn, who was serving in Stavanger as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when the restaurant left for New York earlier this year, according to a news release from ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
“It’s very special to celebrate our ancestors who sacrificed so much,” she said. “I am very grateful for the journey that the Norwegian people took 200 years ago.”
Seeking religious freedom
The Norwegian government organized a commemorative trip to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Norwegian immigration to the United States, and church members joined in the celebration to honor Norwegian ancestors and their contributions to the church.
Many early Norwegian immigrants came to the United States seeking religious freedom. Sunday School general president Paul V. Johnson said that nearly half of the members who joined the church in Norway immigrated to the United States.
Some of the restaurant’s original passengers immigrated to Fox River, Illinois, where they helped found the church’s first non-English speaking congregation in 1842, according to the church’s European Newsroom.
“The early Norwegian Saints were very important to the growth of the Church,” President Johnson said. “They came at a time when the church needed strength.”
President Johnson has many Norwegian ancestry and served in Norway as a young missionary 50 years ago. He said it was a powerful experience to watch the ship come into port and witness the connection between Norway and the church.
Crown Prince Haakon of Norway also appeared at the celebration and spoke about immigrants’ quest for freedom.
“The millions of stories that make up two centuries of Norwegian immigration to the United States tell of hopes and disappointments, successes and hardships, but above all they are a testament to generations of Norwegians inspired by the desire for a new life of freedom and possibility,” the Crown Prince said.
Rolf Idar Isaksen, the church’s Norwegian historian, also attended the celebration and was pleased to have the opportunity to remember and pay homage to Norwegian immigrants.
“This was an opportunity for us to step further out of obscurity,” he said. “We have a common ground of concern for our ancestors and we want to celebrate (the immigrants) who sought religious freedom. And this is a story that should be part of the history of Norwegian immigration.”
Connect with your ancestors
Many church members participated in this festival to remember their Norwegian ancestors.
One such member, Ivan Nelson, discovered through FamilySearch that he was related to all but two of the original “slopers,” as the immigrants were called. Two people unrelated to him turned out to be his wife’s ancestors.
“It was more than just a sailing,” Nelson said of the celebration. “It’s part of my history, it’s part of my ancestors. There’s a spiritual connection there.”
The current restaurant captain, Ker Morten Lones, also felt the importance of connections with the original immigrants.
“We hope (the attendees) will make friends with the restaurant and feel proud to be descendants of the original Slopers,” he said. “I hope they feel connected to Norway and that we are all one people and friends.”
To learn more about the original Sloper, visit FamilySearch’s Celebrate Crossings 200 page. There you can find short biographies of the 49 immigrants, see their relationships with the voyagers, see a timeline of the ships’ voyages, and more.
Additionally, the Church History Library in Salt Lake City will open an exhibit on the Crossing 200 Project on July 1st and will run through November 30th.
