Settling Preston, Idaho: The David, Serena, and Julia Jensen Family
R. Devan Jensen America is a land of immigrants. People traveled here for a variety of reasons, including discontent with meager circumstances in their former homeland. Many came for religious reasons, including converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (nicknamed Mormons because of their acceptance of the Book of Mormon as scripture comparable to the Bible). Between 1850 and 1905, Scandinavia produced 22,653 Mormon converts who immigrated to America. Fifty-six percent were Danes, 32 percent Swedes, and 11 percent Norwegians. [i] This paper is a microhistory of the original settling of Preston, Idaho, by European immigrants, including Norwegian immigrants David Jensen (1835–1909), Bertha Sørine Simensdatter ( anglicized as Serena or Serina Petersen, 1841–84), and Julia Konstance Simensdatter (anglicized as Petersen, 1851–1920). Preston was founded in northern Cache Valley, a semiarid valley straddling southeastern Idaho and northern Utah. This is a story of t