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Morris, Minn. June 25, 1964
Theodore C. Blegen
Minnesota Historical Society
St. Paul, Minn.
Dear Mr. Blegen;
Received your letter of the 22nd, relating to the Kensington Rune Stone.
I am the son of Samuel A. Sieverts, the cashier of the Kensington bank in 1898 and 1899, and we moved to Morris in the summer of 1899. My fathere passed out some years back. I am about seventy nine years old now and at the time of the Rune stone find was about thirteen or fourteen.
My father with John Wedum, Sam Olson, and Lillyquist, as I remember it went out in a hired rig and brought the stone in and it was placed in the back room of the bank. It was dark colored and even had some black dirt on it at the time. It was found as the farmer was clearing and gribbing some land. In those days about all the early settleres sawd trees down and sold or used them for fuel. The grubbed the cut over places so they could sow to grain, usually wheat, oats and barley.
My father came from Bergen Norway at seventeen for Harold Thorson in NOrthfield, for whom he worked most of his life. His father was a sea captain and lived on an island out of Bergen, Brandysund, all them folks there were fishermen. My father stated that the stone was exactly like the ballast stones used in the fishing boats. In fact there is no rock or stone in western Minnesota of the same kind. Possibly on the north shore one might find something like it. Now the stone after being dried out is a very light color. It can be viewed in Alexandria with a number of other finds that seem to support it being the real thing. Many findings and history support it also.
My fathere as I remember it sent the stone in to the University and as you mention, this Profesoor O. J. Breda, considered it a hoax, basing it entirely on the two letters AV. catholic for preserve us from evil. Among this groupe must have been a relgious man who knew something about the Roman or Latin which is used to this day by the Catholic church.
As mentioned above we moved to Morris, Minn. and the Rune stone was forgotten by us and even people living there for some time. I believe John Wedum must have gotten the stone and after moving to Alexandria maybe with others, followed up on its investigations.
I have no papers from my father nor do I know of any that would shed any light on the stone.
In 1913 I with my wife homesteaded on the forth Berthold Reservation in D. D. and learned that for many years back they had a white Indian in their tribe. He has since died but the City Sunday paper some years back had a full page with pictures on him. This also is the only Indian tribe in the U.S. that has never risen up against the white people. One of more of the ill fated groupe of Vikin after the Rune Stone making was left, may or must have gotten in with the Mandan Indians and lived an left their ofspring in this tribe.
The first Rune Stone celebration I was hit for a dollar button when calling on the liquor store in Kensington. After lunch at the bartender invitation I went back in store and met the son of the farmer who found the stone. If his father was no more brilliant he never could have thought up or made the stone marker.
Very Truly, Ing T. Sieverts.
(MHS - Blegen Papers)
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