Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1873-07-03
THE NTI-COLUMBUs
BUSINESS.
Who Was the Dlscoverer Of
=
4..4s2I America. nt

The Madison (Wis.) Journal givel
the following: ,i
Ole Bull, Professor r. B. Anderson
of the Wisconsin University, Senatu
J. A. johnson and other prominen1
Norwegians, are raising money tf
build monument to Left Erickson.
Left Erickson, whose name is to bt
inscribed upon the monument, was q
bold navigator who discovered Amer
lea In the year 200. That is what the
Sagas say, and circumstantial evidenct
tends to corroborate the Icelandic re
cords. In Washington Irving's "Lifs
Of Columbus" published in 1927, he
says: "If the legends of the Scandi'
nayian voyages be correct, and theil
mysterious Vinland was the coast q
Labrador. or the shores of NeWfound'
land, they had but transient glimpses
of the New World. leading to no GER
tain knowledge, and little time los'
again to mankind."s .hu ,.l{ .t
But at that time there We're in Copen'
hagen untranslated Icelandie manu-.
scripts (Sagas, giving an account of the
early discoveries of America These
were. translated by the celebrated Prof.
Charles Rain (ths best authority on
Northern antiquities that ever lived, J
and published in 1887. Irving speaks
of these Sagas in the appendix to his
edition of 1858. But he derived his
knowledge of them from Forester's
works, and says he had not the means
of tracing the story to its original
sources. He adds, however, "there is
no great improbability that such enter
prising and rowing voyagers as the
Scandinavians may have wandered to
the northern shores of America, and if
Icelandic manuscripts can be relied
upon as genuine, free from modern in
terpolation, and correctly quoted, they
would appear to prove the fact.
We have seen these Sagas, printed
in Icelandic, now in the possession of
Professor Anderson, and examined fac
SMILES from the original Icelandie
manuscript, and can discover no evil
dences of Interpolation. In fact, the
high character of Professor Rain pre-
cludes the idea that there is any at
tempt at imposition. We think the
Sagas clearly entitled to be shown in
evidences as historical records, and it
appears fiom them that Bjarne Her
julfson, Norwegian, owner and cap
lain of vessel, was on his way to
Greenland to see his father in 986. The
compass was not then invented, and a
violent wind drifted him southwark
through the fog. When it cleared he
was in sight of Vinland, but finding
himself too far south, he proceeded
northward to Greenland. He subse-
quently returned to Norway, and was
greatly blamed because he did not
go ashore at Vinland. ...'-'
The Norwegians who discovered Ice
land in s61, and Greenland in 9S4, were
looking forward to still more
lands in the West. Left Erickson, son
of Erik the Red, who had discovered
Greenland, bought Barnes ship, and
thirty-five men, and, guided
by directions from Bjarne, and by the
stars for his compass, sailed for Amer.
lea. In the year 1000 he landed at
Vinland, and spent the winter at or
near Fall River, Mass, where seven
years afterwards Thorfin Karlsevne
and his party left the famous "Dighton
Writing Rock" inscription. In 1902
there was an expedition to Viniand by
ThOrwald Erickson, who was pierced
by an arrow md died there, and, ac-
cording to the description of the Sagas,
it seems that he was buried at Garnet
Point. About forty years ago a skele-
ton in armor was dug up in that vicin-
ity. Longfellow had written a poem
about this, and the Archaeological So
ciety in Boston sent part Of the armor
to the celebrated chemist, Berzelius,
who analyzed it, finding it to be of the
precise composition of Norwegian
armor during the tenth century, and it
was the same style Of manufacture.
The next expedition was under
Thorfin, mentioned above, who left the
writing on the rock which corresponds
with the account in the Sagas. He had
his wife and l5l men, and stayed three
years, and Snorre, his son, was borne