Another company The Union Furniture Co., was started the following year by the owners of the earlier company and some additional Swedes. with a capital of $50,000, half of which was paid in at the time. In 1875 fifteen Swedish laborers joined together and formed The Forest City Furniture Co. The Swedish contribution to the furniture industry in Rockford had a unique beginning. His son, Fritjof Nelson, is now one of the leading men in the Rockford knitting industry. Soon his product was produced in a number of Rockford factories and patented in United States and many European countries. While operating his own cabinet shop he worked at various inventions and after much experimenting completed in 1873 the remarkable knitting machine that produced in a few minutes a finished hose with double heel. The father of the knitting industry was John Nelson, a cabinet maker and inventor who was born in Karrakra, Vastergotland, Sweden, April 5, 1830, and emigrated to America in 1852, locating in Rockford the same year. In the forefront of these are the Knitting industry and the Furniture industry which were both started and developed through their initial stages by Swedish immigrants. The Swedes of Rockford have taken a very active and prominent part in the upbuilding of some of the leading industries of the city. If the third generation be included, the Swedish descendants in Rockford must be approximately 35,000. According to the census of 1930 there resided in Rockford at that time 10,088 persons born in Sweden and 12,243 born in America of Swedish parents. The numerous factories established in the city with consequent opportunity for employment attracted more and more of the Swedish laboring class until Rockford became known as one of the Swedish population centers in the United States. In 1854 the Swedes in Rockford numbered approximately 1,000, in 1862 about 2,000, and ten years later about 3,500. In 1853 a few more Swedes came, and during 18 a larger number, some directly from Sweden and some from Chicago after a brief stay in that city. Charles, Ill., he found ahead of him a few Swedish families and single men who had arrived shortly before.
Among them was John Nelson who afterwards became famous as the inventor of the Nelson Knitting Machine. The first Swedes arrived in Rockford in 1852. Rockford was incorporated as a town in 1839 and after a long struggle was made the county seat by election the same year. Haight and her sister were the first white women to settle in Winnebago county. His cabin, built that year, was the first building on the east side. The first settler on the East side was Daniel Shaw Haight who arrived April 9, 1835. The village was first called Midway because of its location midway between Chicago and Galena, but from 1837 became known as Rockford, presumably named for a shallow place in the river with a rock bottom where the Indians and later the white settlers crossed the stream. Each of them located a claim and built a log cabin. They arrived on the site August 24, 1834. The first white settlers in what is now Rockford were Germanicus Kent and Thatcher Blake. The county war organized in August, the same year.
Winnebago county was established by an act of the State Legislature of Illinois January 16, 1836. He also operated a store, established a ferry and in 1842 built a bridge across the Rock river.
There he planted a village which he called Macktown. Mack took possession of a tract of land at the mouth of the Pecatonica river where he resided until his death. He married an Indian woman, daughter of a Pottawattamie chief. He engaged in trade with the Indians, taking their fur in exchange for merchandise. He was also the first white settler in the Rock River valley. The exact date is not known, but it was probably about 1829. Stephen Mack, a Vermonter, was the first white man who made a permanent settlement in Winnebago county. Rockford's Early History and Some of Its Swedish-born Industries LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN Source: "The Swedish Element In Rockford: Industrial, Religious and Social Activities of Men and Women of Swedish Descent" by O. The Swedish Element in Rockford in Winnebago County, Illinois
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