Representative Claus Lauritz Clausen View All Years
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Claus Lauritz Clausen
Mitchell County
Born at Borges, Tranderup Parish, AEro, Denmark, November 3, 1820. He was a lay minister in Drammen, Norway prior to immigrating to America during 1842. Mr. Clausen was ordained during 1843 and organized the first Norwegian Lutheran congregation that came out of the state church tradition within the Muskego Settlement. He also organized and served as pastor of several nearby churches including Heart Prairie Lutheran Church. Mr. Clausen accepted a call during 1846 from Norwegian-settlers in the Jefferson Prairie Settlement. He relocated from the Muskego Settlement and made Rock County, Wisconsin the center for his activities among the settlements in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, remaining until 1853. In 1850, he was editor of the Norwegian language newspapers, Maanedstidende and Kirketidende as well as the successor newspaper Emigranten, all published in Inmansville in Rock County. During 1853, Mr. Clausen was one of three pastors who organized the Synod of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America commonly known as the Norwegian Synod. He was one of the leading members of a Synod committee appointed to supervise the creation of Luther College during 1857. Mr. Clausen was elected to the Iowa General Assembly during 1856-1859, serving in the Iowa House of Representatives. At the outback of the American Civil War, he would serve as army chaplain from 1861-62 under the command of Colonel Hans C. Heg within the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment, more popularly known as the “Scandinavian Regiment”. He served as the Iowa Commissioner to the Paris Exposition Universelle (1867). In 1868 he resigned from the Synod of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and helped organize the Conference of the Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America becoming its first president from 1870 until 1872.
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