H. O. Gilbertson, a prosperous farmer from Ulen township, Minnesota, overcame hardships and developed a successful farm, owning 200 acres of productive land. He arrived in the U.S. two years before his father, who settled in Clay County at the age of eighty-eight. Married to Miss Astra Herbransen, they had seven children, with several now living on the family homestead.
H. O. Gilbertson is a prosperous and substantial farmer of Ulen township, Clay County, Minnesota. He is a native of Halinjdahl, Norway, and was born in 1854, and is a son of Gilbert Olsen, who came from Norway in 1877, and settled on a tract of land in Hajen township, Clay County, where he still lives at the age of eighty-eight years.
Our subject came to this country two years before his father, going first to Houston County, Minnesota, and moving thence to his present location on Section 22, Ulen township, in Clay County, being the first settler in that part of the township. The second was Ellenj Ellenjson.
Mr. Gilbertson began in a small way breaking up and cultivating his farm, using an ox team both to work his land and haul his products to market, Hawley being his early trading point, living in a small log cabin, and experiencing all the privations and hardships incident to subduing a tract of wild land and making a home in a new country.
Mr. Gilbertson, by his industry and thrift, has increased his holdings with the development of the country, and now owns in Ulen township 200 acres of fine productive land, well improved, besides eighty acres in Hajen township, and is counted one of the wideawake prosperous farmers of Clay county. With his family, Mr. Gilbertson affiliates with the Lutheran church.
He married Miss Astra Herbransen, who is deceased. Of seven children born to them, Julia, the eldest, is married to Mr. Guhl Hanson and lives at Spring Grove, N. D.; Gilbert, the oldest son, is a farmer and lives on the home farm; Carl married Miss Erma Olson; Olava is married to Elias Nordness; Annie is married, and Helmer and Alma live on the family homestead.
Source
C.F. Cooper & Company, History of the Red River Valley, Past And Present: Including an Account of the Counties, Cities, Towns And Villages of the Valley From the Time of Their First Settlement And Formation, volumes 1-2; Grand Forks: Herald printing company, 1909.