|
 Full
norwegian version
The birth of the
town Haugesund - in spite of bad odds
Short, english summary of the full norwegian
language article.
Written by:
Eirik Hustvedt (c)
Publishedt: 28. februar
2003
Sources:
1) Overlærer L. Halvorsen: Haugesund
i 50 år (1916)
2) Trygve Kongshavn /
Margit Westbøe: Haugesund kommunale administrasjon
i 75 år
3) Reidar Østensjø: Haugesund
1835-1895
4) Cappelens leksikon
Haugesund
is said to be built on herring bones, but
it was Kopervik that lead on in the competition
to become the important place and town
in the Karmsund region.
Back in the
1700's and the beginning of the 1800's,
the larger and older towns Stavanger and
Bergen protected their trading rights
in a way that made it almost impossible
to establish any kind of business og trade
activity in our region. In Haugesund, there
were only 15 inhabitant in 1800. Skudenes,
established by Stavanger based tradesmen,
had a population of 50, and Kopervik a couple
of hundreds. In 1835 Kopervik had developed
into a busy little coast town with fishermen,
merchants, their own school, and even a
customs office. The growth was based on
the rich fisheries in the areas around Karmøy,
and Kopervik felt confident that this was
the best place to establish packhouses,
salting facilites for the herring and a
trade centre for the whole region. And -
the county authorities in Stavanger, beeing
forced to work for changes in the Karmsund
region, worked for Kopervik, as long as
it was the largest and most developed place
in the northern Stavanger region. 
The herring came in huge quantities in the years
following 1808. Before that, the swedish
west coast had lots of it, but luckily for
us, it moved over here. The best fishing
places were around Skudeneshavn and in the
ocean areas north west of Haugesund. Bergen
was the trade capitol of western Norway,
and they came down here for fisheries. But
as they had to depend on right wind
to get home fast with their good hauls,
the fish was often rotten or of bad quality
when reaching Bergen. The national authorities
made a law in 1775, to force the Bergen
tradesmen to build packhouses and wooden
barrel packing and salting facilities closer
to the fishing places. But they neglected
this - until they saw for themselves that
they had to make changes. In the 1840's
they started building in Haugesund, and
we still have got some of their old packhouses
on Kortanes, built in typical Bergen style.
Until mid
1800, there were no road systems, except
for bad horseride paths, between the different
parts of "Haugalandet" (This is
a new name for the region). People
living in the northern parts (Sunnhordland)
and southern parts (Ryfylke, Bokn and
southern Karmøy) had no normal connections.
The northern areas "belonged"
to Bergen, the southern to Stavanger. And
Kopervik was south of the areas with Bergen
influence. Haugesund was not.
Back in the
1700- and 1800's, the Smedasundet and Haugesundet
areas were part of Torvastad community (Torvastad
is the northern part of Karmøy island, just
west of Haugesund). They worked hard to
make Haugesund an alternative to Kopervik.
At last they managed to get representatives
from the Bergen region as members of the
commities working to make plans that
could be accepted for the development of
our region.
Haugesund
was perfectly situated close to the fishing
fields, and had lots of areas that could
be developed for buildings, homes and streets.
And it was on the mainland. And the
place grew very fast in the 1840's
and early 1850's, due to the extremely rich
fisheries.
Kopervik,
in spite of beeing developed through a century,
was not easy accesible in wrong wind conditions,
in a time when small sailships and -vessels
were used to transport the catches.
To make a
long story short: At last, August 26, 1854,
Haugesund was granted rights to be what
we call ladested (small coastal town) -
with rights to develop itself. And it did.
Through the next 20-30 years it became one
of the leading fishery and shipping towns
of Norway.
Kopervik was granted the rights of ladested in
1866. The very same year Haugesund became
a Kjøpstad (provincial town with its own
administration of justice, and unrestricted
trading rights).
(c)
eirik hustvedt 2003
Disse
artiklene kan bli endret og utrustet med
illustrasjoner mm. når det er mulig
eller påkrevd.
|
