Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 31, number 1, September 1947

              the founding of new amsterdam in la crosse county by henry s lucas k mong the immigrants who came to our country from the kingdom of the netherlands during the nineteenth century were several groups of friesians inhabitants of the prov ince of friesland the fact that they were subjects of holland and scarcely distinguishable from other netherlanders has caused the americans not conversant with conditions in friesland to confuse these two groups but the friesians really constituted a separate group even though they emigrated in company with other hollanders and usually settled in places where netherlanders established themselves they spoke the friesian tongue a branch of the germanic linguistic family which possesses curiously archaic forms that suggest a relationship with the gothic tongue of the days of ulfilas they also had some customs which marked them as being different from other hollanders.1 these people like the hollanders formed settlements in the state of wisconsin this paper is the first attempt at least in the english language to tell something of their history particularly of the group who in 1853 founded the friesian community of new amsterdam about a dozen miles north of prairie la crosse the friesians began to emigrate to the united states during the 1840's following the leadership of the rev albertus c van raalte who founded the large dutch colony in western michigan professor henry s lucas a member of the university of washington faculty has recently contributed several articles on dutch immigration to wisconsin this excellent sketch tells of the departure of a group of friesians from the province of friesland in february 1853 after suf fering shipwreck in the bahama islands they sailed up the mississippi river and established new amsterdam in la crosse county wisconsin 1 the united states government immigration statistics do not distinguish between friesians and other netherlanders 42