Swedish Consulate General Visits RTPI
Swedish Consulate General Leif Pagrotsky visited Jamestown, a city rich with Swedish American history, on May 22nd. The Consulate General of Sweden in New York focuses on the promotion of Sweden. This includes coordination and support of events to showcase Swedish culture and promote Swedish interests in the New York area as well as facilitating exchange between organizations, companies and institutions in Sweden and the U.S. Jane Johnson and Linda Pierce were thrilled to have the opportunity to give the Consul General a tour of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, and to provide him with a...
Read MoreRoyal Visitors
In 1976, 29-year-old King Carl Gustav XVI of Sweden made a visit to America in observance of the bicentennial. He chose to visit Jamestown because of its significance in Swedish settlement in the United States, and Hessel Valley Lutheran Church in Chandler’s Valley, a village in northwestern Pennsylvania, because of the church’s significance in Swedish immigration. Hessel Valley was the mother church to many of the Lutheran congregations in the eastern United States, including First Lutheran in Jamestown, N.Y. Many Swedish Americans searching for their roots end up at Hessel Valley asking...
Read MoreSwedes of Jamestown
This photo from the RTPI archives depicts Roger Tory Peterson and Sir Lorimer Moe (knighted by the Swedish government on behalf of King Carl Gustaf XVI) at Bass Rock in Scotland. Lorimer Moe was a son of Jamestown, New York, who went on to become an outstanding newspaperman and diplomat. In the early days when RTPI was just an idea, Lorimer, Roger’s high school classmate, took the lead in enlisting broad support for the idea of an Institute in Roger’s birthplace, to honor his work and house his collections. In fact, the Institute’s charter was signed in his home, on a dining table that...
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