Halloween Night, 2022
Settling in for a spooky night, someone started a horror movie -- a genre I don't like. Instead I resumed my research project on a family of soldiers. Little did I know that by the end of the evening I would stumble over a real-life horror story in the church records of Sweden.
The Life of Anders Pehrsson Sik
Anders was born on 28 March 1783, in the parish of Stora Malm, Södermanland, Sweden. He was the youngest child of crofter Pehr Pehrsson and his second wife, Brita Ericsdotter, who lived at a farm named Horskiärr. Anders and his three older brothers would all become allotment soldiers (see cultural background), and their youngest sister would marry a soldier. Only their oldest half-sister would avoid the military life. I had followed each of the older children throughout their lives. That night it was time to follow the youngest.
The children all left home to become apprentices or to find jobs when they were between the ages of 12 and 17. With several children dying young, Anders was 5 years younger than Greta and his brothers were older by 8 to 14 years. He probably grew up not really knowing his brothers, but admiring them. When he was 7, his oldest brother, Eric, become a soldier at age 21.
Eric Pehrsson took the position of soldier 5, with the military name Eric Snack. He replaced a soldier who had died, probably in Finland, during a war between Sweden and Russia. When Eric took the position, Anders and his parents moved into his soldier torp along with him.
Eric is not recorded in the church records for a few years, so he was probably away on military duty, though the war had ended. His family must have enjoyed the benefits of the position in his absence. Pehr would no longer have to pay for his croft through his labor. He would instead have worked the fields that accompanied the soldier torp and may have assisted the farmers, as Eric would have done. Anders would have worked with his father.
Eric returned with lungsot, consumption, but married and had a son. Anders and his parents moved out about the time the baby was born, in 1795. At age 12, Anders was old enough to become an apprentice and he spent the next few years moving between his parents and a shoemaker. He watched two more older brothers become soldiers. In 1797, Carl became soldier 107, with the surname Hjelte, moving to a neighboring parish. Jonas became soldier 22, in 1798, with the surname Flink.
Eric Pehrsson Snack died in 1800, when 17-year-old Anders was too young to take over the rote. But the following year he had the opportunity to follow his brothers into the military. The clerical survey for Mostugan reported that the shoemaker's worker, Anders Pehrsson, born in 1783, came from the home of soldier 5 by 1798, and left in 1801, with the name Anders Sik. He had turned 18 on March 28, and was named as a soldier recruit on the same day. That coordination was probably prearranged.
Using the Central Soldier Register to look up Anders Sik, from Stora Malm parish, I learned that he served the Forssjöqvarn rote and his soldier number was 13. Had I been superstitious, I would have stopped the moment I saw that number. No good could possibly come from following the number 13 on Halloween night. However, I pressed on to learn about his life.
Anders Pehrsson Sik married Stina Pehrsdotter on 5 December 1801, soon after he was approved by the military as a soldier. She was 11 years older and had worked as a cook at nearby Ericsberg Palace, so he probably married her for her skills in the kitchen. The couple never had children, instead fostering a couple of boys. The military records show that he was a shoemaker, so he may have continued his training and eventually taken the boys as apprentices.
Sweden entered the Napoleonic wars in 1805. Just before that, Anders' sister Greta married soldier 12, a widower named Eric Fast. The three brothers and their brother-in-law were all serving in the same company. Their regiment served in Pomerania between about 1805 and September, 1807, when Sweden surrendered. Anders' brother, Carl Pehrsson Heltje, and brother-in-law, Eric Fast, had both been discharged before June of 1807.
Anders Pehrsson Sik and his brother Jonas Pehrsson Flink, my ancestor, were in Pomerania as the Swedish military fought the French and her allies for control. Their Södermanland battalion fought on the east side, the left flank as described on the page about the Great Sortie of Stralsund. On 20 June 1807, their company conducted a muster at Greifswald, south of Stralsund. The surviving men were documented, including Anders and Jonas. At the end of July, the Swedish Army was pushed back north to Stralsund, where they endured a month-long siege by the French. Eventually the surviving troops withdrew to the island of Rügen.
Jonas died on 23 August, the day before Stralsund was surrendered and two weeks before Rügen was surrendered. His death location and details are unknown, but I hope that Anders was by his side at the end. As Anders retreated to Sweden with the rest of the troops, his heart would have been heavy. He would have had to go home and share the sad news with his elderly father, his siblings, and Jonas' wife and three young children.
Anders Pehrsson Sik was the last man in his immediate family to serve as a soldier after 1807. He appears to have served additional deployments throughout the era of the Napoleonic Wars, as there are gaps in the church records. Sweden entered a period of peace when Napoleon was defeated for the second time, at the end of 1815. Anders would have settled into a more normal life, attending occasional military musters, farming and possibly working as a shoemaker or cobbler. I followed Anders and his wife through several books of clerical surveys. I was surprised that he continued as a soldier, especially considering his wartime service.
The Death of Anders Pehrsson Sik
The clerical survey book for 1826-1828 was puzzling. The couple were crossed out and a new soldier was listed for the rote, starting in 1828. There was nothing in the moving out columns. Death would usually be indicated by a cross next to the name and the word död (dead) with a date. The far right column, used for notes, had the couple bracketed together, along with a note that was small and a bit hard to read. I failed to take the time to read and translate that note. I saw that it referenced the death book, so opened that first, to my regret.
The note, now that I understand it, would have been a caution to not read the death book late at night.
Kropps Brådligheter och Lefnads Omständigheter
1826-11-09, först mördade och sedan upbrännde tillika med stugubyggningen, banemannen se dödboken för 1826-11-09
Translated:
[Header] Fragility of Body and Circumstances of Life
1826-11-09, first murdered and then burned together with the cottage building, [for] the murderers see death book for 1826-11-09
Before reading the details, what about the killers? Within three weeks, the murderers were identified as soldier 28, Eric Lind, and farmhand Carl Sundin, a newly recruited soldier. Their intent had been to steal from the sleeping Sik family, but the plan went very wrong when the couple woke up. After killing the couple, the men took a pocket watch, a pewter cup, a coat, a pair of trousers and 25 riksdaler and 32 skilling in cash (about $240 in 2015). They then set the cabin on fire to destroy the evidence. They were tried and sentenced within five months. Exactly one year after the murder, the pair were publicly executed near the place where they murdered the couple.
The death book (Stora Malm F:2 Image 34) tells some gory details of both the murder and the executions. If you are squeamish, you may want to stop right here. The images conjured by these descriptions haunted my sleep and stayed with me for a few days.
There are three separate notations, as seen in the image below. Any errors in transcription or translation are mine.
Soldaten Anders Sik och hans hustru Stina Pehrsdotter vid no 13 om morgonen den 9de Nov fanns deras stugubygg, nad nedbrännd och deras squeletter liggande på stugagolvet. Medelst skedd undersökning af provincial Läkaren Doctor Martin befanns marker efter yxhugg i axelbenet på Sik och uti halskotoma på hustru, hvaraf anledning att bofvar först mördat dem, och derefter sändteld på byggningen, för att dölja ogjemingen.
Translated:
The soldier Anders Sik and his wife Stina Pehrsdotter, living at number 13. On the morning of the 9th of November, their cabin was found burnt down and their skeletons lying on the cabin floor. Through an examination by the provincial doctor, Doctor Martin, marks from an ax cut were found in the shoulder bone of Sik and in the cervical vertebrae of the wife, which is why the thugs first murdered them, and then set fire to the building, to hide the crime.
Second:
Dessas brände ben återfunnas i en gift, som uplogs d. 26 Oct 1847.
betygar P.U. Noren
Translated:
Their burnt bones were found in a grave, which was exhumed on 26 Oct 1847.
attest P.U. Noren
Third:
Soldaten No 28 för Walla rote Eric Lind och recryton [rekryten], drängen i Walla, Carl Sundin blefvo förvunne att hafva begått dessa nidings jemingar, och desfore dömde att mista högra händerne, halshuggas och steglas. De ense qvarades den 9 November 1827.
Translated:
The soldier No. 28 for Walla rote, Eric Lind, and the recruit, a farmhand in Walla, Carl Sundin, were found guilty of having committed these crimes, and therefore sentenced to lose their right hands, beheaded and quartered. The same was held on 9 November 1827.
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| Death record for Anders Sik and wife Stina Pehrsdotter Stora Malm, Södermanland, Book F:2 Image 34 |
Sources
- Church records for birth, death, marriage, clerical survey, moving in and out: Stora Malm, Lunda
- Stora Malm Mantals tax records
- Oppunda häradsrätt probate records
- Generalmönsterrullor - Södermanlands regemente, Livkompaniet (1789 through 1830)
- Central Soldier Register
- Rotter.se Avrättade (Roots Database of Executions)
- Google Translate
- Google Maps
- Wikipedia
- Historical Currency Converter
- Lantmateriet.se Historical Maps
- Three part blog series clarifying Jonas Pehrsson Flink (part one, part two, part three)
