Background
Heg was born at Haugestad in the community of Lierbyen in Lier, Buskerud, Norway on December 21, 1829. He was the eldest of the four children of an innkeeper. His father, Even Hansen Heg (1790–1850), moved his family to America in 1840, settling in the Muskego Settlement in Wisconsin. Hans Heg was eleven years old when his family arrived in Muskego. He soon earned a reputation for himself as being a gifted boy.
At twenty years old, lured by the discovery of gold in the Sacramento Valley, he and three friends joined the army of "Forty-Niners". He spent the next two years prospecting for gold in California. Upon the death of his father, he returned to the Muskego area in 1851. He married Gunhild Einong, daughter of a Norwegian immigrant.
Heg became a rising young politician who found slavery abhorrent. He naturally became an ardent member of the Free Soil Party. Heg was a major in the 4th Wisconsin Militia and served as Wisconsin State Prison Commissioner. He was the first Norwegian born candidate elected state-wide in Wisconsin.
He soon joined the recently formed Republican Party. He was an outspoken anti-slavery activist and a leader of Wisconsin's Wide Awakes, an anti-slave catcher militia.
Read more about this topic: Hans Christian Heg
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