In the spring of 1841, Gustaf Unonius, his wife Charlotta, and several companions left Upsala, Sweden, for what was then the northwest frontier of the United States. Inspired by Swedish Romanticism, Gustaf sought a life in a cottage in the primeval forests with Charlotta. After arriving in Wisconsin in the fall of 1841, they claimed land and built a cabin on the eastern shore of Pine Lake, ancestral home of the Menominee and Ho-Chunk peoples and, from the 17th century, the Potawatomi. In 1842, Gustaf's letters to Swedish newspapers about life in Wisconsin Territory helped spark the first wave of Scandinavian immigration, and his memoir, A Pioneer in Northwest America, recounted vivid stories of life in Wisconsin as it was becoming a state. That same year, after more Swedish families arrived in the Pine Lake area, the first Swedish settlement in Wisconsin became known as New Upsala. Severe winters, disease, and crop failures made life hard for the settlers. Discouraged with farming and encouraged by fellow settlers who wanted spiritual leadership, Gustaf entered nearby Nashotah House, an Episcopal seminary, and became its first graduate. A year after the Scandinavian Parish at Pine Lake was formed in 1844, he became its first pastor, ministering to families as far away as Lake Koshkonong in Jefferson County, including the family of Swedish settler and notable ornithologist Thure Kumlien. The parish later evolved into Holy Innocents Church, Nashotah, which merged with Grace Church, Hartland, in 1968 to form Grace Holy Innocents Church, and the church was renamed St. Anskar’s Episcopal Church in 1975. The original cemetery, Holy Innocents Cemetery, lies west of Pine Lake.