(Note: birth date given in original as "Apr. 4 or Aug. 23, 1815.") Lutheran clergyman, b. Fredrikstad, Norway. He graduated from Christiania (Oslo) Univ. (C.T., 1837). He was ordained a Lutheran minister in 1844 and in the same year migrated to the U.S. and Wisconsin, where he organized Koshkonong, Luther Valley, and eight other congregations in the state and served as pastor at Koshkonong (1846-1850). Although seeds of controversy were sown when Dietrichson questioned the validity of clergymen who had been ordained in America, he laid a strong foundation for Norwegian Lutheranism in the U.S. and encouraged Lutheran clergymen to migrate to this country. He was the author of Travels among the Norwegian Emigrants in "The United North American Free States" (1846). He returned to Norway in 1850. Dict. Amer. Biog.; Wis. Mag. Hist., 29; E. Ylvisaker, Eminent Pioneers (Minneapolis [19340; WPA MS.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]