which led to poverty, from the European Potato Failure of the 1840s to the Famine of 1866–68. The also put farmers out of work and pushed them to seek employment in a more industrialized America. Religious migration The earliest immigrants from Norway to America emigrated mostly for religious motives, especially as members of the Religious Society of Friends or as Haugeans. To a great extent, this early emigration from Norway was born out of religious persecution, especially for Quakers and a local religious group, the Haugeans. Organized Norwegian immigration to North America began in 1825, when several dozen Norwegians left Stavanger bound for North America on the sloop Restauration (often called the "Norse Mayflower"). Under the leadership of Cleng Peerson, the Restauration left Stavanger in July 1825 and ferried six families on a 14-week journey. The ship landed in New York City, where it was at first impounded for exceeding its passenger limit. After intervention from President John Quincy Adams, the passengers moved on to settle in Kendall, New York with the help of Andreas Stangeland, witnessing the opening of the Erie Canal en route. After making the journey to Kendall, Cleng Peerson became a traveling emissary for Norwegian immigrants and died in a Norwegian Settlement near Cranfills Gap, Texas in 1865. The descendants of these immigrants are referred to as "sloopers", in reference to the sloop ship that brought them from Norway. Many of the 1825 immigrants moved on from the Kendall Settlement in the mid-1830s, settling in Illinois and Wisconsin. These "Sloopers" gave impetus to the westward movement of Norwegians by founding a settlement in the Fox River area of Illinois. A small urban colony of Norwegians had its genesis in Chicago at about the same time. Organized immigration While about 65 Norwegians emigrated via Sweden and elsewhere in the intervening years, no emigrant ships left Norway for the New World until the 1836 departures of the Den Norske Klippe and Norden. In 1837, a group of immigrants from Tinn emigrated via Gothenburg to the Fox River Settlement, near present-day Sheridan, Illinois. It was the writings of Ole Rynning, who traveled to the U.S. on the Ægir in 1837 that energized Norwegian immigration, however. Throughout much of the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th century, a vast majority of Norwegian emigration to both the United States and Canada followed a route commonly shared by