The Icelandic Memorial

The Icelandic Memorial in Spanish Fork, Utah

Between 1855 and 1914, 410 Icelandic converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints immigrated to Utah to be with the rest of the Latter-day Saints. They originally settled in Spanish Fork, Utah, the oldest continuous Icelandic settlement in North America.

The Icelandic Memorial was dedicated on June 25, 2005, in Spanish Fork, Utah. With the support of the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, improvements were made to expand the memorial before its dedication. (The lighthouse portion of the memorial was erected in 1938.) The project included landscaping, adding benches and seating, moving a one-ton rock from the Westmann Island in Iceland to Spanish Fork, adding interactive story plaques telling the story of Icelandic pioneers who immigrated to Utah, and creating a “Wall of Honor” memorial. This memorial is similar to the monument placed on the Westmann Islands in Iceland in 2000 and includes the names of the 410 immigrants who came to Utah.

President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the memorial. President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, President of Iceland, and President was an honored guest. Ralph Abraham Trane, a direct descendant of Guðmundur Guðmundson, attended the 2005 dedication.

From Iceland to Utah

Two young Icelandic men left their homes in Iceland and went to Copenhagen, Denmark, to refine their skills. Guðmundur Guðmundson left Iceland in 1845 to apprentice as a goldsmith, and Þórarinn Hafliðason studied cabinet-making in Copenhagen. Þorarinn first heard missionaries preach from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and then he told his friend, Guðmundur, about the Church. They both listened to the missionaries, studied their messages, became converted, and early in 1851, they were each baptized members of the Church.[1]

Upon returning to Vestmannaeyjar, Guðmundur, and Þórarinn were excited to tell their friends and neighbors about their newfound faith. But they met with much opposition and had to teach people in secret. Þórarinn’s wife “burned his religious books and papers and threatened to drown herself if he would not denounce the Mormon faith.” Þórarinn stopped his missionary efforts but remained a faithful Church member until he drowned in a tragic fishing accident in December 1851. Guðmundur carried on proselytizing without him until Johan Lorentzen came from Copenhagen to assist him. A small branch of the church was organized at Vestmannaeyjar on 19 June 1853. Many of the converts were baptized in the sheltered tidepools on the shore of Vestmannaeyjar, out of public view.

Samúel Bjarnason, his wife Margrét Gísladóttir, and their friend, Helga Jónsdóttir, who were some of the early converts, left Vestmannaeyjar together. [They] sailed from Iceland in the fall of 1854 to Liverpool, England on the ship James Nesmith. From England, they continued on to New Orleans, where they boarded a riverboat headed to St. Louis, Missouri. Traveling up the Mississippi, they joined the Noah T. Guymon Company and walked the remaining 1400 miles, reaching the Salt Lake Valley on 7 September 1855, 300 days after their departure from Iceland. Brigham Young, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, directed Samúel, Margrét, and Helga to settle in Spanish Fork, Utah. With a foundation of 16 Icelandic pioneers, the first permanent Icelandic settlement in the United States was established in Spanish Fork.[2]

Due to persecution, some Icelanders waited to be baptized until they had arrived in Utah. There were others who had converted but returned to their Lutheran faith.

Some Icelanders left Spanish Fork to settle in other locations throughout Utah and Canada. A total of 22 Latter-day Saint Icelandic converts were called to leave Utah and return to Iceland as missionaries before World War I. Missionaries were pulled from Iceland in 1914, and Latter-day Saint missionaries weren’t allowed to return to Iceland until 1975.

Utah is currently the second state in the U.S. with the highest Icelander percentage of the state’s population. North Dakota is the first state with the highest percentage of the state’s population.[3]

In January 2024, Bergdís Ellertsdóttir, Iceland's ambassador to the United States, visited Salt Lake City, Utah, where she met with leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including President Russell M. Nelson, President Dallin H. Oaks, President Henry B. Eyring, Elder Quentin L. Cook, and Elder Carl B. Cook. She toured Church sites and met with Utah's Lt. Gov. Diedre M. Henderson as well as C. Shane Reese, president of Brigham Young University, where she also gave a lecture.

In December 1996 Consul Clark T. Thorstenson, Icelandic Consul to the western United States, extended a personal invitation to Iceland’s President, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, and his wife to visit Utah in 1997. This year marked the centennial of Spanish Fork’s “Iceland Days” as well as the sesquicentennial celebration of the Mormon pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley. Grímsson and his wife enjoyed a weeklong July excursion that included visits with Church leaders and a Salt Lake City tour of Temple Square, the Church’s Welfare Square, and a broadcast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s Music and the Spoken Word. They also visited the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, where they dropped in on a class of missionaries learning Danish. The president conversed with them for several minutes in the Scandinavian language.

See Mormon Pond.

External Sources

• Icelandic Roots, “The Icelandic Settlement of Spanish Fork, Utah”
• BYU Religious Studies Center, “Epilogue: Joining Hands Across the Waters,” from Fire and Ice: The Story of Icelandic Latter-day Saints at Home and Abroad, by Fred E. Woods
• Church Newsroom, "Ambassador of Iceland Visits Church Headquarters, Pioneer Memorial"
• Ensign Peak Foundation, "Icelandic Memorial, Spanish Fork, Utah"