From 1882 to 1903, ship manifests of alien passengers to the United States included in column 10 a designation as "transient, in transit, or intending protracted sojourn." 

It is the last designation that we see on the early Eilertsen manifests. Indeed, not just the Osmundsens but seemingly every one of the passengers and crew on those sailings was intending a protracted sojourn in America. 

James V. Bennett spent his formative years living with his sister Sarah (20 years older than he) and her husband Thomas Peyton on the Peyton farm in Traverse County, MN. It is unclear why he (along with his favorite sister Lizzie) chose to leave their mother and father in favor of this arrangement.

Another piece of family lore relates to James Bennett's time on the Peyton farm. During one of his extended visits, he encountered a group of white settlers torturing a Dakota man, dragging him by a rope affixed to the back of a horse. Grandpa Bennett was allegedly so disturbed that he confronted and fought the torturers, insisting on the man's release.

James V. Bennett spent much of his childhood living among extended family on the Peyton Homestead, along with his favorite sister Lizzie. This photo depicts Lizzie on the Peyton farm (I believe around 1900), smoking a cigar and wearing notably masculine dress. This gender play is fascinating--perhaps denoting an affinity for bloomerism and the suffragette movement?

After sailing with family members to New York in 1893, Eilert Osmundsen returned to America in 1896, arriving May 8 on the White Star Line SS Germanic out of Liverpool. 

He is listed as a sailor and intending a protracted stay in New York. This time he is not accompanied by other family members. 

He was 31 years of age. As we know, he had a wife and four children back home in Farsund.

A big question we are trying to understand is why some members of the Osmundsen/Eilertsen family chose to resettle in the United States while others did not. 

We know that Jskob and Camilla stayed in close contact with their families back home, and made multiple trips back to visit. Nor were they the only family members living in New York. There were cousins from Spind in New York and in midwestern locales like Milwaukee. 

When Kate and I visited her Eilertsen grandparents in Bay Ridge several times in the late 1970s, the other family member we met was Kate's great aunt Amy, the sister of Camilla Eilertsen.

I thought at the time that she was a maiden aunt, or what was called a spinster. Of course Kate knew better and I am only catching up now as I research the family history. 

Aunt Amy's name in Brooklyn was Amy Jensen. She was married for 30 years to George R. Jensen, an American of Norwegian descent. The had one son, Gordon Jensen, born in December 1925.