Erasmus Dietrichson
Major general and forefather of the family in Norway
- Born
- 1673, København
- Died
- 1737, Bringsvær i Fjære
- Branch
- The forefathers
Erasmus Dietrichson was born in Copenhagen in 1673. He became an officer in the Danish army and was made a colonel in 1721. The family register of 1882 says that he later was governor of the Danish West Indies and came to Norway from there. His name is not in the usual lists of governors (Erik Bredal governed St. Thomas until April 1724), so we do not know for certain what the position was. In 1724 he was appointed commander of the 1st Vesterlen Regiment, which was based in Kristiansand. He lived at the farm Bringsvær in Fjære from 1724 until his death, and in 1729 he bought the farm from the Crown.
He became a brigadier in 1733, after King Christian VI had inspected the regiment at Grimsletten, and a major general in 1735. He died at Bringsvær in 1737. On 15 August he was placed in the burial vault in Fjære church, and until 1876 a silk banner with an inscription hung over the grave. His coffin is probably no longer in the church. More about the grave, the coffins and the traditions about «the General at Bringsvær» is in the article The General at Bringsvær and the grave in Fjære church.
Fjære church is a medieval stone church. The south portal is regarded as dating from the 1100s, and the wooden tower was begun in 1828, so the church was several hundred years old when Erasmus was buried there.
Erasmus was married to Edel Hylleborg Grubbe (1689–1762), daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Grubbe. The family register of 1882 mentions six children: Anna Hedvig (born 1710, died 1759), Gabriel Grubbe (1711), Johan Peter, Christian, Elise Marie Cathrine and Frederik (1723). Gabriel Grubbe became an officer in Denmark. Johan Peter became a first major in the 1st Vesterlen Regiment and died in Grimstad in 1760. He is buried in Fjære church. Frederik, who was born in the West Indies, is the forefather of the four branches that the family has followed ever since. The family name Dietrichson derives from the given name Diderik, and Store norske leksikon says that his father, Diderik Rasmussen, was a merchant in Copenhagen who died in 1683. The family register of 1882 says nothing about him or about earlier generations.