Trying to run away from your debt in 1887

Imagine that you were born in a Norwegian
mountain village around 150 years ago.

A few years after you were born,
a small local bank started to operate in that villlage.

In your midtwenties, you took a loan from that
bank, and friends and family had to cosign your loan.

But paying back the loan was not as easy as you
thought, and now - either desperate or totally
ignoring what will happen to your friends and
family members who cosigned the loan, you
look for a solution to your problem.

This is the same time that many Norwegians
emigrate to America.
Leaving your village, and the loan, is tempting.
Your life in America may even be a big
improvement compared to living in your little
Norwegian village.

But what about the loan?
Taking responsibility for his actions was
not what this particular man did when he travelled
to Oslo, then Kristiania, to go to America.

One of the co-signers, hearing about the man
running away, wrote a letter to the bank:

I allow myself to inform the bank that NN fled
our village last night in order, as far as I was told,
to go to America. He has travelled down the valley
and will probably leave on the Tingvalla line the
coming Friday. He is probably travelling with XX and
his family.
He was dressed so-and- so, age 27, black hair,
pale complexion.
As I will have to pay 52 kroner for a loan he has
taken in the bank, if he runs away, I beg you to
take any necessary action to make him pay before
he leaves the country.

The bank added a note to the police chief in Oslo:

It is not so much for the amount of money,
but for the example for others, that it is important
that this person pays what he owes.

The police reported back to the bank that
the would-be-emigrant had decided to go back
to his village.

What happened after that?
We don't know.

Based on a story in an old book documenting the first
75 years of a small local inland bank.