Name Tuve Hasselquist | Died February 4, 1891 | |
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Tuve Nilsson Hasselquist (March 2, 1816 – February 4, 1891) was a Swedish American Lutheran minister and church leader. He was the second president of Augustana College, serving from 1863 until his death in 1891.
Biography
Hasselquist was born in Hasselröd, Osby Municipality in Skåne County, Sweden. A graduate of the University of Lund, he was ordained as a minister in the Church of Sweden in Lund in 1839. Pastor Hasselquist was called from Åkarp Church, in Skåne, Sweden in late 1851. He immigrated to the United States in 1852, in response to a request from Lars Paul Esbjörn for help with the Swedish Lutheran mission in Illinois. Esbjörn had arrived in Andover, Illinois from Sweden in 1849 as the first Swedish Lutheran minister in the Upper Midwest.
Hasselquist initially served as a pastor in Galesburg, Illinois. From 1855 until 1859, Hasselquist also served as founding editor and publisher of the first Swedish language newspaper in America, Hemlandet. Hasselquist also founded the Swedish Lutheran Publication Society as a publishing house for Swedish language books, hymnals and other Lutheran publications.
Swedish Lutherans including Hasselquist, Lars Paul Esbjörn, Jonas Swensson, and Erland Carlsson organized the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Jefferson Prairie Settlement in 1860. Hasselquist became the founding president of the Augustana Synod and remained in that capacity through 1870.
In 1863, the Rev. Dr. Tuve Nils Hasselquist became the second president of Augustana College in Paxton, Illinois. Hasselquist strove to solidify the place of the college in the life of its church. In 1875, under his leadership, Augustana College was moved to Rock Island, Illinois which was a more central location among the growing number of Augustana Synod congregations. Tuve Hasselquist continued to function as the president of Augustana College until 1891, the year of his death.