Merchants Ole and Peder Rønberg
Ole Rønberg was a man who worked his way up from a modest background to become Skive’s richest merchant. For many years he ran his business from Brogården. The first one burned down, but Ole Rønberg built a new Brogården and continued to trade successfully. After his death, his sister’s son Peder took over Brogården and the business, which he continued to run.
The early days
Merchant Ole Rønberg was born in 1735 in Rønbjerg as the son of blacksmith Niels Jensen, Rønbjerg. It was common in the 18th century for merchants to take the name of the place where they were born, which is how Ole Nielsen became Ole Rønberg.
Ole Rønberg probably came to Skive as a craftsman. In 1760, he was employed as a merchant by merchant Anders Bering in Brogården at Østertorv. Anders Bering died in 1760, and after his death all his property was sold at auction. Brogården was bought by Mikkel Sørensen Bedemand, but in 1761 Ole Rønberg was the owner of the large merchant’s house by the river, and in the same year he took citizenship as a beer bottler. Anders Bering had earned his living by trading and especially selling beer and entertaining skippers and workers at Skive’s loading bay by the river.
Ole Rønbjerg married Mette Mehlsdatter in 1761, who was born in 1719 and thus 16 years older than him. “Did she give him the start-up capital needed for the poor Ole Betjenter at Bering to become the owner of Brogården and Skive’s richest merchant?” asks national archivist Svend Aakjær. Mette Mehlsdatter died in March 1791 (buried March 9, 1791).
The richest merchant in Skive
During the 1760s, Ole Rønberg worked his way up to become one of Skive’s most wealthy citizens. He expanded the agriculture that belonged to Brogården and bought some arable land and meadow plots in Skive, but also developed the merchant trade, brewed beer and distilled spirits, and gradually reached first place among Skive’s merchants, writes magister J.C. Hansen. From 1774, he was the small town’s largest taxpayer. Only one year did his tax payment dip – it was in 1786, when Brogården burned down and a new Brogård was built.
Rønberg’s rise to the top among Skive’s citizens also meant that he was given public office. In 1769-70, he was kæmner, i.e. accountant for the market town’s income and expenses. In 1774, the citizens of Skive gained some influence over the municipal administration, which for almost 100 years had been led by the royally appointed official, the town and shire bailiff. Six “noble men” were appointed to carry out a number of tasks. They were chosen from among the city’s leading merchants. Among the six appointed were the town’s largest taxpayer, Ole Rønberg, and his brother, Anders Rønberg. Ole Rønberg retained his position until his death in 1791.
In 1761, when Ole Rønberg took over the old Brogård, it was described as “old, dilapidated and almost deserted”. When it burned down in 1786, the farm consisted of four wings: a street house of 20 bays, a west house of 17 bays, a north house of 17 and an east house of 10 bays. The new farm was also four wings, but somewhat larger: 24 bays to the street, 14 to the west, 24 to the north and 14 to the east.
Shortly before his death, Ole Rønberg established a legacy of 100 rigsdaler for the benefit of “Skive Bys Fattige”. The interest on the 100 rigsdaler was to be distributed annually to the poor.
Ole Rønberg died in 1791 (buried November 21, 1791) without leaving any children.
The legacy of Ole Rønberg
According to Ole Rønberg’s will, Brogården was taken over by his sister’s son, Peder Rønberg, who had come to live with his uncle and aunt in Brogården as an infant after his mother died in childbirth. Peder Rønberg grew up in Brogården as a son and heir. Peder Rønberg married Ane Dorthea Iversdatter Grønning, who had been a maid in Brogården for many years and was also left a substantial inheritance in Ole Rønberg’s will. Peder Rønberg and Ane had two children, one of whom died in infancy. Peder Rønberg died in 1800 and Ane in 1803. Their gravestone is next to Ole Rønberg and Mette Mehlsdatter’s.
After his death in 1800, the business in Brogården passed to his cousin, Jens Rønberg, who in 1802 also became the owner of Brogården. He sold the farm and the business again in 1806.
But the Rønberg family soon got their hands on Brogården again. A daughter of Ole Rønberg’s brother, Jens Nielsen Smed, Ingeborg, married the Skive merchant Diderik Svindt, and their daughter, Giertrud, married Peder Elisæus Dige in 1830, whose father, Peder Dige, had bought Brogården in 1811. She thus married into the Dige dynasty, who ran a grocery store in Brogården for almost 150 years.
Sources
Svend Aakjær: A little about Brogården in Skive. Christmas in Skive 1936, p. 9-15.
Charles Thiesen (ed.): The book about Skive. 1926, especially pages 402-403.
Svend Laustsen: Estvad og Rønbjerg sogne. Main features of the parishes’ history until 1880. 2000, pp. 309-314.