Andrew Nelson was born in Valders, Norway, November 8, 1846. He immigrated, with his widowed mother, as a young boy, to Fillemore County, Minnesota. Andrew Nelson, shown here in his Civil War uniform, served as a private in Company A of the First Battalion of Minnesota Volunteers. He was honorably discharged on July 25, 1865. He then came back to Fillemore County and became a farmer. He married Kjersti Ellingson, a native of Fillemore County who was born in that county on March 12, 1851. In May of 1878, Andrew Nelson bought the Northeast of Section 27, in what later became Nelson Township of Barnes County, North Dakota. He built a log cabin on this land, and his wife and family came to live with him in 1879. Mr. Nelson served as director of the School District number 32, which he helped to organize on February 11, 1882. Andrew Nelson and his wife, Kjersti, were the parents of three sons and four daughters; Nels G., Gina Maria, Christine Anne, Henry E., Sophia Caroline, Emma Cornelia and Andrew C. Nelson. There was no organized cemetery here when Andrew Nelson died, October 11, 1884, so he was buried on his farm in a plot of ground that he had picked for that purpose. Mrs. Nelson was also buried there when she died January 16, 1886.

When Nelson Township of Barnes County was organized in 1907, the town ship was named Nelson after Andrew Nelson, the Civil War Veteran and Barnes County Pioneer.

Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 167