Gamli Klofi

HÖSKULDUR AND ARNDÍS Höskuldur Jónsson was born in Mörk on the 5th of August 1835. He was the son of Jón Finnbogason from Reynifell, farmer at Mörk and Guðrún Einarsdóttir, midwife, his wife. Arndís Magnúsdóttir was born in Suðurkot in Grímsnes on the 2nd of November 1835. She spent the first years with her parents, Magnús Ólafsson, farmer and spinning wheel maker and Sigríður Guðmundsdóttir. Magnús died at the age of 51 when Arndís was five years old. Sigríður then went to work for Jón Hreiðarsson, farmer in Skarðssel in Land and Arndís grew up there.

FARMING IN MÖRK 1863-1869 Höskuldur and Arndís married in 1863 and began farming in an unnamed cottage in the land of Mörk. Their first six children were born there. Three of them died young. Among them a promising boy named Magnús, after Arndís´ father. He died of a serious cut at the age of seven months after having fallen onto a scythe.

MOVE TO KLOFI 1869 Höskuldur and Arndís moved to Klofi in the summer of 1869 with their three children; Jón six, Sigríður five and a newborn son, Magnús “the younger”. Klofi was south of the western end of Baðsheiði where it had always stood and is now called Gamli-Klofi.

DEATHS AND BIRTHS Magnús “the younger” died three months old, the first summer in Klofi. Just over a year later, on the 9th of October 1870, Finnbogi was born and in spring 1874, Guðni was born. In January 1875, Sigríður, Arndís´ mother, died at the age of 73. The following spring, a baby girl was born, named Sigríður after her recently deceased grandmother. The older sister had previously been named after the same grandmother and ever since the sisters in Klofi were called Sigríður “the older” and Sigríður “the younger”. Guðni died in August that same year, just over one year old. A year later, twins were born, a boy named Ólafur on 6th of August 1876 but he died a week old. His twin sister was born one month and twenty days later, on the 26th of September, named Guðrún. She lived for five and a half years. Kjartan was born on the 17th of November 1878.

A LIVING STREAM Finnbogi Höskuldsson remembers his youth at Klofi in an interview in 1941: “… for example, I remember a stream that flowed all the way down from Leyni, east of Mörk and east below Baðsheiði; it was only a trickle of water at the top but other water sources flowed into it on the way down and made the stream bigger when it reached the farm. There it flowed through a steep rocky slope under a stone arch. Us kids ran across it with dry feet and we could hardly hear each other through the din of the water. I still recognise the rocky hill where the stone arch used to be. …”

FARM MOVED AWAY FROM SAND Because of the encroachment of sand, Höskuldur moved Klofi in 1879, to the south, about one and a half kilometres, to the place where Stóri-Klofi now stands. For the same reason, Jónas Jónsson, Höskuldur´s brother, farmer at Garðar, and their cousin Jón Árnason, farmer at Skarð, had moved their farms a few years previously, from their historic sites by Skarðsfjall. Klofakirkja and Skarðskirkja were also taken apart and joined at Skarð in 1878. Garðar was re-built where the farm Fellsmúli now stands. The Klofi farm was built to the east of Skarð and between the farms clear streams flow from Baðsheiði and join in Klofalækur.

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