On a winter morning in February back in 1847, a teacher opened the green door to let the first students in to this school at Svartbäcken. 150 years after that first school day, on February 15 1997, the door opened again. That's when the school museum opened. Inside you will find a typical class room as it would have looked a century ago. This is the oldest school building in Haninge.

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Alghot Niska lived a different life. He played Olympic football for Finland in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. He fought in the Winter War. During World war II he smuggled Jews out from Nazi-Germany. The Gestapo was always after him. During Finnish prohibition he handled illegal liquor and became a famous bootlegger. During that period he had his headquarters at this farm house in Tyresta. Police in both Finland and Sweden tried their best to catch the folk hero and he spent some time in jail in both countries. Niska died in 1954 at the age of 67. By then he was all alone in the world. He had no money, no family, and no friends.

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My third post about the Viking Era runestone that was found last spring in a field at Småhamra. Previous posts here and here. Since my last post the farmer Rolf Norlin, has been out ploughing again, and just as my friend Jim guessed last year when I told him about the historic find, Rolf found the missing piece of the runestone in the same field. So it is now possible to read the whole inscription, and the discussion now is if the two pieces should be put together or left like you can see here.

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This little cottage at the Hammar estate in Tungelsta was built by a great-great grandparent to the current owner Charlotte. He was a man that sailed with one of the Swedish East India Company ships to India and China nearly two hundred years ago. On the first two trips he brought home many items, and to have a place to store and show them he decided to build this little museum. Sadly he died during his third expedition to Asia. After posting this photo at flickr one of my Swedish readers in the US told me that a relative of his was the captain on one of these ships. Small world.

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As a member of the historical association I am sometimes asked to photograph old cottages for upcoming books. This is one such place. This property dates back to 1741. The name is a bit unusual. It is called The Mousetrap or Råttfällan in Swedish. It is located at Alby, a rural part of Haninge. The story behind the name is that there once lived a boatswain here who hated rats and he apparently made a lot of mousetraps. That same legend also says that he made traps for roe deers and elks! On my visit I had a lengthy chat with the current owner Mr. Svanäng. He is a retired farmer who has lived her for eleven years.

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This cottage in Tungelsta is known as Håkanstorp, or Håkstorp. It dates back to 1690. It is located on a hill near the Haga farm, that I showed you in a slideshow last summer. Håkstorp is mentioned in one of Ivar Lo Johansson's auto-biographies. The famous author lived down the road at Djurgårdsgrind when he was a school boy. One day he visits the cottage and buys his first ever rifle, from the blacksmith Anders Peter Andersson, that lived here 90 years ago. In the book Johansson describes how he spends the night at Lake Tornberga hoping to shoot something. In the end he kills a grouse.

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