Anton Åkerberg

Anton Åkerberg was born in Stockholm on April 14, 1878.

As a child he came to Runsten parish on Öland, where he lived with foster parents, who were owners of a windmill.

As a 9 year old he started to take care of the windmill and soon learnt to produce the finest wheat flour, very well liked by the village gentry and others in the parish.

Anton staid with his foster parents until he was confirmed. He then went off into the world on his own to make his living.

Anton went to Gotland and worked on a farm in Levide parish, but after one year he went back to Öland and staid until the spring of 1896 when, at the age of 18, Anton emigrated to America.

He went first to New York where he lived in Brooklyn. He got a job at a piano factory with so called ” action regulating” which required a lot of skill.

Anton showed that he had a great aptitude and was good at mechanical work.

Anton moved on to another workplace, a machine shop and felt he had arrived in a job which he was really interested in and good at.

For a time he was employed at a National Meters co. Later with American Machine and Foundry and during his time there he worked in the experimental department for producing new types of machines or to improve existing ones. Anton worked as a foreman in this department.

Anton got married in Brooklyn in 1903 to Elin Sköld from Stockholm.

After 11 years in Brooklyn he moved with his family to Seattle and from Seattle to Lund, BC where he worked for the Thulin Brothers as a machinist on a tugboat.

Anton with family moved to Prince Rupert and in 1913 he started his own machine shop business under the name of Akerberg and Thomson. He worked this company to be the best and most important machine shop in Prince Rupert. They made machines and equipment for fishing vessels. Anton also invented a ”long line hauler” for halibut fishing for which he got a patent for Canada and the USA. In this machine shop he employed 15 men.

Anton Akerberg and family, wife Elin and two children, a son and a daughter , lived in a nice house on a height in Prince Rupert overlooking the water and Tucks inlet. He was a member of the Elks and Valhalla lodge where he was president.