Wasastjerna history at Seinäjoki
The history of the Östermyra ironworks and manor area stretches back two centuries to the last years of Swedish rule. The Wasastjerna noble family that lived in the manor and its three patrons have had a significant impact on the creation and development of the Seinäjoki area. During the first two patrons, an ironworks and a gunpowder factory were established. The third patron created a large farm in Östermyra. The manor park and garden were famous sights in their time, and in its golden age, the manor was the center of the local social life, where lively social life was celebrated.
Abraham Falander, 1st patron of Östermyra Manor, first Wasastjerna
Abraham Falander (1745-1815), a wealthy Vaasa burgher, applied to the Mining College in 1798 for permission to establish a small ironworks on the banks of the Seinäjoki rapids. He received a positive decision the same year.
Rautaruukki was founded in Ilmajoki parish, on the banks of Tikkukoski in Seinäjoki, on a rented area of 12 hectares. Falander named the ironworks Östermyra, in Finnish Itäneva.
The residential buildings located in the manor’s courtyard, the so-called Punatulku, were built specifically as apartments for the manor’s blacksmiths.
War had broken out between Sweden and Russia in February 1808. The Russian army was already in Vaasa, and decision-makers were required to swear an oath of loyalty to the new Finnish ruler. This also applied to Abraham Falander, a Vaasa alderman. Falander was a royalist, a close friend of the Swedish king Gustav IV Adolf. He stated that he had already sworn one oath of loyalty and would not swear another. For this stubbornness, he was sentenced to death. A couple of hours before the execution, the sentence was changed to exile to Sweden. On the way, he stopped in Åland and, as it turned out, the Swedish king was also there planning an attack. In gratitude for their loyalty, the king ennobled Falander and the Vaasa court official who had been exiled for the same reason, to the Wasastjerns. The official had no heirs, so the Finnish Wasastjerns remained with the name.
One local consequence of the Finnish War of 1808 is that a noble family was born in Seinäjoki, and it ultimately influenced the development of the area, even to the point that the market town developed into a city.
Falander spent two years in exile, and returned to Finland in 1810.
Gustaf Adolf Wasastjerna, 2nd patron
Abraham Falander’s son, Gustaf Adolf Falander-Wasastjerna (1785-1849), moved to Östermyra in 1806 to manage the ironworks. With his father’s exile, responsibility for the manor passed to him.
The manor flourished during the reign of Gustaf Adolf. Russia was at war in the Crimea and Gustaf knew how to take advantage of the opportunity. With the emperor’s consent, a gunpowder factory was established in Östermyra in 1825. Between 1824 and 1827, a dozen buildings were built in connection with the manor for the use of the gunpowder factory. Gustaf was the richest man in Finland, and he was called the King of Ostrobothnia.
Gustaf’s family life was complicated. His first wife and children died early, presumably of dysentery. The widower was known as a stern and unsmiling man, but things changed when a new housekeeper, Catharina Jernberg, arrived at the manor. She acted as the manor’s housekeeper with a firm hand, keeping the maids in check and ensuring that work was completed on time. The locked door of the spice cabinet kept the peppercorns, ginger and other expensive foreign spices safe. Catharina also made sure that the servants did not empty the beer stores.
The relationship between the manor’s owner and the housekeeper warmed up and a son, Gustaf August, was born. Love and marriage between people of different estates were not accepted in the 19th century. The boy received his father’s family name Falander, but was not entitled to the family’s noble title. It took over 20 years before they finally married and Gustaf August received his family’s noble title.
Gustaf August Wasastjerna, 3rd patron
The third generation representative in Östermyra was Gustaf August Wasastjerna (1823–1905), who became the owner of the manor in 1849. Gustaf August’s story started well. He inherited an enormous fortune from his father and was at one time one of the wealthiest men in Finland. He married Hedvig Mathilda Donner: Mathilda was the daughter of Anders Donner, a major merchant from Kokkola. The couple’s union was happy: when Mathilda first arrived at the manor, the alleyway of the manor was covered with rose petals. The couple had a total of ten children.
The peak and end of gunpowder production also occurred during the time of Gustaf August. However, August’s interests lay elsewhere: in agriculture. He acquired more cattle for the manor and was also interested in cattle breeding. He turned the ironworks into a large farm, which in the 1880s had 1,200 hectares of cultivated land and almost 4,000 hectares of forest. Gustaf August had several mills, a sawmill, a brick factory, a dairy and a brewery built in Östermyra. The ironworks had a cattle-breeding and dairy school and a large stone barn with almost 300 head of cattle. Wasastjerna created a model large farm in Östermyra alongside the iron and gunpowder industries.
Gustaf August developed Seinäjoki in many different ways. He was instrumental in making Seinäjoki an independent parish, establishing its own church for the parish, and was instrumental in bringing the railway to Seinäjoki and making it run along its current route.
Mathilda Donner Wasastjerna was a very cultural patroness. She was a very talented singer and could have made a career as an opera singer in Europe, but her father did not agree to this. Gardening was one of Mathilda’s favorite hobbies, and she made the manor garden a sight to behold, which people came to see from far away. During her time as a cultural patroness, the manor had a lively social life and was the center of social life in the community.
With the help of loans guaranteed by Wasastjerna, a flax factory was established in Tampere, which became Tampereen Pellava – ja Rauta Teollisuus Oy, or Tampella. When Tampella ran into difficulties, Gustaf August had to give up his property to creditors. A large public auction was held at the Östermyra factory. Gustaf August did not have to move out of the manor, as the new owner of the manor, the Union Bank, hired him as a farm manager. Years later, when the manor was sold, it ended up in the ownership of Gustaf August Wasastjerna’s son, Gustaf August the Younger, in 1881. The financial difficulties continued and the family lost the manor again in 1890.
Gustaf August Wasastjerna spent his old age in Peräseinäjoki While in the land of Lower Kärje, his uncle, Colonel Alfred Wasastjernan in the house he owned. Later, the old, rheumatic patron was taken into the care of strangers. Wasastjerna died in 1905, when, while the housekeeper was at church, a drunken tinsmith who had settled in the village as a vagrant assaulted Wasastjerna. A few days later, Wasastjerna died.[4]
Wasastjerna was buried in Seinäjoki. Seinäjoki parish and local agricultural and progressive societies erected a grave monument to Wasastjerna in August 1914.
After the Wasastjerna
After the bankruptcy, Östermyra had several owners, and the manor’s lands were divided, subdivided and sold. In 1903, only 170 hectares remained of the four thousand hectares of farm that was owned by Wasastjerna.
Konstantin Törnudd, assessor of the Court of Appeal, acquired the reduced estate in 1903 and changed the name of Östermyra to Törnävä. In 1925, the municipality of Seinäjoki received the manor as a testamentary donation from the assessor. Under Seinäjoki’s ownership, the main building served as the meeting place for the rural municipality council and committees. Later, it served as a military hospital, a nature sanatorium, an economic school and a maternity hospital, among other things.
Today, the manor serves as the city’s representative space and banquet hall. Many of the surviving manor buildings are used as the offices and exhibition spaces of the South Ostrobothnia Museum. The city of Seinäjoki has renovated the manor park for several decades, and the area is now a popular summer recreation and party spot.