Niels Tobias Dahl was one of three sons of Peder Hanson Oxendahl (1802- 1876) and Karen Larsdatter Espetvedt to emigrate from Norway to the United States. Niels was born in Oxendahl, Bakkesogn, Norway in 1831 and came to Wisconsin in 1851. He married Tori Hoverson in June, 1857, homesteading in Coon Prairie and Dunn County until 1870, when the family moved to Minnesota, living first in Blue Earth County, than in Lyon County.