Hudiksvall

Hudiksvall is a harbour town on the coast of Hälsingland, founded by King John III in 1582. Land uplift soon made its first harbour less suitable, and the settlement moved towards deeper water in the early seventeenth century. Merchants exported iron and sawn timber from the surrounding country, while the wooden town grew around its port on the Bothnian Sea.

Fire repeatedly threatened Hudiksvall. Saint James's Church burned after a lightning strike in 1691 and was reconsecrated in 1715. Only six years later Russian forces raided the coast and burned almost the entire town, leaving the church and a single small house standing. The inhabitants rebuilt during the 1720s, but another great fire in 1792 brought a new street plan to the damaged eastern district.