First US President to visit Norway?

Bill Clinton was the first sitting US president to visit Norway. He spent two days in November 1999 among others to take part in events commemorating the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. A part of the stay was also made a state visit. Clinton also visited Oslo under his student days back in the 1960s, and after leaving the presidency he has come to Norway 2-3 times (I had the opportunity to shake hands with him during his visit to Oslo in May 2007).

But who was the first US President to visit Norway whether it was before, in or after office? I wonder if it was John Quincy Adams, who served as President of the United States from 1825 to 1829. I am currently reading Paul C. Nagel’s biography John Quincy Adams. A Public Life. A Private Life, which was first time published in 1997. The paperback edition from 1999 says on page 190 about his voyage to Russia where he was to serve as minister plenipotentiary:

«This remarkable letter [to his sons back home] was finished just as the Horace reached Norway on September 18, 1809. The war between England and France had made the Scandinavian region jittery whenever a strange ship appeared. The British bombardment of Copenhagen had pushed Denmark into an alliance with France, so that Adams experienced what seemed like incessant inquiries and inspections by Danish officials.»

But the book doesn’t explicitly say that Adams ever set foot on land. However, the answer seems to be found in his diary no. 28 (and no. 23), where he among others tells about his stay in Kristiansand where the Adams family during a storm lodged "at the Isaacson's" (to this family belongs among others former Norwegian Prime Minister Kåre Willoch as well as the artist Olaf Isaachsen). I am not sure if one can find out more about the stay than what can be read in the said diary. I hope to explore the question further one day.

Updated 9 June 2010 at 20:10: Link 1 and link 2.