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4. Weborg Point
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Just inside the Fish Creek entrance to the park is Weborg Point, a small elbow of land jutting into Green Bay that is now used as a campground. Adjoining it, to the south and east, is a shallow bay and wetland—the Peninsula White Forest Natural Area. The land here was once covered with mixed coniferous and deciduous forest, but early Euro-Americans cleared the forests for cordwood and barrel production for ships traveling to Green Bay. Secondgrowth forest eventually grew up, but the campground remains relatively open with a fringe of trees and shrubs bordering each campsite. Eventually settlers, mostly of Norwegian ancestry, came to the park led by Peter Weborg and Evan Nelson. Born in the town of Lom in Gudbrandsdalen , Norway, in , Weborg married Oluffa Wilg in , and three years later the couple set out for America. After living briefly at Green Bay, the Weborgs settled at the point in where they purchased a twenty-five-acre parcel of land from Increase Claflin in the north half of lot two.1 There, up the rocky slope overlooking the waters of Green Bay, Weborg built a one-and-ahalf -story log house. Like most Norwegian immigrants, he would have been familiar with the North European method of log construction and he probably built his cabin in this manner. According to Weborg’s obituary, when he came to the point “the country north of Sturgeon Bay was a wilderness, and he found only one family near Fish Creek and another on Eagle Island.”2 After erecting his log dwelling, Weborg walked to Sturgeon Bay, the nearest trading place, for provisions, which he carried home on his back. He worked as a cooper and fished with a sailboat kept at their pier. In –, he built a frame addition to the log cabin to which he added a one-story wing or ell with porches on each side, one facing west with a majestic view of the bay and distant islands. The rambling eborg oint building was clad with horizontal clapboards while numerous windows admitted natural light to the interior. His daughter Vida later wrote, “The log part of this house is the oldest building . . . north of Sturgeon Bay.”3 In two of Peter’s brothers, Henry and Andrew, also settled near the point. Andrew and his wife moved to Gills Rock in the s, where he established a successful fishing enterprise that is still operated by Weborg descendants . Today the Weborg name remains synonymous with commercial fishing in Wisconsin. Henry sold his seventy-two-acre property near the park’s Fish Creek entrance to the State of Wisconsin when land acquisition for the park began. Peter Weborg and his wife had nine children, four of whom, Johanna, Ella, Vida, and Alfred, survived into adulthood. After nearly forty years of marriage, Peter’s wife died in . Alfred, who served as town clerk, eventually moved to Texas after selling his sixty-acre farm north of the point to the state. His house was later moved to become the park superintendent’s residence. None of Weborg’s resourceful daughters married. Two of them, Johanna and Vida, became teachers, while Ella remained at home to care for their father. An adept and dedicated teacher, Vida was also a talented artist. Hjalmar Holand’s The Weborg home sometime after the turn of the nineteenth century. Originally a log dwelling, the structure was later modified with clapboards and additions. The two women in the foreground are probably Vida and Ella Weborg. (Courtesy Peninsula State Park office) classic Old Peninsula Days, first published in , is illustrated with her delightful pencil sketches of places and people described in the book. Working with C. M. Lesaar, she also helped implement Holand’s design for the memorial totem pole at the entrance to the park.4 Because the Weborg property was within the proposed park boundaries and occupied a prime area of shoreline, the State of Wisconsin needed to acquire it. How this occurred is an interesting aspect of the park’s history, a fascinating human interest story, and a tribute to the courage of this pioneering family and their steadfast love for the home they had carved from what was once a veritable wilderness. In , after Assemblyman Charles Reynolds had proposed a bill to examine lands in the county for a state park, there was considerable interest in locating it between Fish Creek and Ephraim and options to acquire land there were being explored...
