Surnames: WESENBERG, BLANK, WILDING, PAXTON, CAMPBELL, WYMAN, EVERETT

----Source: 1918 History of Clark Co., Wisconsin

----Ferdinand WesEnberg, 1854
 

FERDINAND WESENBERG, who is engaged in agricultural pursuits on a farm in Washburn Township, was born in Pommern, Germany, June 3, 1854, son of Peter and Sophia (Blank) Wesenberg, who were farming people. Peter and his wife came to America in 1874 with six children: Peter, Jr., Sophia, August, Armoreke, Ferdinand and William. Landing at Philadelphia, they proceeded West to Milwaukee, and two years later, in 1876, arrived in Clark County, Peter Wesenberg and his eldest son, August, buying a tract of land in Section 6, Washburn Township. After a short stay there, however, he moved to a tract of 160 acres in Grant Township, where he and his family stayed three years. Then returning to Washburn Township, he lived four years with his son William, after which he took up his residence in Neillsville, where he died at the age of 74 years, his wife having passed away four years previously at the same age.

They were members of the German Lutheran Church. Ferdinand Wesenberg acquired his education in Germany, and was 20 years old when he came to the United States. Here he first worked eleven months on a farm in Grant Township, and after that five winters and two summers for George Lloyd. For several years thereafter he worked on farms in summer and in the woods in winter, finally renting a farm for a while on Pleasant Ridge, Grant Township. In 1894 he came to his present place in Section 5, Washburn Township, a tract of eighty acres, then covered with timber, all of which he has cleared except fifteen acres of timber that he is saving.

Besides general farming, Mr. Wesenberg, for the last twenty years, has been engaged in honey production, having now 110 colonies of bees, and he has also started many others in this line of business, which he has found profitable. He ships his honey to Chicago and Milwaukee. He is a stockholder in the Shortville creamery and in the Co-operative Elevator and Lumber Company of Neillsville. He has served on the township board as supervisor, and was also roadmaster seven years. His religious affiliations are with the German Lutheran Church. Mr. Wesenberg was first married to Etta Wilding, daughter of George Wilding. She died at the age of 34 years, leaving one son, Charies,'who was for seven years a member of Company A, Third Wisconsin Regiment, but who is now living in Indiana.

Mr. Wesenberg married for his second wife, Della Campbell, who was born in Neillsville, daughter of William and Eliza (Paxton) Campbell. Her father was a veteran of the Civil War, and a stone mason by trade, being first employed in this county in the construction of the court house. He was three times married, first, to Jane Eliza Everett, by whom he had six children: Fred, Mabel, Ezra, Clyde, George and Nellie. By his marriage to Eliza Jane Paxton, his second wife, he had four: Mabel, Bessie, Barton and Della. His third wife was Altha Wyman, by whom he had one child, Pearl. Mr. and Mrs. Wesenberg are the parents of a large family, numbering eleven children, whose names are, respectively: Dimple, William, August, Elmer, Wesley, James, Albert, Mamie, Esther and Robert.