Wellwood Project
Wellwood Heritage Archive
The WellWood Project is a community service and family heritage archive and portfolio. The Project initially focused on the early days – from the last decades of the 19th Century through WWII- of the geographic area on the northeast shore of Lake Mendota which became the Village of Maple Bluff, Wisconsin in 1931. Since 2020 the focus of the Project has expanded. It is now also a story about the Wisconsin Idea in action extending from the early LaFollette Progressive Era through the 20th Century.
Drawing from various archives, this site will expand upon previous published narratives of the history of the Maple Bluff and the land and the people who brought about its evolution from near wilderness to farmland to a village and community. It is a story of their actions, spirit, and values.
See our initial article: Maple Bluff’s “La Follette Progressives” – Values, Community and Lake Access.
Our initial article more or less supplements “Maple Bluff, Madison’s Beautiful North Shore Suburb” (c. 1975, reprinted by Historic Madison, 1995).
At the close of the early LaFollette Progressive Era, after the death of Fighting Bob, 1925, Wellwood and Genevieve Nesbit settled in Fuller’s Woods in 1926. Many households of the extended Nesbit family followed over the year and several remain to the present time. This site next focuses particularly on the Nesbit family story in the period between WWI and WWII and a community of family relationships – Nesbit, Brittingham, Frautschi, Hefty, LaFollette – and other close friendships with people associated with the University of Wisconsin – Madison, including the artists Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry.
Archive, newspaper reports from their day, is a collection of stories touching on Genevieve and Wellwood Nesbit and their group of friends, and how they put the Wisconsin Idea into action.
Small lake steamer “Mendota” could reach speeds of up to 18 mph. The barge “Uncle Sam” was 75 ft long by 25 ft and was either towed about the lake or anchored at the picnic grounds at McBride Point. The “Mendota” made regular trips to Picnic Point, the University, Pheasant Branch, and the Insane Asylum.
