The township of Jacksonport was officially organized as the
fourteenth and last township in Door County on March 9, 1869.
There are historical accounts of the Potawatomi Indians having a
very large village known as Mechingan in the vicinity of the
present center known as Jacksonport. An Indian burial ground was
located behind the homes south of Eureka House (Hwy 57 & AV).
It is possible the famous siege of the Ottawas by the Iroquois
took place at Hibbard’s Creek.
Around the middle of the nineteenth century the first white
man, Neil Blair, settled in Jacksonport. He was a commercial
fisherman and farmer. Perry Hibbard moved to Jacksonport in
1861, built a dock and was in the lumbering, store and shipping
business near Hibbard’s Creek. Early settlers in Jacksonport
were French Canadians from Quebec arriving in the 1860s. Other
immigrants settling in Jacksonport were the Canadians (Ontario)
in the 1870s, and 1880s, Germans and Austrians came in the 1880s
and 1890s. Families from Ireland, England, Scotland and New
England as well as New York, also found land and homesteads in
Jacksonport.
Families settling in Jacksonport had modest savings to pay for
the low priced, undeveloped land; and they would go into debt
for materials for their homes and outbuildings as well as for
their farm machinery. To repay these debts many of the men
would spend the winter in the woods cutting trees for cordwood
or other wood products. During the long winter months they
would buy food as well as other necessities "on
account" at the general store. In the spring when the
ships would come in to the port and load up with the lumber
products that were harvested, the families could settle their
finances with the merchant. In 1877 the best cord of wood would
be sold for a mere $2.40 per cord. Their tools were crude. No
one had a refrigerator and a wood-burning stove was used for
cooking and heating their homes. The stoves had a reservoir
attached to the side to heat water for baths and washing
clothes. Horses and oxen were used for their transportation and
to pull their farm machinery for clearing the land.
Commercial fishing was an important industry as well as
lumbering in Jacksonport. Trout and whitefish were plentiful in
the early days, being marketed as fresh or salted fish. The fish
were caught in gill nets, and packed in wooden kegs. At one time
there were ten commercial fisheries in Jacksonport.
During the 1870s there were two general stores, a meat market,
and two blacksmith shops. There were two wagon shops, a saw
mill, two hotels, taverns and also a boarding house. Sailing
vessels, as many as 39, would come to the piers to be loaded with
wood products to be taken to market.
Very few doctors were in the county and were called only in an
emergency, as it would be necessary to drive fifteen miles to
Sturgeon Bay, on dirt roads that were very rough and many times
impassable with only one track. Home remedies were their
medicines and a midwife delivered their children.
Jacksonport had four school districts in their township, until
their consolidation with Sevastopol schools in the late 50s.
Jacksonport, District One; Farview, District Two; Groveland,
District Three, and Washington District Four. Between 1874 and
1888, Catholic, Methodist, Episcopal and Lutheran churches were
established in the township of Jacksonport.
By 1890 the township of Jacksonport was almost all
agricultural, with lumbering being done on a very small scale.
It was about the turn of the century that outsiders discovered
the Jacksonport area as a great vacation center. Some stayed at
the Eureka House or LaMere Lodge and other camped and lived in
tents. By the 1920s cottages were being built and rented to the
vacationers.
Currently the Jacksonport fishing piers and docks are gone, no
commercial fishing is done and boarding houses are outdated.
Farms are getting bigger and fewer. When you drive through the
village or our rural countryside you can still see a few old
buildings (as if it were yesterday); a combination of new and
very old. Jacksonport is a unique town.
