Exhibits are evidence of the historical significance of 

Peter Studebaker

Selected pages from Eugene S. Wierbach, The David Studebaker

Story, Balboa Island, California,

April 1, 1969

Wierbach verifies Peter Studebakers existence and documents his descendants and their industrial farms from Hagerstown, Maryland to South Bend Indiana.

NOTE:  Eugene S. Wierbach published 24 original manuscripts and/or books.

Wierbach was certified by the Institute of American Genealogy, October 10, 1939. The manuscript we utilized was his last manuscript and was never officially published, however we located a copy in the Washington County Historical Library.  This manuscript is what he refers to as his lifetime endeavor. Compilation began in 1924 and completed in 1969.  

page 8-16

Peter’s Studebaker’s descendants, generation to generation, expanded the family business. The family wagon-making trade established in Bakers Lookout, from Hagerstown, Maryland, to South Bend, Indiana.

The Wierbach Manuscript,[1] is specifically what Erskin understood when he credited the German-born immigrant Peter Studebaker as being the founder of the Studebaker trade and family fortune. In the same paragraph, Erskin, president of Studebaker Corporation, wrote in the 1918 annual report to the stockholders[2] “The tax list of York County, Pennsylvania in 1798-9 showed among the taxables were Peter Studebaker, Sr. and Peter Studebaker, Jr. wagon-makers, which trade later became the foundation of the family fortune and the corporation which now bears his name.”[3]