The federated wiki project early history has been recorded in the git repository used from the beginning. Here we collect other items that weren't directly part of that source.
The project began with the June 25, 2011 initial git commit titled "readme as challenge" identifying the goals of the project and the responsibilities of the client and server components. github 
The first actual wiki pages were authored in json by hand typing into a text editor. They consisted of two not quite correct pages internally linked containing items of paragraph and image types with random ids including the persistent welcome "7b56f22a4b9ee974". github
GitHub will let you page through early commits with the earliest page somewhere around page 44. github
artifacts
Nike Seeks Fellow announced at SXSW 2011.
Partnering with Nike announced by Code for America.
Historical Mockup of the Journal shows who edits.