The first forms — gristmill, tannery, stores and taverns, the bank, the market house

1834 – 1901 · each form at the size its record gives it

The first gristmill — here, a flouring mill, and its builder's name is a conflict: Howard's business-enterprises roll states it in one sentence: "During the year 1834, Orlando Hurd opened a hotel for the accommodation of the traveling public; and in the following year Francis P. Taylor erected the first flouring mill." The 1875 Atlas states the same year and a different Taylor: "In 1835, Asa Taylor built a flouring mill." Francis P. Taylor is a documented Mishawaka founder — an Iron Works addition proprietor and an 1836 insurance corporator in Howard's own pages; Asa Taylor stands in the Atlas's sentence alone in the record reached. The two are printed whole and not merged: the town's first flouring mill was built in 1835 by a Taylor, and the given name is the record's open point. The settling source is the mill's own paper trail — the St. Joseph County deed and mill-privilege records for the race lots of 1835, at the County Recorder. The form's course after the first mill is the main record's: Judson's Mishawaka Flouring Mill at the foot of Mill Street in 1868, Cass's Ripple Mills of 1864, and the Eberhart milling on the Ball Band ground.

The first tannery — a tested negative: no tannery stands in any record searched for this layer: not in Howard's business-enterprises roll or his incorporation lists, not in the Atlas's firsts, not in Chapman's town account, not in De Kever, and not under any heading of the directories the gaps pass worked heading by heading (1868, 1902–03, 1921, 1949, with 1956 spot states). What exists is leather dealing, not tanning: the 1868 directory carries A. B. Judson & Son under Leather and Findings, and Baker's 1959 study lists leather goods among the manufactures shipped from Mishawaka in the late 1850s — goods made or sold here, with no tanyard named behind them. The negative is printed at that strength: in the record reached, Mishawaka had leather dealers and leather goods, and no named tannery. A tanyard, if one worked here, would settle in the 1850 and 1860 federal census of manufactures schedules for Penn Township, which are the named settling source.

The first general stores: a store building stood empty in the village in 1835, empty enough for two congregations to worship in it (Chapman) — the form existed before any keeper is named. By the late 1850s Baker fixes the trade at its corner: the business section centered at Main and Second, "the stores of various merchants" lining the streets, with the Milburn House hotel on the southeast corner. The first keepers the record names by name are the 1868 directory's: A. B. Judson & Son, general storekeepers at Second and Main — the same house that banked the town — and Clark & Whitson, general store at the corner of Main and Second, bankers a generation later. The gaps file carries both houses whole.

The first taverns, and the first hotel: the tavern is the town's first business of entertainment, and it is carried under two keepers' names. The Atlas has the first resident preacher, the Rev. N. M. Wells, holding worship "in a tavern kept by Mr. Finch"; the church record of the same years names Earl's Tavern — William Earl being Hurd's scout of 1832 — as the Presbyterians' and Methodists' first meeting place, and the religion file of this build carries it under Earl's name. Finch and Earl are printed as the record gives them, two names for the village's tavern-keeping in 1834, not resolved into one house here. The hotel form is cleaner: in 1834 Orlando Hurd opened the Mishawaka Hotel, in the Atlas's words furnishing "ample entertainment in the wilderness of the St. Joseph Valley" to the traveling public, and in De Kever's, known as the best hotel on the Vistula Road between Chicago and Toledo; Dr. Ellis's 1836 arrival account has him "made his way to the Mishawaka Hotel, kept by that prince of landlords and good fellows, Orlando Hurd." Incorporation itself met at Orlando Hurd's house in January 1835 — the hotel was, at the start, the town's public room.

The first bank, and the first bank branch — two different questions: the first bank is settled in the Businesses section: the Bank of Mishawaka, organized 1854, never opened, its proof notes its whole remains; the first operating bankers were the private houses, Judson (1868) and Clark & Whitson (by 1902); the first chartered bank to open was the First National (charter No. 5167, 1900–01). The first branch — an office in Mishawaka of a bank headquartered elsewhere — is a different and later form, and it is not settled in the record reached: the houses of the 1921 roster were Mishawaka-chartered independents, and the branch era arrives inside the successions the Businesses section carries (Valley American into National City Bank of Indiana in 1998, National City in 2006, PNC Bank, N.A. in 2009), by which point the downtown office was a branch of an outside bank. Which outside bank first planted a branch here, and when, the directories and the charter record reached do not separately state. It stands as a named gap: the settling sources are the Indiana Department of Financial Institutions' branch records and the bank headings of the Polk directory run between 1921 and 1956, read year by year.

The market house — a tested negative: no market house — the municipal market building of the Fort Wayne pattern — stands in any record searched: not in Howard, Chapman, the Atlas or De Kever, not in the town-board material Baker prints, and not as a building or a heading in any directory state the build has worked. Mishawaka's market trade ran the other way, through named private houses: the meat markets of the directories (Burt J. A. & Co. and Valentine Shroth in 1868; Major Bros and its fellows after), the groceries at Main and Second, and in time the packing house on South Logan. The negative is the finding, printed with its search: this town never built the market house its sister cities built, so far as the record reached shows; the town board records, 1845–1892, in the City Clerk's keeping and the Mishawaka City Council Records at the Hesburgh Libraries, are the settling source if a market ordinance or market lot was ever voted.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. 1 (1907), "Business Enterprises" — Orlando Hurd's hotel of 1834 and Francis P. Taylor's first flouring mill of 1835, as quoted; the incorporation rolls searched for a tannery and a market house, with neither found.
2. Higgins, Belden & Co., An Illustrated Historical Atlas of St. Joseph County (1875) — Asa Taylor's flouring mill of 1835; the tavern kept by Mr. Finch; Orlando Hurd's Mishawaka Hotel; the firsts list, searched whole.
3. Chas. C. Chapman & Co., History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1880) — the empty store building of 1835; Dr. E. W. H. Ellis's arrival account of 7 August 1836 and the Mishawaka Hotel under Orlando Hurd.
4. Ward N. Baker, "Mishawaka on the Eve of Conflict," Indiana Magazine of History (March 1959) — the late-1850s stores at Main and Second, the Milburn House, and leather goods among the town's shipped manufactures.
5. Business Directory of St. Joseph County (1868) and Johnson's Business & Professional Directory (1902–03), as worked in the business-gaps file — Judson and Clark & Whitson as general storekeepers; Judson under Leather and Findings; no tannery or market-house heading in any state worked (1868, 1902–03, 1921, 1949, 1956).
6. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the Mishawaka Hotel as the best hotel on the Vistula Road; the 1840s commercial district; searched for a tannery and a market house, with neither found.
7. The businesses file of this build — the Bank of Mishawaka of 1854, the First National's charter, and the Valley American succession to PNC, on which the bank and branch paragraphs rest.