The South Bend Woolen Company — Mishawaka's men, on South Bend ground

1869 – documented to 1907

How it was missed: a house on the wrong city's ground. The company stands in South Bend's business-gaps file, correctly, because its mill stood in South Bend — but its parentage is Mishawaka's, and the first Mishawaka pass, taking the firm for South Bend's because the works were South Bend's, never carried the parentage home. It is printed here at the size the Mishawaka record gives it, and the mill's own course stays where South Bend's file keeps it.

Two accounts of the origin: Timothy Howard's 1907 county history writes that the South Bend Woolen Company was "an institution originating in Mishawaka": its beginning managers — Joseph Worden, George W. Lewis, Corwin B. Van Pelt, and Henry G. Niles — were Mishawaka men, and Niles was still its president in 1907. The Monon Society's mill account, carried in South Bend's file, dates the company's operations to 1869 and puts its mill on the east bank of the St. Joseph River between LaSalle and Colfax streets, in South Bend, producing principally woolen fabrics for men's wear — suitings and overcoatings. Both accounts stand: a South Bend mill, on South Bend ground from 1869 on the mill account, of Mishawaka parentage on Howard's. The firm advertised in Farr's 1883 South Bend directory, which carries "South Bend Woolen Co." in its index of advertisers. Its course after 1907 was not traced in either city's pass. It is not the Mishawaka Woolen Manufacturing Company of the Ball Band file — that house, incorporated at Mishawaka in 1874 on Howard's roll, made wool boots on Mishawaka ground — and the two woolen companies, one named for each city and each rooted in the other, are not to be merged.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. 1 (1907), manufactures chapter, sec. 11 — the company's Mishawaka origin, its beginning managers, and Henry G. Niles's presidency, as carried in South Bend's business-gaps file.
2. Monon Society, the mill account — the 1869 dating, the mill's place on the river between LaSalle and Colfax, and its men's-wear fabrics, as carried in South Bend's file.
3. Farr's South Bend City Directory for 1883, Index to Advertisers — the company's advertisement.