The Enterprise's first succession: Elliott, Beal, Brower, 1856–1872

1856/58–1872 · the paper settles

L. A. Elliott bought the Free Press and changed its name to the Mishawaka Enterprise; Chapman continues the chain: Elliott "subsequently sold it to Archibald Beal." De Kever dates Beal's purchase to 1858 and gives his paper its politics: Beal was a Union and Republican advocate, and the Enterprise under him was the town's Republican voice through the Civil War years. Ward Baker's scholarly study of the town — "Mishawaka on the Eve of Conflict," Indiana Magazine of History, March 1959 — treats the era through its editors, Colfax across the river and "Archibald Beal, editor of the Mishawaka Enterprise," at home. In 1865, Chapman and Howard agree, the Enterprise passed to Norman V. Brower; the 1868 business directory of St. Joseph County lists "Mishawaka Enterprise, weekly, N V Brower, editor and prop," and describes the town as having "a good weekly newspaper The Enterprise." The library's microfilm of the paper opens in this era — its earliest surviving number is the issue of April 7, 1858, and the run holds April 1858 to October 1865 with the scattered survival the archive article below describes.

The Enterprise also became, early, the town's memory of itself. In 1859, under Beal, it carried George Merrifield's nine articles, "Mishawaka: Its Early History and Present Condition" — the first history of Mishawaka, written by the publisher of its first newspaper, printed in the paper that had finally stayed. De Kever's city history calls the Enterprise, on the strength of this descent, "now the oldest business in Mishawaka" — the claim is the city history's, printed here as its judgment on the record this article gives.

Sources

1. Chas. C. Chapman & Co., History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1880), the county press chapter, read first-hand.
2. Timothy Edward Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), "The Press," read first-hand.
3. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History, on the Enterprise succession and the Merrifield series of 1859.
4. Business Directory of St. Joseph County (1868), the Mishawaka listings, as transcribed by the county genealogy record.
5. Mark Popovich, Indiana Newspaper History: An Annotated Bibliography (1974), entry 25, on Ward Baker's "Mishawaka on the Eve of Conflict."
6. Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library, St. Joseph County, Indiana Newspapers holdings list, the Enterprise run, read first-hand.