The founders on both sides of the ground, in one opening frame

BEFORE 1820 – 1838

The Indigenous side, at its true strength: The first founders of a settlement at the rapids were the Potawatomi who held the village on the south bank, on ground now bounded roughly by Lincolnway West, North Main Street and West Street — drawn there, in Peter J. De Kever's commissioned city history, by "the ease of transport the river provided, a ford near a natural rapids, abundant fish and game, and access to timber." They cleared and farmed a small tract at what became Taylor's Addition to the St. Joseph Iron Works, where Chapman (1880) records that "the large corn hills, which were of a conical shape, and about two feet high, remained there for several years after this country was settled." The village's name, in the form the settlers took it up, is the city's name. No source reached for this build — not the treaty rolls, not the county histories of 1880 and 1907, not the 1875 atlas, not the commissioned city history, not the tribal accounts — names a chief, headman, speaker or band for this village, counts its houses or its people, or dates its founding. That negative is printed here as a finding, not filled: no chief is named for the Mishawaka village, and none is invented for it. By De Kever's account alone — a modern account, from sources it does not name at that sentence — the Potawatomi presence at the rapids ended about 1820, when a smallpox epidemic so horrified the village's people that they abandoned the area; where they went, no source reached says. The valley's named Indigenous leader in the village's last years, Leopold Pokagon, is profiled in the next article at his exact tie to this ground: head, from 1826, of the St. Joseph valley Potawatomi whose country this village stood in — not a chief of this village, which no document makes him.

Alanson M. Hurd, the settler founder: Alanson Mead Hurd — Alanson M. Hurd in the plat and charter record — was a Detroit entrepreneur who heard reports of bog-iron deposits in the St. Joseph Valley. In the summer of 1832 he sent William Earl to scout them; Earl found a large deposit near the Twin Branches, three miles upriver. Hurd came himself and chose not the deposit but the rapids, because the rapids gave water power to work iron beside the ore. On 1 January 1833 he bought the 640-acre School Section, Section 16, at $1.25 an acre — eight hundred dollars of townsite. Construction of a blast furnace on the south bank began in the spring of 1833, before the town was platted; completed in 1834 and blown in on bog ore and charcoal, it was, in the Indiana Historical Bureau marker's words, the first successful iron blast furnace in Indiana. In the summer of 1833 Hurd platted his town around the furnace — the founding is dated 15 July 1833 — and named it for the enterprise: the Village of St. Joseph Iron Works. Howard (1907) prints Hurd's dedication of the plat, acknowledged 15 July 1833 by William L. Earl, his attorney-in-fact, the plat "laid out and surveyed for Earl and Hurd, by T. W. Bray, St. Joseph county surveyor," and records the original plat re-filed 21 February 1835 with additions, and a plat of out lots filed by Hurd on 23 October 1835. Hurd was sole proprietor until December 1834, when he formed the company with John Orr, John Deming and J. E. Hollister, himself as first president; on 22 January 1835 the legislature chartered Hurd, John J. Deming, John H. Orr "and their associates" as the president, directors and company of the St. Joseph Iron Works. De Kever calls him, in the city history's own phrase, "Alanson Hurd, the Father of Mishawaka." No ledger of his return on the townsite, and no probate total for him, appears in the published record reached — the Wealth section prints that absence whole.

The plat proprietors, each at his plat's size: Hurd did not hold the ground alone. William Barbee and Henry Harman platted, on 2 April 1835, the town immediately east of the works and titled it outright the "Plat of the Town of Mishawaka" — the first recorded plat on which the name Mishawaka appears, as Howard notes; the settlement it planted was known as Barbee Town. Joseph Battell, James R. Lawrence and Grove Lawrence platted Indiana City across the river, on the south half of Section 9 and the northwest fraction of Section 16, its plat acknowledged 28 June 1836; the Battell family name stayed on the city's ground — Battell Park is the city's oldest park, given to the city in 1881 by members of the Battell family, on the marker record. George W. R. Fowler platted Fowler's village on the north bank, with H. H. Fowler's Addition recorded 8 March 1837. Francis P. Taylor made Taylor's Addition, acknowledged 17 August 1836 — the addition on whose ground Howard's tradition places the Indian village itself, so that the settler plat and the Indigenous cornfield occupy, in the record, the same ground. By the close of 1837 four independent plats stood at the rapids; on 17 February 1838 the legislature united them under the village's name. The first servants of the united place are named in the long-tail pass below: the five trustees elected 31 January 1835 — James White, Alexander Sandilands, John J. Deming, Samuel Stancliff and Henry De Camp.

Sources:

1. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History (City of Mishawaka, commissioned history) — the village on the south bank and its site; the smallpox abandonment about 1820; Hurd's scouting, purchase of 1 January 1833, furnace, platting of 15 July 1833, the December 1834 company, and "Father of Mishawaka."
2. Timothy Edward Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), vol. 1 — Hurd's plat dedication of 15 July 1833, the re-filing of 21 February 1835, the out lots of 23 October 1835, the charter act of 22 January 1835, the Barbee & Harman, Indiana City, Fowler and Taylor plats, and the tradition placing the Indian village on Taylor's Addition.
3. C. C. Chapman & Co., History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1880) — the cleared tract and the conical corn hills, two feet high.
4. The Tribes fragment of this build — the village record whole: no chief named for the Mishawaka village in any source reached; the village lists of the nation name no village at the rapids.
5. Indiana Historical Bureau, marker 71.1968.4 — Hurd's furnace as the first successful iron blast furnace in Indiana; the Historical Marker Database record for Battell Park — the park given to the city in 1881 by members of the Battell family.