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1810 – 1872
The tie, exactly: Norman S. Eddy was not born in Mishawaka — he was born December 10, 1810, at Scipio, New York — and this section claims him at the strength the record gives: he was formed here as a professional. He took his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1835 and came to Mishawaka the same year, practicing medicine in the new town for twelve years, until 1847, in association for a time with Dr. Louis Humphreys. He was Mishawaka's physician before he was anything else, and he remains the town's first resident to hold national office.
The course: In 1847 Eddy read for the law, was admitted to the bar on April 1 of that year, and moved to South Bend — the move ends his Mishawaka residence, and this entry does not pretend otherwise. From South Bend he went to the Indiana State Senate (1850–53) and then to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving as a Democrat from March 4, 1853, to March 3, 1855; the standard biographies carry the seat as passing between Eddy and Schuyler Colfax — Eddy winning in 1852, Colfax in 1854 — while the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress records the service itself. President Pierce appointed him U.S. attorney for the Territory of Minnesota (1855–61). In the Civil War he served as colonel of the 48th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. He was collector of internal revenue from 1865 to 1870, then Indiana's seventeenth secretary of state, from January 16, 1870, until his death in office.
The end: Eddy died January 28, 1872, at Indianapolis, of a heart condition, and was interred in City Cemetery, South Bend. The twelve Mishawaka years at the start of the course are this section's whole claim on him, and they are enough: the town's first doctor of record became its first congressman.
Sources:
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Eddy, Norman" (medical practice at Mishawaka 1835–47; House service 1853–55; Minnesota appointment; secretary of state)
- SenGov and Alchetron biographical compilations (association with Dr. Louis Humphreys; death in office), read as secondary accounts