First Presbyterian Church: The Oldest Organization in the City

Organized 25 July 1834 at the village of St. Joseph Iron Works; buildings 1837, 1846, burned in the Great Fire of 5 September 1872; present church dedicated 30 March 1911; 401 Lincolnway East

The founding: The First Presbyterian Church was organized on 25 July 1834, while Mishawaka was still the iron-works village of St. Joseph, by the Hurd, Dean and Smith families with the Rev. Noah M. Wells, who had come to the village as a furnace supervisor, and it worshipped first in Philo Hurd's home and in Earl's Tavern. The city-commissioned history gives it the distinction this entry's heading carries: the oldest continuously operating organization in Mishawaka. Its first building rose in 1837 on Center Court north of Front Street; its second in 1846 at the southeast corner of Mill Street and Lincoln Way West. In it, on 24 September 1865, Schuyler Colfax — the city's congressman and the House's Speaker — delivered a eulogy for the murdered President Lincoln, on the genealogical timeline's record.

Fire and the present church: The Great Fire of 5 September 1872 destroyed the 1846 church; the timeline preserves the suspicion, printed here as the period's suspicion and nothing more, that the fire was set against Pastor McCord's stand against liquor. The congregation rebuilt on the lot, reopening on 5 January 1873 and completing the work in 1884. In 1909 it bought its present ground on Lincoln Way, and the present church — Georgian in style, limestone and brick with a Wren steeple, under the Rev. A. C. Ormand — was dedicated on 30 March 1911. A Christian Education wing followed in 1960. The congregation stands active at 401 Lincolnway East as a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregation of just over one hundred members — the count from its own October 2024 newsletter — with the Mishawaka-area food pantry work among its ministries.

Sources:

1. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History, commissioned by the City of Mishawaka (the oldest-organization standing; the 1840s building course).
2. Ed Chamberlin, Mishawaka church-history timeline, South Bend Area Genealogical Society, 2016 (organization, fire, Colfax eulogy, 1911 dedication).
3. First Presbyterian Church's own newsletter, October 2024, and its current site and presbytery listing.