"The second largest Belgian-American settlement in the United States"

The Miskodeed, 1963

The claim. Mishawaka High School's yearbook, The Miskodeed, in its 1963 edition, wrote of the Belgian settlement on the city's west side that it was "thought to be the second largest Belgian-American settlement in the United States" — a sentence this history's culture file carries as what it is, a schoolbook boast, and prints untested. The settlement it describes is real and large: the Belgians of the neighborhoods file, from the first families of the 1850s through the parish, the brick West End, and the Belgium Club, are one of the documented peoples of this city. The ranking is the claim, and the ranking is what gets tested.

The record. First place is documented, and it is not close. The Wisconsin Historical Society's account of the Belgians in Wisconsin calls the settlement in portions of Brown, Kewaunee, and Door counties "Wisconsin's and the nation's largest Belgian American settlement," and the National Register nomination for the Namur district — the heart of that settlement — describes its nine-township area as "the nation's largest rural settlement of Belgian-Americans" and counts 4,647 Belgian immigrants in Wisconsin by 1860. That immigrant count alone, from before the Civil War, exceeds Mishawaka's whole settlement at its documented best. Mishawaka's own series, from Henry A. Verslype's Belgians of Indiana (1987) as the South Bend Public Library's research letter preserves it, runs 568 Belgians in 1901, counted by birth or descent; 1,355 in 1912; 1,702 in 1919 — and this history's neighborhoods file carries the settlement past 2,500 by 1930 with the first American-born generation counted in. The second rung, meanwhile, is spoken for by a district that has a census behind it. The Belgians of the Moline district, on the Illinois side of the Quad Cities, were counted by the federal census itself: 5,184 Belgian-born residents in Rock Island and Henry counties in 1920, on Kristine Smets's study of the community in The Belgian American (2019), drawn from her Kent State thesis — twice Mishawaka's all-in total a decade later, before a single American-born Belgian is added to Moline's side of the scale. Moline kept a Flemish newspaper, the Gazette van Moline, from 1907, and its Center for Belgian Culture bills the district to this day as once the nation's largest and "still ranked second in the United States" — a claimant's own billing, printed here as one, but attached to a district whose counted size exceeds Mishawaka's on every series the record holds. Detroit stands in the scholarly literature as well: Bernard A. Cook's Belgians in Michigan (Michigan State University Press, 2007) calls Detroit's one of the largest Belgian populations in the nation, and Michigan counted the second-largest Belgian-heritage population of any state at the 2000 census, 53,135 people, behind only Wisconsin's 57,808.

The verdict. Not supported. Against the documented first place in Wisconsin and a second-place district whose Belgian-born count alone doubles Mishawaka's documented total, the yearbook's ranking cannot stand, and no series reached puts Mishawaka second in the nation at any date. What the record supports at full strength is the smaller frame, and it is not small: Verslype's book is Belgians of Indiana because Mishawaka was Indiana's Belgian center by a distance no other place in the state approached — the parish, the club founded in 1927, a Flemish-speaking world that lasted into living memory, all of it in the neighborhoods and culture files at their full size. The yearbook's own two words were the honest part of its sentence: "thought to be." The retellings that dropped the hedge made the claim larger than its maker did; this entry restores the hedge and retires the rank.

Sources:

1. Mishawaka High School, The Miskodeed, 1963 edition — the claim as printed, hedge included; carried as an attributed schoolbook boast in this history's culture file.
2. Wisconsin Historical Society, "Belgians in Wisconsin," Ethnic Groups in Wisconsin series — the Brown, Kewaunee, and Door county settlement as "Wisconsin's and the nation's largest Belgian American settlement."
3. National Park Service, National Register nomination, Namur Belgian-American District (listed 1990) — "the nation's largest rural settlement of Belgian-Americans"; the nine-township settlement area; 4,647 Belgian immigrants in Wisconsin by 1860.
4. Henry A. Verslype, The Belgians of Indiana (1987), as preserved in the South Bend Public Library's research letter of 16 April 1999 — Mishawaka's series: 568 (1901), 1,355 (1912), 1,702 (1919); and this history's neighborhoods file for the settlement past 2,500 by 1930.
5. Kristine Smets, "The Belgians in Moline, Illinois: An Overview," The Belgian American, 29 January 2019 — the 1920 census count of 5,184 Belgian-born in Rock Island and Henry counties; the Gazette van Moline (1907–1940); Moline as the era's major center of Belgian immigration.
6. Center for Belgian Culture of the Quad Cities — the district's own billing ("once boasting the largest Belgian population in our nation... still ranked second in the United States"), printed as a claimant's billing.
7. Bernard A. Cook, Belgians in Michigan, Discovering the Peoples of Michigan series, Michigan State University Press, 2007 — Detroit's Belgian population among the nation's largest; the 2000 census state table (Wisconsin 57,808; Michigan 53,135).