The addition system: the legal frame of a paper town

1833 — THE PRESENT

The plats were not plans; they were conveyancing machines, and their form never changed: Each founding instrument does the same legal work in the same order — a proprietor causes ground to be surveyed, dedicates the streets and alleys to the public in a written dedication, signs, acknowledges the instrument before an officer, and files it with the county recorder, whereupon the lots can be sold by number, by reference to the plat, forever after. It is why the record of the town's growth is a record of additions: a town in this system grows by instrument, each addition a separate filing with its own proprietor, surveyor and date. The union act of 17 February 1838 (Local Laws 1837–38, Chapter CCXXXIII, page 410) gathered the founding filings into one corporation without dissolving their paper: "For convenience of reference," Howard writes, "the old divisions are still recognized as the 'original plat,' 'Taylor's Addition,' 'Barbee's Addition,' 'Lawrence & Battell's Addition,' and the several 'Fowler's Additions'; but all these, and many others since formed, are merged under the happily chosen name of Mishawaka." Chapman dates the union a year late — "In 1839 St. Joseph Iron Works with its two additions, and Indiana City were incorporated as one town" — against the act's own date, and the act governs; the slip is printed because it stands in the older county history.

The founding generation's filings can be counted whole, because Howard enumerates them: Hurd's original plat (1833); its re-filing with additions on three sides (1835); Hurd's out-lots (1835); Barbee & Harman's town plat (1835); Taylor's Addition (1836); Indiana City (1836); Fowler's Addition (1836); H. H. Fowler's Addition (1837); and G. W. R. Fowler's second plat (1837) — nine instruments in four years, besides the village's own incorporation proceedings of 1834–1835. Beyond the founding generation the count is not in the sources reached: Howard's "many others since formed" is the record's own phrase for the nineteenth century's additions, the 1875 atlas needed eight pages (72–79) to print the city's plats of that date, and the system runs unbroken into the modern recorder's instrument numbers — a title report's recital for a Mishawaka lot describes it as "Lot Numbered Fifty Six (56) As Shown On The Recorded Replat Of Brookside Second Addition To The City Of Mishawaka Recorded June 22, 1977 As Document Number 7700001… In The Office Of The Recorder Of Saint Joseph County, Indiana," the 1833 form in twentieth-century dress: lot, plat, recording, recorder. A total count of the additions recorded against the city stands in the recorder's plat books and the county's plat index, and is named in this section's notes as an open pull.

Sources:

1. Timothy Edward Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. 1 (1907), Chapter X, Secs. 1–6 — the founding filings enumerated; the retained division names after the union.
2. Indiana, Local Laws (1837–1838), Chap. CCXXXIII, p. 410 — the union act of 17 February 1838, as quoted in Howard.
3. Chas. C. Chapman & Co., History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1880), Penn Township — the union dated 1839.
4. An Illustrated Historical Atlas of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1875), index — the plats of Mishawaka, north part at pages 78–79, south part at pages 72–73.
5. Title report recital, Brookside Second Addition replat (recorded 22 June 1977, Document No. 7700001, Recorder of St. Joseph County) — the modern instrument form, quoted from the report's Schedule A.