The village of St. Joseph Iron Works

1833 — 1835

The town was the works, wearing a plat: In the summer of 1833 Hurd platted his town on the south bank around the furnace — the founding is dated July 15, 1833 — and named it for the enterprise: the Village of St. Joseph Iron Works. Howard records the original plat re-filed on February 21, 1835, with additions on the north, west and south, and Francis P. Taylor's addition acknowledged on August 17, 1836. The company behind the town was organized in December 1834 — Hurd with John Orr, John Deming and J. E. Hollister, Hurd as first president — and on January 22, 1835, the legislature chartered it, in the act's own words constituting Hurd, John J. Deming, John H. Orr "and their associates" a body corporate "by the name and style of the president, directors and company of the St. Joseph Iron Works, for the purpose of manufacturing iron." The town's civil life followed at once: on January 31, 1835, St. Joseph Iron Works was incorporated — the first incorporated village in St. Joseph County, ahead of South Bend — and its voters elected five trustees. And in the spring of 1834 the new town got its post office, and with the post office its permanent name: Henry Yerrington, the first postmaster and Hurd's clerk, suggested that the office be called Mishawaka, and it was. The works kept the company's name; the town, from the post office forward, increasingly answered to the village name the ground had carried before either of them.

Sources:

1. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the platting and founding date (July 15, 1833), the company formed December 1834, the village incorporated January 31, 1835 as the county's first incorporated village, the post office of spring 1834 and Yerrington's suggestion of the name.
2. Timothy Edward Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), Chapter X — the plat re-filed February 21, 1835, Taylor's addition (August 17, 1836), and the text of the company's charter act approved January 22, 1835.