Every station claim, tested one by one

1899 – PRESENT

For Mishawaka ground, the test prints whole as a searched negative: no station claim for any Mishawaka house, family or site stands in any source reached. The founding pass's full-text search of this build returned zero occurrences of "Underground Railroad," "fugitive" or "freedom-seeker" in any Mishawaka fragment. The local histories stand read or search-verified — De Kever's commissioned city history; Chapman (1880) and Howard (1907) for the county, read in the South Bend pass — and none carries a Mishawaka station tradition. The two Mishawaka houses of the antebellum years that carry federal nominations, the Merrifield-Cass House (816 East Lincolnway, built 1837) and the Ellis-Schindler House (900 Lincolnway West, built 1834), carry no Underground Railroad claim in their nomination texts as returned. No tunnel, cellar or hiding-place tradition attaches to any Mishawaka address in the record reached. The Civil Rights Heritage Center collection and the Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library frames are named as the settlers for anything beyond these searches; until one of them yields a carrier, the verdict for Mishawaka is not "unproven" but "unclaimed in the record reached," and it is printed that way.

The county-frame claims, tested at boundary size: the organized South Bend station — a standing operation with conductors and a route — fails on its own earliest carriers: the tradition enters print in J. B. Dakin's South Bend Daily Tribune reminiscence of 25 April 1899 and in Windle (1939), and the tradition itself reports both Siebert's negative finding and the organizer's decision to place the station at Bertrand instead. The one claim tested against a building fails outright: Notre Dame's "Bulla Farmhouse" (Wilson Commons) tradition collapses on the building's own fabric — construction of about 1920, concrete block and modern work throughout, on the magazine's first-hand inspection with archivist Peter Lysy and architect Tony Polotto. The original Bulla house on the Eddy Street road in Clay Township carries the weaker, older form of the story — Charles Hope's 1943 "a household that cared for the negro slaves making a dash for Canada and liberty" — and the house is demolished; the anecdote it sheltered is printed in the traffic article at reminiscence strength, which is all it ever claimed. The Huggart Settlement has no station claim to test: no carrier reached calls it a station. No claim for Coquillard's house, for Colfax, or for tunnels and cellars appears in Chapman, Howard, Dakin/Windle, Thornbrough, or the state's marker list; of the county's twenty-three state historical markers, none marks a station, and none marks the Powell case. Windle's list of the county's antislavery supporters of 1840–1850 — Newton, Crocker, Bugbee, Thomas B. and William F. Bulla, Briggs, Palmer, La Pierre, Jernegan, Webster, "a Mr. Jones near Terre Coupee" — carries its own caveat in its own text: "Not all of the gentlemen mentioned harbored fugitives or conducted them to places of safety, but they contributed money." The barbers Washington and Sawyer rest, as Underground Railroad "solicitors," on the 1899 reminiscence alone. That is the whole of the county's station record: money, meals, single drives and one demolished house's tradition — help, documented at its own size, and no station.

Sources

1. Founding pass full-text searches of the Mishawaka build (audit register) — zero hits for "Underground Railroad," "fugitive," "freedom-seeker" across the Mishawaka fragments.
2. National Register nominations as returned — Merrifield-Cass House (1837) and Ellis-Schindler House (1834): no Underground Railroad claim in the texts.
3. J. B. Dakin, South Bend Daily Tribune, 25 April 1899; Janette Thomas Windle (1939) — the earliest carriers of the station tradition, and the caveats within them, including Windle's supporters list and its own qualification.
4. Notre Dame Magazine — the Wilson Commons / "Bulla Farmhouse" inspection with Peter Lysy and Tony Polotto: construction c. 1920; the claim false.
5. Charles Hope (1943) — the original Bulla house's carrier phrase; the house demolished.
6. Indiana Historical Bureau, state marker list for St. Joseph County — twenty-three markers; none for a station or the Powell case.