Martin V. Beiger: The First Millionaire

1847 – 1903

The fortune: Martin Valentine Beiger (born 3 February 1847 in St. Joseph County; a private of Company H, 138th Indiana Volunteers in 1864) entered business in the river mill his father Jacob had bought in 1867 — the woolen mill at the dam that became Ball Band, whose whole course stands in the Ball Band file. At twenty-one he was a member of the family firm of M. V. Beiger & Co. inside the mill's first Beiger years. The fortune's instrument was a product: the all-knit wool boot he and Adolphus Eberhart brought out in 1886, the first wool boot that held its shape, which carried the black band and, from 1891, the red ball that named the company in the country's mind. The mill's employment ladder is the fortune's public measure — twenty-five persons at the incorporated company's start on the company's own history, nearly 2,000 by 1903 on the Beiger Mansion's account, 5,000 by 1923 — and the mansion's account states the personal result in the record's own superlative: "By 1900 Martin had become very wealthy and was Mishawaka's first millionaire." The county's visitor bureau's telling adds one word: "first self-made millionaire." Both are carried here as what they are — the house's and the bureau's published characterizations, the nearest thing to an estate figure for Martin Beiger that print provides. No probate total for his estate appears in the sources consulted.

Its scale, in the house: The fortune showed once, in full, and he did not live in it. Planning began in 1900–01 for a house in the manner of Newport's mansions — The Breakers is the mansion account's own comparison — at 317 Lincolnway East: four and a half stories of neoclassical brick, 21,790 square feet, some forty rooms, the largest home in Mishawaka, designed by Durham and Snyder of South Bend with grounds by Jens Jensen. Construction began in 1903; on 26 September 1903, months into the work, Martin Beiger died of an infection following an operation for appendicitis, aged fifty-six. The house's published reference account prices the completed mansion at $100,000; among its fittings the mansion's own history singles out a three-manual Aeolian pipe organ costing $25,000. His widow Susie halted the work, then resumed it — the Tribune's later account dates the resumption to 1907 — and the house was completed in 1908. She married him in December 1875, a local jeweler's daughter, Susie Higgins; they had no children.

The giving, in his lifetime and hers: The mansion's account carries the couple's civic record in one breath: they founded Mishawaka's East United Methodist Church, supported the building of the First United Methodist Church, and established Beiger School. The fortune's larger philanthropy is Susie's, and it is priced — it stands in the next entry, because the Beiger fortune's documented descent runs entirely through his widow.

Sources:

1. The Beiger Mansion, published history (beigermansion.com) — the 1867 founding with his father; "just 3 employees" at the start (the company history says twenty-five — the division stands in the Ball Band file); the boot of 1886; the employment pegs; "Mishawaka's first millionaire" by 1900; the mansion's construction 1903–1908, its 21,790 square feet, and the $25,000 Aeolian organ; Martin's death on 26 September 1903; the churches and Beiger School.
2. Visit South Bend Mishawaka, "Around the Bend: The Beiger Mansion" — "Mishawaka's first self-made millionaire"; the 1903 death months into construction; the 1908 completion.
3. Beiger Mansion reference account (Wikipedia, from the house's National Register record, NRHP 73000042) — the $100,000 total construction cost; the 1973 Register listing; the fire of 20 January 1975 and the restoration.
4. Goodspeed Brothers, Pictorial and Biographical Memoirs of Elkhart and St. Joseph Counties (1893), biography of M. V. Beiger — the birth, service, and early firm course, as carried whole in the Ball Band file.