Two lines before the union: Kamm from Toledo, Schellinger from the mill

1842 — 1879

The Kamm line: Adolph Kamm was born 13 June 1842 at Zöbingen, in Württemberg, and was brought to America at the age of eight by his parents. The record reached picks him up again in Toledo, Ohio, a brewer in partnership with Clemens Dick — the trade timeline styles the Mishawaka purchase of 1870 as "F. Dick Sr. & Co. (Adolph Kamm)," and every account agrees the two men "came from Toledo" to buy Wagner's brewery. What Kamm brewed in Toledo, and for whom, is not in the record this section reached; his line enters Mishawaka's record at the purchase, already a brewer with a partner and the means to enlarge a plant. He married first Maria Weber of Toledo, who died at Mishawaka and was buried at Toledo, and second Josephine Schellinger — a marriage whose weight in this story the cemetery record, below, makes plain.

The Schellinger line: Nicholas Schellinger was born 4 November 1847 at Muehlheim, Württemberg, the son of a wealthy miller, and emigrated to America in 1870 — the year of the Dick & Kamm purchase — settling at once in Mishawaka. He built no brewery of his own here, and the record gives him no trade before the brewery: what he brought was milling money and, in 1874, a marriage. In that year he married Amelia Kamm, Adolph Kamm's sister, joining the brewery's family six years before he joined its firm. The double tie is completed in the cemetery record of St. Joseph's Cemetery, Mishawaka, which gives Adolph Kamm's second wife as Josephine Schellinger: the brewer married into the miller's family as the miller's son married into the brewer's, and the partnership of 1879/1880 was the third joining of two lines already twice joined by marriage. That is the record's answer to how the union was made — it was a family settlement before it was a firm name.

The third Kamm: A third Kamm worked inside the plant rather than the counting room: Rudolph Kamm, foreman and brewmaster, "regarded as one of the best master brewers in the state" in the period account. The History Museum's spoken history of the South Bend Watch Company names "Rudolph and Laura Kamm of Mishawaka's Kamm-Schellinger brewery" among that company's investors in the 1920s — the brewmaster and the secretary of 1883, still figures of the house two generations on. The family's fuller record — the money, the houses, the island that took its name — stands in the Wealth and Founders & CEOs sections of this history; this section keeps the two lines at the length the making requires and no longer.

Sources:

1. Tavern Trove, the Kamm & Schellinger Brewing Company brewery record — the principals' birth records (Adolph Kamm, Zöbingen, 13 June 1842, brought to America at eight; Nicholas Schellinger, Muehlheim, 4 November 1847, son of a wealthy miller, emigrated 1870, settled in Mishawaka, married Amelia Kamm in 1874); the timeline styling of 1870 as "F. Dick Sr. & Co. (Adolph Kamm)."
2. The period company account carried at historic-structures.com — Kamm and Dick "came from Toledo, Ohio"; Rudolph Kamm, foreman and brewmaster, "regarded as one of the best master brewers in the state."
3. St. Joseph's Cemetery, Mishawaka, burial transcription (INGenWeb, St. Joseph County) — Adolph Kamm Sr., died 16 December 1930 at Mishawaka; spouse Maria Weber Kamm, of Toledo, buried at Toledo; spouse Josephine Schellinger; Adolph X. Kamm (26 July 1889 — 30 March 1947), son of Adolph and Josephine. Carried here as a cemetery record, at that strength.
4. The History Museum (South Bend), A Bend in Time podcast, Series 02-08 (South Bend Watch Company), transcript — "Rudolph and Laura Kamm of Mishawaka's Kamm-Schellinger brewery" among the watch company's investors.