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8 June 1894
The town was duly incorporated on 8 June 1894 — Howard's whole statement on the act, and the instrument behind it is not in the reached record. Howard closes his North Liberty section with the sentence entire: "The population of North Liberty, according to the United States census of 1900, was five hundred and four. The town was duly incorporated June 8, 1894." A town newspaper column of 14 November 1991 corroborates the date at the same strength: "North Liberty was incorporated on June 8, 1894." What Howard gives other towns in the same chapter he does not give this one — for New Carlisle, pages earlier, he prints the petition and its thirty-two signers, the election day, the vote of forty-four to six, and the board's order; for North Liberty there is no petition, no election, no vote count, and no board order in the reached record, and Chapman, published in 1880, necessarily has none. The incorporation instrument — petition, election return, and the order of the board of county commissioners — stands as this build's first named gap. Its settler is the St. Joseph County Commissioners' Record for the June 1894 term, and secondarily the town's own first minute book.