Bissell and Economist — the two Farr works, attested, their fates still open

Attested 1883 and after · fates not in the record reached

Four plow works, two of them shadows: The Tribune's count, carried in the banked Oliver entry, makes Oliver's the first of four chilled-plow companies in the city. Two of the four — the South Bend Chilled Plow Company and Oliver — stand documented whole in this build. The other two, the Bissell Chilled Plow Works and the Economist Plow Company, Farr's 1883 classified names and the gaps pass left unattested beyond it. This pass attests them at the strength the record allows. The Smithsonian's Warshaw Collection of business ephemera holds folders for both firms under their South Bend names — "Bissell Chilled Plow Works, South Bend, Indiana" and "Economist Plow Company, South Bend, Indiana" — the paper residue of two working houses. A period fair report, reprinted in the Rural New-Yorker, lists among the Western Michigan Fair's exhibitors "the Bissell Plow Co., South Bend, Ind." and "the Economist Plow Co, of the same place," showing beside Oliver and Casaday: both works were real, and both sold plows in the region's markets.

The name inside Oliver's own charter: One thread more, printed at its exact strength. Howard's 1907 history, read first-hand, names Thelus M. Bissell among the incorporators of the South Bend Iron Works on 22 July 1868 — Oliver's own company. Whether the Bissell of the Bissell works is that man is not stated in any carrier reached, and the connection is not asserted. The works' fates — closing, merger, absorption — are likewise not in the record reached; the gaps pull stays open, with the settling source named: the Warshaw folders themselves, ephemera in a physical collection, not freely readable. Both firms print here at attested size — real houses, briefly carried, their endings unrecovered.

Sources:

1. Farr's South Bend City Directory, 1883, classified — the Bissell and Economist works named; via the Business Gaps record of this build.
2. Smithsonian Institution, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, collection guide — ephemera folders: "Bissell Chilled Plow Works, South Bend, Indiana" (Box 3, Folder 20); "Economist Plow Company, South Bend, Indiana" (Box 5, Folder 12).
3. Rural New-Yorker, Western Michigan Fair report — "the Bissell Plow Co., South Bend, Ind." and "the Economist Plow Co, of the same place" among the exhibitors.
4. Timothy E. Howard, History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. 1 (1907) — Thelus M. Bissell among the incorporators of the South Bend Iron Works, 22 July 1868; read first-hand.