The society of 1867 — collecting before there was a museum

Organized 26 October – 2 November 1867

The founding: The first meeting took place on 26 October 1867, and the organization was completed on 2 November 1867, as Judge Timothy E. Howard, the society's later president, set down in his account in the Indiana Magazine of History. Among those in attendance at the first meeting were Horatio Chapin, Thomas S. Stanfield, Lathrop M. Taylor and John Brownfield — the county's founding generation, organizing to study, in Howard's words, "the early history of this county and its vicinity" while that history was still within living memory. The institution that descends from that meeting, today's History Museum, describes the society it began as the second-oldest historical society in Indiana.

The first life and the lapse: Howard's account records that the society organized in 1867 "continued to flourish" for a time, and then, in the way of such bodies, the energy went out of it. What survived the lapse was the impulse: by the early 1890s, he writes, "relics are again sought for. Old books, manuscripts, tools and remains of former days become precious once more." The society of 1867 is the root of everything in this section, but the museum as an institution was the work of its refounding, a generation later.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, "The Northern Indiana Historical Society," Indiana Magazine of History — the meetings of 26 October and 2 November 1867, the names in attendance, and the society's first course, written by its president.
2. The History Museum and Visit South Bend Mishawaka — the society of 1867 described as the second-oldest historical society in Indiana, and The History Museum as its continuation.