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The Oliver Fortune: Millions in Print, No Total in Probate
The fortune: James Oliver (1823–1908), the Scottish blacksmith whose chilled plow made the Oliver Chilled Plow Works the largest plow factory in the world, died on 2 March 1908, and his obituary press called him what the record supports and no more: "the millionaire plow manufacturer and philanthropist," whose invention "brought him and his family many millions, a part of which was used in beautifying South Bend" (Plymouth Tribune, 5 March 1908). Howard's county history, published the year before his death, says of the works themselves that their value "hardly admits of estimate, running as it does into millions of dollars." No probate total for James Oliver's estate, and none for his son Joseph D. Oliver's (d. 6 August 1933), appears in any source consulted — not in the obituaries, the county histories, the National Register nominations, or the History Museum's Oliver record — and no total is stated here. The Oliver fortune is the largest in this section that cannot be given an estate number; its scale has to be read from what it built and what its assets fetched.
Its scale, in buildings and one sale: James Oliver's civic building was done at fortune scale. The Oliver Opera House, opened 1885, cost $200,000 by the University of Notre Dame's Building South Bend account and $500,000 by his obituary in the Plymouth Tribune — both figures carried, neither reconciled. The Oliver Hotel, which the South Bend News-Times of 28 May 1914 identified as "one of the main items in the estate left by him," cost $750,000 by the same obituary account and $600,000 by Building South Bend; what is not in conflict is the exit — the News-Times reported on its front page that the hotel, "valued at $750,000, including good will, has been sold," possession to pass the following Monday, in May 1914. That $750,000 sale, six years after his death, is the largest single priced movement of Oliver money in the published record.
His church giving is documented in proportion rather than in dollars: the National Register nomination for the First Presbyterian Church (built 1888) records a cost of approximately $35,000, of which one-third was to be paid by the congregation, one-third by James Oliver, and one-third by J. M. Studebaker — the city's two great fortunes splitting a church between them and the congregation. His son's house states the second generation's scale in land alone: for Copshaholm's site — 250 feet on Washington Street by some 300 on Chapin — Joseph D. Oliver paid $12,000 in 1894 (the South Bend Daily Tribune, 31 January 1894, as cited in the house's National Register documentation). The house itself, thirty-eight rooms by Lamb & Rich of New York, built 1895–96, carries no construction cost in the nomination, in Building South Bend, or in the museum record consulted; any figure for it in circulation is, on this record, lore without a document, and none is printed here.
What it left: Control stayed in the family to the end of the independent company: on the Oliver Chilled Plow Works' incorporation in 1901, a company-history-derived account states, all 5,000 shares were held by members of the Oliver family — a single-carrier figure, carried here as such. On 30 March 1929 (1 April in the company histories) the works ceased to exist as a separate company, merged into the new Oliver Farm Equipment Company with Hart-Parr, American Seeding Machine, and Nichols & Shepard; no family share, exchange ratio, or sale price for the transaction appears in the published histories consulted. J. D. Oliver served as the new company's chairman until his resignation on 13 December 1932 and died at Copshaholm the following August. The fortune's most durable remainder is the house: after his widow Anna's death in 1938 Copshaholm passed to their four children — James II, Joseph Jr., Gertrude Oliver Cunningham, and Susan Catherine Oliver — and came at last to the Northern Indiana Historical Society. The date of that gift is itself a printed conflict this history has carried before: the National Register documentation says the house and its contents were donated "in the 1970s," while The History Museum's own account dates the gift to 1988, after the last of the four children had died (Gertrude, in 1987, on the fullest account found); both stand. The family's second Washington Street house had gone a year earlier: the Cunninghams' house at 630 West Washington, bought by James Oliver in 1885 for $25,000 as a wedding present for his daughter Josephine, was sold by the Society in 1987 to create an endowment for Copshaholm — the price realised is not stated in the sources consulted.
Sources:
- Plymouth Tribune, 5 March 1908 — James Oliver's obituary: "millionaire plow manufacturer," "many millions"; the hotel at $750,000 and the opera house at $500,000 as obituary figures.
- Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Vol. I (1907) — the works' value "running… into millions of dollars."
- South Bend News-Times, 28 May 1914 — the Oliver Hotel as a main item of the estate; its sale at $750,000 including good will.
- University of Notre Dame, Building South Bend — the opera house at $200,000; the hotel at $600,000; the Cunningham house purchase of 1885 at $25,000 and its 1987 sale to endow Copshaholm.
- National Register documentation, Joseph D. Oliver House — the Copshaholm site at $12,000 (1894); the 1929 cessation and J. D.'s chairmanship to 13 December 1932; the house "donated… in the 1970s."
- National Register nomination, First Presbyterian Church — the c. $35,000 cost divided in thirds among congregation, James Oliver, and J. M. Studebaker.
- The History Museum, South Bend — the Copshaholm gift dated 1988; Finnigan, "Plowed Over," IUSB Undergraduate Research Journal — Gertrude Oliver Cunningham, the last surviving child, d. 1987.