The
J.D. Oliver Era
J.D. Oliver (pictured) was
eight years old when the Oliver family moved to South Bend.
He first attended the ungraded four-room Madison School
while his sister, Josephine, four years older, attended
County Seminary at the "end" of Washington Street.
Later, Joseph was sent to attend the boy’s school at Notre
Dame. The college owed money to the Oliver firm for cast
iron columns, and J.D.’s father, James, fearful the money
might not be collected, credited Joseph’s tuition against
the account. Notre Dame enrollment was 230.
In February 1865, at the
age of 14, Joseph began working part time, six days a week,
cutting threads on nuts in his father’s plant. He disliked
it intensely and was relieved when his father sent him back
to Notre Dame in September. He had earned $100 in the
six-month part time job.
Joseph again threaded nuts
in the summer of 1866, returning to Notre Dame once again in
September. The company credited Notre Dame’s account for
$125.57 tuition that year. Joseph later spent one semester
at Ashbury College (now DePauw University) and also took a
short business course at South Bend Business College. That
completed his formal education.
George Milburn hired 16
year-old Joseph as a bookkeeper for the plow factory on July
1, 1867, and sent him home to lunch. After lunch, Milburn
opened to Joseph the first set of double entry books the
company ever had. Milburn was a critical teacher, but Joseph
was a good pupil. He kept the job for more than 66 years.
James tried to instill in
his son his own love for the foundry but Joseph preferred to
view the factory from across an office desk. He was an
organizer and financial wizard. Fortunately, the talents of
father, as inventor and builder, and son, as marketer and
financier, paralleled each other to make a winning
combination. Shortly after Joseph took over the books, he
realized the company’s bookkeeping methods were haphazard,
at best. He began a campaign to collect outstanding debts
and made drastic changes in the billing procedures. In 1869,
Joseph’s annual salary was raised to $1,000 and by 1871,
he owned 180 shares of the company’s stock. He became
company treasurer before he was 18 and a director before he
was 21. In 1878, James took his wife and daughter,
Josephine, to Scotland, England and Ireland on a
business-pleasure trip. Meanwhile, Joseph went east to
investigate malleable iron production and later played a
major role in establishing the Oliver Malleable
Manufacturing facilities in South Bend.
On July 22, 1868, the
Oliver company was incorporated as South Bend Iron Works,
which it remained for the next 50 years. The firm was
capitalized for $100,000 (2,000 shares at $50); thus began
the company that was to become the world’s largest plow
producer. George Milburn resigned from the Oliver firm in
1870 to devote all his resources to his wagon-building
business in Mishawaka. His leaving left the Olivers in a
troublesome financial situation. However, the great Chicago
fire of 1871 proved to be a blessing in disguise for the
Olivers. James knew that cast iron columns supported most of
Chicago’s large buildings. Before the smoke cleared,
Joseph was in Chicago purchasing the columns as junk. These
were shipped to South Bend to be recast into sewing machine
parts for Singer Sewing Machine Company. The profits
realized not only offset Oliver’s financial difficulties,
but also provided the company with funds for needed
expansion. In addition to buildings already owned, the
company erected a brick foundry, 40' x 132', a 24' x 155'
warehouse, plus machine and wood shops on the West Race of
the St. Joseph River. A 72-inch water turbine was purchased
to provide additional electricity.
James continued his
experiments with the plow and in 1872 was issued an
important patent to modify parts in a manner that permitted
the plow to stand the stress of striking hidden roots or
stones. He also changed the coulter’s position and
attached an adjustable plow wheel. These two innovations
became standard features of the wood-beam Oliver Chilled
Plow. By the close of 1872, five hundred tons of Chicago
iron remained on hand. The Olivers were using it at the rate
of 14 tons per day. It was a year of prosperity.
The Oliver family engaged
in many projects that benefited the community. In 1882,
James and Joseph teamed up with the Studebaker brothers, who
manufactured wagons, to petition the Common Council for a
street railway. The first horse cars were put in service in
1885 on Washington Street. An attempt to use an
electrically-operated trolley system on Michigan Street
failed due to improper current distribution, but the problem
was solved and trolleys soon gave way to horse-pulled cars.
Despite the original failure, South Bend holds the
distinction of being the first city to use electrical power
for streetcars. Among other civic projects were construction
of an opera house, a hotel, apartment houses, row housing
and a dam.
Ground was broken December
5, 1883, for "Oliver Row," a block of row houses
at Main and Market (Colfax) streets. These were described as
"nine residences with a total unbroken frontage of 200
feet on Main Street, 12 feet back from the sidewalk, four
stories in height, including basement and attic. The
basement (ceiling) will be five feet above the level of the
street. Stories will be approached by flights of stone
steps." This structure was later remodeled and became
the Christman Building.
Both James and Joseph
enjoyed the theater and attended as often as time permitted.
In the 1880s, Good’s Opera House and Price’s Theater
were the only venues in South Bend for the performing arts;
neither was considered adequate for the growing city.
Therefore, the Olivers decided to build a new facility, and
construction of the Opera House on Main Street started in
March 1884. While demolition of brick and frame buildings on
the site was in process, 100 wagon loads of stone were
brought in for the foundation. The Opera House was part of a
business block, but profit, apparently, was not the sole
motive. Ostentation was a corollary of wealth at the time,
and this new facility was built with a lavish hand.
The Opera House was opened
October 28, 1885, with the performance of W.E. Sheridan in
the role of Louis XI. The overture prior to the performance,
composed by Professor Chris Elbel of South Bend, was titled
"The Oliver House Triumphal." It was played by
Professor Lorenz Elbel’s orchestra.
J.D.
Oliver and Family
Joseph (J.D.) Oliver was
34 when he met Anna Gertrude Wells, daughter of a wealthy
family of Johnstown, New York. Anna had come to South Bend
to visit Grace Studebaker, a schoolmate at Madam de
Silva’s Finishing School in New York. She was 22, tall,
aristocratic in bearing, and shy, with a good sense of
humor. Joseph, handsome and conservative, also had a good
sense of humor. Their storybook romance culminated in
marriage on December 10, 1884, in Johnstown, New York, in
the north parlor of the Johnson home.
After the wedding banquet
and dancing, a special train from the railroad of the
bride’s father took the bride and groom to Fonda, New
York, where they left on a two-month wedding trip to
California. Newspapers printed a list of wedding gifts,
among them, solid silver tea and coffee sets, silver
flatware, salad bowls, ice cream sets, and a $15,000 check
from the father of the groom. Upon their return to South
Bend, the newlyweds became the first occupants of Oliver
Row, where they took up housekeeping in Apartment #1.
The Olivers were staunch
Republicans, and in the Democratic sweep of 1884, South Bend
citizens elected Democrat George Ford as their
representative in Congress. A graduate of the University of
Michigan who had been active in local politics, George and
Josephine Oliver (J.D.’s sister) had known each other from
childhood. The bride and groom were both 39 when they were
married November 25, 1885, in the home of the bride’s
parents. Ford was the first Democrat to enter the sphere of
the Oliver family. He retired from Congress in 1887 and
resumed his law practice in South Bend. In 1888, he was
elected secretary of the South Bend Iron Works. George and
Josephine resided in a spacious white frame house on an acre
of land at 630 W. Washington Street (now the Oliver Inn Bed
and Breakfast). They had no children. Josephine died on May
28, 1914, and George on August 30, 1917.
Copshaholm
On February
3, 1894, J.D. Oliver purchased 76 feet of land on the south
side of Washington Street which lay adjacent to another
property he owned. He planned to build a new home on this
property, which provided 250 feet on Washington Street and
300 feet on Chapin Street. Exterior work on the dwelling was
finished in 1895. Woodwork for the interior arrived in April
1896, and the Olivers moved in on January 1, 1897.
The
house had 38 rooms, 9 bathrooms and 14 fireplaces. The
basement included a laundry room, work room, clothes drying
room and five store rooms. There were 12 rooms on the first
floor, including a large central hall, reception room,
library, den, music room, dining room, porte-cochere hall,
butler’s pantry, kitchen staff dining room, and two
kitchen pantries. Five bedrooms, a sitting room, a dressing
room and two linen rooms were located on the second floor.
The third floor had nine rooms, including four bedrooms, a
sitting room, sewing room, ballroom and billiard room.
The total
cost of the structure was never officially revealed. J.D.
was a very private person who conducted his personal
business in the utmost privacy.
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