Project Scroll Research Note 2026-38: How Mishawaka got a princess: Littlejohn's "Mishawaha" of 1875, the Tribune's bride of 1907 and the naming story of 1909

Mishawaka, Indiana, is often said to be named for Princess Mishawaka, daughter of the Shawnee chief Elkhart, rescued by a white hunter called Dead Shot. Every element of that plot is in F. J. Littlejohn's Legends of Michigan and the Old North West (Allegan, 1875). But read in full, Littlejohn's tale does not say what the legend says. His heroine is "Mishawaha," "the beautiful young daughter of Elkhart." "Mishawakee" is a separate village that already exists "near what is termed 'the South Bend' of the St. Joseph River." The book never says the Indiana town was named for her. The earliest local tie of a woman named Mishawaka to the town's name yet found is a South Bend Tribune item of 26 January 1907, quoted in Howard's county history, in which she is Elkhart's "bride, Mishawaka, after whom this city was named." In 1909 the Witwer Genealogy of America, printed at South Bend, set out Littlejohn's plot as a local tradition "unearthed" by "Mr. E. A. Journegan." It adds that "in his honor" (Dead Shot's) the falls were named Mishawaka, and the town after them. A 1909 Mishawaka text reprinted in the Rushville Daily Republican says outright that "Mishawaka was named after the Indian princess." "Journegan" is a misprint for Edward A. Jernegan (1846–1922), editor of the Mishawaka Enterprise from 1872 and father of the lawyer Ralph H. Jernegan. The county's centennial pageant of 1916, with Mishawaka scenes staged by Mishawaka High School, has no princess; its program glosses the name, on Alexis Coquillard's word, as "rapid water between wooded banks." In 1919 Michigan History Magazine judged Littlejohn's tales "strongly tinctured with the author's imagination." Project Scroll Research Note 2026-38, version 1. The note sets out the record quoted, where it is held, what it changes, its limits, and what was searched before calling it new. Web version: projectscroll.com/discoveries/notes/2026-38/.