Mead...Peerless
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Since Sears offered the Peerless badged bike, the only question might be what manufacturer did they source for their frames? The similarity with the Peerless and the Mead of the same era are pretty darn close except for the chain ring.
In the Sears Peerless image the chainring design looks identical to what I have. The Mead patent drawings for the rear dropout and fork tube and head seem to match my bike. The Sears Peerless fork image appears to also have the rib on the side of the fork.
The 1915 Peerless image on page 49 of the "Evolution of the Bicycle" book has the same chainring but the fork appears to be a block type without the layered pieces of the Mead fork.
So would Mead have made Peerless frames as Sears was headquartered in Chicago? Maybe the bike started as a Mead or Peerless and ended up with a Rollfast head badge glued on. When I do my final assembly I'll have to look for badge mounting holes on the inside of the headtube.
In my "Rollfast Bicycles" book it states that Snyder & Fisher began producing bicycles in 1895, and became H.P. Snyder Manufacturing Co. in 1899. Rollfast was the predominate nameplate originating from roller skates. They apparently would put any headbadge you wanted on their bikes for quantity purchases. It appears Peerless was one option as well.
Thanks to all for lots of clues, although the truth may never be known as to it's real origin. It may be just a collection of parts, Mead, Peerless, Rollfast or other manufacturers...and a few new things. Thanks for the compliments, I to like the bike, very anxious to ride it.