William L. Day

DAY

Posted By: Clay County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 11/6/2010 at 09:19:38

Day, Wm. L. of the firm Jesmer & Day, general merchants, was born in Hastings, Minnesota, May 8th, 1862, and has a somewhat varied experience, having traveled extensively. His father died when he was but 12 years of age, and with his mother he moved to Marysville, Kansas, where he lived about six months, and from there he went to Milwaukee and remained there a year. From this city he returned to Kansas and settled at Belleville, when, after staying a year, he went to Minneapolis, after making that city his home for the next two years, he went to Princeton, Illinois, and was a citizen of that place for the next five years. Being so favorably impressed with Minneapolis, he set out for that city, where after arriving he entered a boot and shoe store as a clerk and stayed for nearly a year, when the roving desire again seized him, and the next place he called his abode was Faribault, Minn. Here he remained for three months, laboring in the smeltering works. From Faribault he left for Chicago and clerked in a boot and shoe store for eighteen months. Then he came to Iowa and located at Independence. At this place he formed a partnership with Mr. Jesmer and conducted a news stand. On July 4th, 1884, he arrived at Everly and in company with his present partner opened a general store, and in addition to selling goods, conducted a lumber and coal yard for Frank Weller on commission, as well as having charge of a large farm known as the Teabout ranch. When he first came to Everly, the prospect was anything but flattering and the outlook was overshadowed by many a threatening cloud, but he saw through the overhanging a silvery lining and with a heart beating with hope and a will capable of surmounting many obstacles, he set to work with a determination to win. In his vocabulary there was no such word as "fail." He toiled early and late, and as the days passed away, the sunlight of success gradually grew brighter and brighter, until it at last broke forth and the dark and gloomy clouds were dispelled. Mr. Day is a young merchant of rare mercantile ability and his success has been attained by diligence in business and the fervency of the interest he has manifested in his avocation. He has seen Everly when it existed only in name, and has seen and materially aided in making it what it is to-day. He was elected Justice of the Peace in 1885 and served in that capacity for three years, discharging the duties of that office in a most creditable and satisfactory manner.

Source: A History of Clay County, by W. C. Gilbreath, 1889.