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1907 Past and Present Biographies

William E. Marchant

William E. Marchant, who owns a large furniture and undertaking establishment in Scranton, was born in Benton county, Iowa, October 1, 1860. His father was William Marchant, a native of England, who came to America in 1847, living for a short time in New York and removing later to Ohio. He subsequently bought land in Benton county, Iowa, and moved there for the purpose of improving what was only raw prairie land. By industry and thrift he built up a home at this place and was enabled to accumulate enough to remove later to Greene county, where he lived in Scranton up to the time of his death, June 8, 1896. He owned one hundred and sixty acres of fine farming land in Scranton township at the time of his death. His wife was Mary King, also a native of England, but to whom he was married in this country. She is still living in Scranton at eighty-three years of age. They had four children.

William E. Marchant received the advantages of a common school education and a practical training upon his father’s farm. With this equipment he came to Greene county in 1880, when he was but twenty years of age, and bought a farm of Ira Wilson, on section 10, Scranton township. This farm consisted of two hundred acres of land, which had been broken but no improvements had been placed thereon. Mr. Marchant had a hard and tedious job before him, but he brought his two hundred acres up to a condition which put it on a basis with the best farming land in the community. He made many improvements upon the farm, erecting a house for himself and his family and a barn thirty-six by eighty feet. He also built a double corn crib. When the general farming of his place had reached the point where it could more easily be taken care of he embarked in the raising of shorthorn cattle and Poland China hogs, in which he was eminently successful. In 1900 he gave up farming and removed to Scranton, where he purchased the home of F. E. Foster. For one year he worked in a hardware store and then bought the furniture store of T. W. Vance & Son, which had been established for thirty-five years. This business he has enlarged to almost double its proportions and has added an undertaking establishment. He has the honor of being the first licensed embalmer in the town and is now equipped with everything necessary for conducting a first class undertaking establishment. He has purchased the building, which is twenty-four by one hundred feet in proportion, and has a storeroom sixteen by forty-four feet. He also owns forty acres of land on section 2, Scranton township, a part of which he uses for pasturage and the other part as a farm, which he superintends personally.

On May 29, 1884, Mr. Marchant was married, in Jefferson, to Mary Knauss, a native of Illinois, who came to this county with her parents in 1881. To Mr. and Mrs. Marchant have been born three children, Frank, Lloyd and Carrie, who form an interesting family. Mr. Merchant is an active republican and has served his party as township trustee and as clerk. He is at present secretary of the Farmers Mutual Insurance Company of Greene county, which was organized in 1888. In his religious relations he is a member of the Methodist church, to which he has always given a generous support. It is to his enterprise and character that he may well attribute his success as a business man. The greatest merchants have developed from the agricultural ranks or from clerkships and have built up the successful business institutions of our country. His patrons can always rely upon his honor in every transaction in which he may be engaged.

Transcribed from "Past and Present of Greene County, Iowa Together With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Prominent and Leading Citizens and Illustrious Dead,"
by E. B. Stillman assisted by an Advisory Board consisting of Paul E. Stillman, Gillum S. Toliver,
Benjamin F. Osborn, Mahlon Head, P. A. Smith and Lee B. Kinsey, Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1907.

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