Background
William Wallace Marsh was the son of Samuel and Tamar (Richardson) Marsh and the younger brother of Charles Wesley Marsh. He was born April 15, 1836 on his father's farm near Trenton, Northumberland County, Canada.
Businessman inventor manufacturer
William Wallace Marsh was the son of Samuel and Tamar (Richardson) Marsh and the younger brother of Charles Wesley Marsh. He was born April 15, 1836 on his father's farm near Trenton, Northumberland County, Canada.
Marsh was educated at home and in the district school near his home as well as in St. Andrews School and Victoria College at Coburg, Canada, where he was a student for three years. His schooling ceased when he was thirteen years old and he moved with his parents to De Kalb County, Illinois.
During the succeeding eight years he worked assiduously with his father and brother to improve the raw land and to make it produce profitable crops. In 1857, while working in the fields with their newly acquired Mann reaper, Marsh and his brother conceived the idea of binding the grain on the machine. Neither youth possessed much mechanical experience but by diligent effort they succeeded in carrying out their idea and patenting their implement on August 17, 1858. The machine changed the farm system from "reaping" to "harvesting" and by this invention one man could do the work formerly required of two. In the winter of 1860 Marsh built, in connection with a neighbor, a second machine which was ready for the harvest of 1861. He used it on the farm during the next three seasons and harvested over four hundred acres with it. He also staged public demonstrations and participated in public trials, one of which was held at De Kalb in 1863, when he won first prize by binding an acre of heavy grain in fifty-two minutes. While Charles looked after the business details of their venture, William Marsh devoted himself to the mechanical, and during the formative stage of the business he gave considerable study and thought to harvester improvements and details of its manufacture. In 1864 he took charge of the manufacturing plant which had been established at Plano, Illinois, in 1863 and for the succeeding twenty years both there and at Sycamore, Ill. , where the company established its second factory in 1869, he served in the general capacity of superintendent. Though this work consumed the greater part of his time, he devised a number of improvements on the machine. Patents on these were granted jointly to him and his brother on January 5, 1864, February 15, 1865, November 12, 1867, and June 18, 1872. In addition he designed other farm machinery including a plow, cultivator, corn harvester, corn husker, wire stretcher, and windmill a total of forty inventions. All of these products were manufactured in the Marsh factories. After the failure of the Marsh brothers in 1884 with a combined loss in excess of $400, 000, they had to separate, each to make his own way thereafter. William went to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1887 to superintend a manufacturing plant, and five years later he was sent to Little Rock, Ark. , to reorganize and redesign a stave and lumbering enterprise. In his halcyon days he had made purchases in these states of timber lands which after a few years yielded him sufficient income so that in 1895 he was able to retire to his home in Sycamore. He then became interested again in an agricultural machinery business and continued actively in its affairs until 1906. After his retirement he devoted his energies to the betterment of Sycamore.
Marsh had married on January 8, 1871, Mary Jane Brown of Chicago. She died in 1891 and on November 9, 1893, he was married to Emma L. Eldredge. At the time of his death in Sycamore he was survived by his widow and two children of his first marriage.
1805 - 23 April 1891
22 March 1807 - 11 December 1886
22 March 1834 - 9 November 1918 Was an American inventor, manufacturer, and editor.
8 May 1850 - 24 April 1891
1877 - 1960
