William Deering

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William Deering (April 25, 1826 – December 9, 1913) was a U.S. business man and philanthropist.

Deering was born in South Paris, Maine; he inherited a woolen mill in Maine, but made his fortune in later life with the Deering Harvester Company.

After retiring and moving to Plano, Illinois to manage a mill for Elijah Gammon, an old friend, Deering bought the company and moved it to Chicago in 1880 to be closer to his home in Evanston. The company pioneered with a harvesting reaper incorporating an automatic twine binder, invented by John Appleby of Beloit, Wisconsin.[1] Deering was also responsible for building a modern twine factory to supply farmers with sufficient length and quality of twine to work with the binders, a move followed by most competitors.[2]

The Deering company and the reorganized Plano Harvester Company, which had moved to Pullman, competed aggressively with each other and the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, but in 1902, under his son's direction, all three companies merged with two others to form the International Harvester Company.[3]

He financially supported several institutions of Chicago, the Northwestern University, the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and the Wesley Hospital among them. He gave Northwestern over $1 million over the years[1], and served on the university's board for 38 years, including 10 years (1895-1905) as president of the board; he declined an offer to rename the school Deering University.[4]

Deering died in Coconut Grove. He was the father of Charles Deering and James Deering.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Northwestern Harvest", TIME magazine, February 24, 1936. Retrieved on 2007-07-27. 
  2. ^ ""Shaking Off the Shackles of Manual Toil" - The Story of the Binder", The Furrow (The Friends of Howell Living History Farm), Autumn 2001/Winter 2002. Retrieved on 2007-07-27. 
  3. ^ Agricultural Machine Industry. Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago Historical Society. Retrieved on 2007-07-27.
  4. ^ Kent Cubbage. "Charting the Way", Northwestern Magazine, Spring 2001. Retrieved on 2007-07-27. 

[edit] External links


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