Editing Marchant family (section)

==Martin Luther, Jr. and Kathleen Morrah (and Sallie Few)==
M.L. attended school in Batesville, then in the Greer Graded School. Tom and Luther with several others, including Ellie Few and E.C. Bailey, sang special music at the Methodist church. The newspaper called out Tom as having a particularly gifted, good voice. The Greenville News, Tuesday, October 15, 1901. He went on to college at the Wofford Finishing School in Spartanburg.

He married twice: Sallie Leona Few, 1870–1898; and Kathleen Morrah, 1890–1971. It amazes me that this man had two wives, one of which died in 1898 and the other in 1971. Kathleen was 22 years younger than him.

We know little about his first wife, Sallie Few. She was from another prestigious family in Greer; her father was a doctor who ran a pharmacy right in the center of town; her brother famously became first president of Duke University. She had a younger sister, Ellie, who was a popular socialite. Ellie is listed in every party, celebration, club, activity, and organization… Sallie is listed in none of them. She died young, before having any children.

Katherine Morrah was a socialite herself; she grew up in Mt. Carmel. She attended Converse College, where she became close friends with Jessie Speed — who would become her sister-in-law. At Converse she was active and engaged in many student organizations. How she ended up marrying a man double her age is unknown; perhaps Jessie played a role in it. In any case they married Sept. 2, 1913. 

After college, M.L. began work as a clerk at the mercantile of John W. Baker in Batesville, just outside Greer. He then entered the cotton business in Greer with A.F. "Frank" Burgess (the Burgesses were another high-power family in Greer). He moved to Athens, Georgia for a while and worked in cotton there, eventually returning to Greer and continuing his work with Burgess. When Lewis Parker was made president of Victor Mill in Greer about 1901, M.L. was hired to be the mill's cotton buyer. He remained in that position for two years, functioning as the cotton-buyer for not just Victor but also Monaghan and Apalache Mills. He became a director of Victor Mill in 1904. In July of 1904, he partnered with W.A. Gilreath to form W.A. Gilreath & Co., a cotton brokerage firm based in Greenville.

This new venture required him to sever his position with the mills, since he would be in competition. It was at this time that he moved from Greer to Greenville. This did not last long, however; in 1905 he became VP of Victor Mill, and returned to Greer. During this time, he helped found the Bank of Greers with his brother-in-law Cliff Davenport, and was a director of the bank. In 1909, while remaining VP at Victor Mill, he joined with his brother-in-law, B.F. Zimmerman, as founding partners with Lewis Parker of the Beaver Dam mills in Edgefield; Zimmerman moved there to run the plant. In 1911 Victor Mill became part of the huge Parker Cotton Mills Company and was elected Second Vice President. With this change he moved back from Greer to Greenville. He remained in that position until the company was dissolved in 1918. He returned to the cotton business, connected with the W.E. Mason & Company in Greenville; after five years there, he became a Greenville agent for the George H. McFadden & Company, one of the largest cotton firms in the world at the time.

In August 1910, M.L. purchased a Stephens-Duryea touring runabout car for $3,500 — a breathtaking price at a time when a house could be purchased for $1,000. We believe this vehicle appears in a photograph in our collection. In June 1911, just ten months later, the car was destroyed in a fire at a repair shop; there was no insurance on it, and it was a total loss.

In 1913, Thomas Parker resigned as president of both Victor mill and Monaghan mill; Thomas Marchant was elected president over each of them with M.L. Marchant named vice president.
* Martin Luther Marchant, III,  1914-2005 (Josephine Owens)
* John Bradley Marchant, 1918-1979 (Anne)
* Mary Marchant, 1920-1999 (Edward Burdette)
* Francis Morrah Marchant (Sr.), 1921-2016 (Mary Cowan)