Editing Marchant family (section)

==Thomas Mood and Jessie Speed Marchant==
Thomas was born in Batesville and went to school there. He did not attend college but did take an additional business course. He was first employed by Victor Mill in Greer as an office boy, but showed aptitude for textiles and rapidly advanced.

In 1910-1911, Thomas was president of Ottaray Mills in Union, SC. During that time he became a director of the Union Chamber of Commerce, then helped found the Union County Fair company and became chairman of the site committee. He also participated in newsworthy automobile ride, in which the driver was a 13-year-old boy.

In July of 1912, Jessie Speed, from Abbeville and one of Converse College's “most attractive graduates,” hosted a dozen members of her book club for a luncheon and presented them with a puzzle: at each plate was a printed card which simply read "Speed Marchant Oct 1912." This was her way of announcing her engagement to T.M. Marchant. I found Jessie as a sophomore in the Converse yearbook from 1908; then as a junior in 1909, elected class poet, and serving with Kathleen Morah, who would become her sister-in-law. Unfortunately, she is not in the 1910 yearbook, when she would have been a senior (and had a photograph). She is referenced in the senior class prophecy, though, so she did attend that year, and apparently graduated.

In December 1910 the Parker Mills merger of 9 plants was proposed; in that, T.M. was named as one of three proposed vice presidents. An article on the proposed merger stated that T.M. was young but had first-hand specialized knowledge of textile processes and was entitled to be called a textile engineering expert. In Sept 1911 he was named vice president of the Wallace Mills in Greenville. In late 1911, Thomas Marchant moved from Union to Greenville, where he became employed at the Victor-Monaghan Company. In 1913, Thomas Parker resigned as president of both Victor mill and Monaghan mill, and Thomas was elected president over each of them with M.L. Marchant named vice president. On June 30, 1923, he was elected president and treasurer of the Victor-Monaghan Company, which comprised 8 mills in the Greenville area. Though I've not tracked all the details of the company changes, it grew into a larger organization with mills across the southeastern US; he became president of that whole company in 1925, following the death of his predecessor William F. Beattie. At that point he was considered perhaps the most powerful textile mill businessman in the state. In addition to his work at Victor-Monaghan, he was also President of the Wallace Manufacturing Company of Jonesville, SC; VP of Marion Manufacturing Company in Marion, NC; and a director of both the First National Bank of Greenville and the Greer Bank and Trust Company of Greer.

He was elected twice as president of the South Carolina Cotton Manufacturer's Association, was a member of the Board of Governors of the American Cotton Manufacturer's Association, and was vice-president of the Cotton Textile Institute.

In 1920 T.M. purchased a historic hotel in downtown Greenville, the Alexandria. It had reached its end of life, with its reputation destroyed by soldiers from Camp Sevier using it for romantic trysts; in turn he sold it to the YWCA, who used it until the building was condemned in 1940.

At one point in his life, he seemed to have a habit of letting dogs stray and then running newspaper ads for them. This included ads for pointer "Kate" and setter "Jake" in July 1916; setter "Jack" in July 1919; setter "Vick" in Feb. 1920; setter "Jennie" in Nov. 1920; pointer "Jack" in Dec. 1920... and a Jersey cow, in Dec. 1918!

He died of a heart attack just after the end of a Clemson-Wake Forest football game in 1939. Jessie died less than six months later.
* Thomas Mood Marchant, Jr. (1915-2001)
* Preston Speed Marchant (1918-2003)