William Deering
American businessman (1826–1913)
William Deering (April 25, 1826 – December 9, 1913) was an American businessman and philanthropist.
He inherited a woolen mill in Maine, but made his fortune in later life with the Deering Harvester Company.
Life
Early life
Deering was born April 25, 1826, in South Paris, Maine. In 1850, he moved to Plano, Illinois and Iowa and invested in the farmland of the area. In 1856 he returned to Portland, Maine, and in the early 1860s he secured a contract producing uniform coats and pants for the Union Army. This was apparently a successful venture, and after the war Deering opened a dry goods business called Deering, Milliken & Company.
Marriages
William Deering married Abby Reed Barbour who gave birth to Charles in 1852. Abby died when Charles was only four and Deering went on to marry Clara Barbour Cummings Hamilton in 1857. The couple had two children, James and Abby.
Deering Harvester Company
Around 1870, Deering left that business and partnered with Elijah Gammon, providing $40,000 in funding for the production of a horse-drawn grain harvester developed by brothers William and Charles Marsh.
“William Deering” enters the record as american businessman (1826–1913). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what William, Deering and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2578445. VIAF identifies the subject as 96763796. The Library of Congress control number is n2009164312. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1826, 1913, 1850 and 1856.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Deering” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.