My Genealogy Hound

W. Ketcham, president of the Mendota Coal and Mining Company, was born in Dutchess County, N. Y., in 1846, and is the eighth of a family of eleven children born to Jesse and Eliza (Churchill) Ketcham, natives of New York, and of English descent. His grandfather, Timothy Ketcham, was a man of iron constitution, born in New York, and lived until ninety-nine years of age, his death resulting purely from age, as he was never ill a day during his long life. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. W. Ketcham, the subject of this sketch, started out to fight his own way in the world when a boy. Although he possessed no money, he was endowed with good business ability, and by good management has become a successful and prominent business man in Putnam County. He moved to Mount Pleasant Iowa, in 1858, and, until of age, engaged in the lumber business. He then located in Mendota, and since 1882 has been the president of the above mentioned company. The present stock company was organized in 1880, with W. Beckwith as president, and Mr. J. A. Kebler as superintendent. In 1880 the capacity was five cars per day, but the business now requires sixty cars a day, and finds employment for 600 men. The company owns its own tenant houses, 200 in number, besides land in and near Mendota, and two general stores in Mendota, the stock of goods in these being valued at $10,000. They also own a store one mile east of Mendota, of which Mr. J. A. Barton is the manager. The Mendota store is conducted by Mr. Brenholtz. The capital stock of the coal company is $100,000.