Randolph  County,  Indiana

William  P.  Marlatt


            It will always be a mark of distinction to have served the Union during the great Civil war between the states. The old soldier will receive attention no matter where he goes if he will but make himself known, and when he passes away, as so many of them are now doing, statistics showing that somewhere in this country every fifteen minutes one of the veterans is gathered to his father, friends will pay him suitable eulogy for the sacrifices he made a half century ago on the sanguinary fields of battle in the Southland, or in the no less dreaded prison or fever camp or hospital. And ever afterward his descendants will revere his memory and take pride in recounting his services for his country in its hour of peril. One of the most eligible citizens for specific mention in a history of Randolph county, Indiana, is William P. Marlatt, for many years a well-known business man, now living retired in the city of Winchester, partly because he is one of the old soldiers who went forth in that great crisis in the sixties to assist in saving the union of states, and partly because he has been one of our honorable and public-spirited citizens for a number of decades, a plain, unassuming gentleman who has sought to do his duty in all the relations of life as he has seen and understood the right.
            Mr. Marlatt was born in Brookville, Franklin county, Indiana, March 27, 1845. He is a son of James and Mary (Goodwin) Marlatt. The father was born in Martinsburg in what is now West Virginia, and the mother was born in Montgomery county, Ohio, near Miamisburg. The Marlatt family came to Brookville, Indiana, probably about 1830, and there the father of our subject followed the carpenter's trade which he had learned when a young man, also followed bridge building, which was quite a business in those days of wooden, covered bridges. He was a skilled and energetic workman, giving satisfaction in all his work. He spent the remainder of his active life at Brookville. In that town his son, William P., of this review, spent his boyhood years, and there attended the public schools. When the Civil war was in progress he enlisted for service in 1863 in Company B, One Hundred and Twenty-third Indiana Volunteer Infantry, for three years. His regiment was assigned to the Army of the Tennessee and saw hard service under Sherman in the Atlanta campaign, also in the Nashville campaign under Thomas. Later our subject was with the eastern army, finding himself with the troops in North Carolina at the close of the war. However about that time and during the Grand Review at the national capital he was confined in a hospital in Washington city. He was honorably discharged from the service on June 14, 1865 after a very faithful service during which he was never wounded or taken prisoner. He was sent to his home in Brookville, this state, where, after regaining his health, he began working in the paper mills, also worked with his father at the carpenter's trade. In May, 1868 he joined his brother, H. R. Marlatt, who was engaged in the stove and tinnery business in Winchester, our subject becoming an apprentice and learned the trade, which he followed for three years or more when he went to Columbus, Indiana, but remained there only a short time when he went to Indianapolis and worked for Johnson Brothers whose variety of work extended his knowledge of the trade, and he became an expert work man, giving eminent satisfaction.
            On September 11, 1873, he was married to Hannah Moorman, daughter of Thomas and Eunice (Diggs) Moorman. Both the Moorman and Diggs families were pioneers of Randolph county, and here Mrs. Marlatt grew to womanhood and received a common school education. To our subject and wife two children have been born, namely: Dr. Clarence L., a successful physician of Indianapolis; and Bertha who married first I. L. Macy and after his death married second, Daniel Heaton, of Winchester.
            For a short time after his marriage Mr. Marlatt continued in partnership with his brother in the stove and tinner's business in Winchester, and finally he purchased his brother's interest and conducted the establishment with ever-growing success until the spring of 1880, when he moved to Indianapolis where he engaged in the same line of business for a number of years with gratifying results. In 1885 he was appointed a letter carrier in Indianapolis and was in the service for nine and one-half years, giving eminent satisfaction to the department, when he resigned and returned to Winchester in 1895, on account of the death of his wife's mother, leaving Mrs. Marlatt's father to be taken care of, he being a very aged citizen, who lived to he ninety one years old. For a time our subject was engaged in the hardware business and later in the lumber business. He accumulated a nice competency through his long years of good management and honest dealings with his fellow men. He retired from active life in 1906 and is spending his declining years quietly at his pleasant home at 133 East North street, the old Moorman homestead, which stands in the midst of spacious and beautiful grounds.
            Mr. Marlatt has always been a Democrat and interested in the affairs of his party but was never active or an office seeker. He was never a biased partisan, always according his neighbor the same freedom of opinion which he claimed for himself. In 1911 he was appointed deputy state oil inspector for the counties of Randolph and Delaware, in fact, he is still incumbent of this office, and has discharged the duties of the same with satisfaction to all concerned. He is a member of the Nelson Trusler Post, Grand Army of the Republic at Winchester, and he has filled all the offices in the same. He has been a delegate to state encampments. Fraternally, he belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and has passed all the chairs in the subordinate and Encampment of Winchester Lodge, No. 121; he is also a member of the Masonic order, and has tried to live up to its sublime precepts in all the relations of life.
Past and Present of Randolph County, Indiana, 1914.
Contributed by Gina Richardson

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