CHARLES H. DEERE
1837: Born March 28 in Hancock, Addison County, Vt.
Childhood: Throughout his young life, Charles gains practical knowledge of the plow-making business, often traveling to farms with his father to demonstrate the values of John’s steel plow.
Education: Attends common school in Grand Detour until age 11, when the family moves to Moline. Attends public school in Moline and later spends two years at an academy in Davenport, Iowa, then known as Iowa College. His education continues for one year at a Galesburg, Ill., academy, and is completed at Bell’s Commercial School in Chicago, where he graduates in 1853.
1853: Charles enters his father’s plow business in Moline as assistant bookkeeper.
1862: Charles marries Mary L. Dickinson of Chicago on Sept. 16. They have two children, Anna C. in 1864 and Katherine M. in 1866.
1868: With the incorporation of Deere & Company, Charles becomes vice president and general manager, serving in these capacities until his father’s death in 1886.
1886: Charles succeeds his father as president of Deere & Company.
Career accomplishments: Charles’ initiates several important changes and improvements in the marketing of Deere & Company products. Instead of marketing products as his father had done through independent jobbers, who then sold them to similarly independent dealers, Charles broadens the system to include strategically located branch houses that directly serves the ever-increasing number of dealers, thereby cutting out the independent jobber. During his career, Charles establishes 15 branch houses in the U.S. and Canada and originates the policy of arranging a complete line of farming equipment under the Deere name.
Other roles: In addition to his service as president of Deere & Company, Charles serves as president of seven other companies, 10 Deere branch houses and director of several banks.
Politics: Charles runs as a presidential elector in both of the William Henry Harrison campaigns; sits as an active delegate to several national conventions; and serves on the committee that notifies William McKinley of his 1896 presidential nomination.
1907: Charles dies on Oct. 29, and is succeeded by his son-in-law, William Butterworth.

(from Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders, 1983)