Print
Permanent LinkSenator William C. Hayward View All Years
WILLIAM C. HAYWARD was born in Cattaraugus County, New York, November 22, 1847, and died at Davenport, Iowa, September 16, 1917. He removed with his parents to Dakota County, Minnesota, in 1861. In l864 he removed to Hancock County, Iowa, and in 1867 to Winnebago County. He worked on a farm, attended district school, clerked in a store, taught school, and in 1868 entered the first class at the opening of the State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Ames, remaining there until his junior year when he returned to Winnebago County, was elected county surveyor and became part owner of the Winnebago Press. In 1873 he sold the Press and bought the Hancock Signal at Garner and was appointed postmaster there, holding the position eleven years. He then entered banking business at Garner. He helped promote the building of the rail road from Eldora to Alden. He became extensively engaged in the grain, coal, and stock business, he and his partner operating twenty-five stations in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota. In 1886 the firm moved to Davenport. There he engaged in banking, serving as president of the Union Savings Bank, and later, of the Davenport National Bank. He was a member of the school board of Davenport for nine years. He was elected to the senate in 1897 and re-elected in 1901, serving in the Twenty-seventh, Twenty-eighth, Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, and Thirty-first general assemblies. He was elected secretary of state in 1906 and re-elected in 1908 and 1910, serving six years. On retiring from that office he gave his activities to the Davenport Ladder Company, of which he was president. He was a man in whom the people of the state had confidence.