illiam Edward Hitchcock, President of the Delaware County National Bank of Muncie, President of the Muncie Savings and Loan Company, Vice Presidnet of the Warner Gear Company, Threaurer of the Glascock Manufacturing Company, Director of the Warner Electric Company of Muncie and numerous other enterprises, is a New Englander by birth but has been a resident of Muncie for the past forty years. He was thus here engaged in a manufacturing way when Muncie was entering upon her new era of industrial and commercial development back it the 1880s and he has ever maintained his position as one of the chief individual factors contributing to that development. Mr. Hitchcock was born in Meriden, Connecticut, January 30, 1859, the older of two children, a son and a daughter, born to Edward A. and Mary A. (Green) Hitchcock, both of whom also were natives of Connecticut and members of new England Colonial families. He was a child when his parents moved to Ashtabula, Ohio, where his father engaged in the woodworking industries of that city, particularly in the manufacture of bentwood products. It was thus that William Hitchcock came to be reared in Ashtabula. Upon the completion of his school work he became employed as a teller in a bank there, remaining in that line of work until 1876, in which year he returned to the city of his birth and was for three years employed as a bookkeeper in the office of the Meriden Britania Company, manufacturers of silverware. Upon his return to Ashtabula in 1879 he became engaged with his father in the latter's skewer and bentwood works. In 1884, then being twenty-five years of age, Mr. Hitchcock came to Muncie and established a wood-working plant, associating with him in that enterprise J. C. and A. L. Johnson, under the name of the Muncie Skewer Company, for the manufacture of skewers, flag sticks, truck slats, dowels and kindred products. This concern proved successful form the outset and was later incorporated as the American Skewer Company. In 1894, in order to be nearer its source of supply, the plant was removed to Jackson, Tennessee, with the general offices remaining in Muncie. Later this enterprise was consolidated with the Weis & Lesh Manufacturing Company, manufactures of oak and Hickory spokes, wit factories in Memphis and Jackson, Tennessee. In 1919 this concern was sold to the Prudden Wheel Company of Lansing, Michigan, Messrs. Hitchcock, Johnson and Morgan taking over the skewer and related products of the business and have since operated it under the name of Morgan-Hitchcock Company, with factories at Jackson and Serles, Tennessee, and general offices at Muncie, in the Johnson Bock, with Mr. Hitchcock as Secretary and Treasurer. The Delaware county Bank, which had its beginning at the time of the opening of the gas boom, was in 1896 reorganized and chartered as a national bank with J. C. Johnson as President and W. E. Hitchcock as Vice President. Following Mr. Johnson's death in 1904 Mr. Hitchcock was elected President and has since retained that position. Mr. Hitchcock has always been at the forefront in all activities that have brought Muncie to its present standing as one of the most substantial cities of its size in the country. He was one of the organizers and served as President of the Delaware And Madison Counties Telephone Company until it was taken over by the Indiana Bell Telephone Company. He was active in building the Muncie, Hartford & Ft. Wayne interurban railway line, and acted as disbursing agent for the government when the post office building was erected. He was appointed by Governor Matthews as the Republican member and served on the first board of commissioners of the metropolitan police of Muncie. He was elected Vice President of the National Manufactures Association of Indiana in 1901. Also the same year he was appointed a member of Governor Durban's staff with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Mr. Hitchcock is active in the support of local betterment work, is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Young Men's Christian Association, the Board of Governors of the Home Hospital, and for more than twenty years has served on the Beech Grove Cemetery board. Form the days of its inception he has taken an interested part in the work of the Commercial Club and the Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the Rotary Club. He is a York Rite (Knights Templar) Mason and was reared in the faith of the Episcopal Church. On September 30, 1885, the year following his arrival in Muncie, Mr. Hitchcock was united in marriage to M. Estella Morehouse, a daughter of Henry and Mary M. Morehouse, of Muncie. To this union three children were born, Edward H., who died at the age of six years; Fred W., who died at the age of four years; and William E., Jr. the surviving son.