William March - Early Life

Early Life

William March was born as William Edward Campbell, the eldest son of a poor, itinerant family in and around Mobile, Alabama. His father worked in the lumber industry in South Alabama, and was an occasional heavy drinker who had a fondness for reciting poetry (especially Edgar Allan Poe's) at the dinner table. His mother (whose maiden name was Susan March) was probably better educated and taught the children to read and write. Neither of them seemed to have supported young March's literary efforts—he later stated he had composed a 10,000 line poem at the age of 12, but had burned the manuscript. Having 10 other siblings, March was afforded no privileges; by the time he was 14 the family moved to Lockhart, Alabama, preventing him from going to high school. Lockhart would later become the imaginary Hodgetown, Pearl County, in The Tallons (1936). Instead, March received occasional schooling probably in one-room schools such as was common in sawmill towns. He found employment in the office of a lumber mill.

Two years later March had returned to Mobile and found employment in a local law office. By 1913, he had saved enough money to take a high school course at Valparaiso University in Indiana and later returned to Alabama to study law at the University of Alabama. He thrived as a student but lacked the necessary tuition to complete his law degree. In the fall of 1916, he moved to a small boarding house in Brooklyn, finding work as a clerk in the law firm of Nevins, Brett and Kellog, in Manhattan.