"An Illustrated History of Jackson County Minnesota" by Arthur P. Rose 1910 (pg. 474)

DR. WILLIAM C. PORTMANN (1886), practicing physician of Jackson, is a native of Switzerland, where he was born June 7, 1858. He is one of a family of ten children born to Ursus V. and Anna Maria (Hug) Portmann. His father was a contracting and civil engineer and died in 1872. His mother died in 1904 at the age of 83 years. A brother of our subject, Dr. E. O. Portmann, is practicing medicine at Canton, Ohio. He was President McKinley's home physician and after the death of the president was Mrs. McKinley's physician.

When William C. Portmann was ten years old he accompanied his parents to America and grew to manhood in the city of Canton, Ohio. In the common schools of that city he received This early education. His father dying when our subject was thirteen years of age, he was compelled at that early age to turn his attention to the support of the mother and family. However, he did not give up his studies but completed his general education in public and private night schools. At the age of twenty-two years he entered the Western Reserve Medical school, of Cleveland, Ohio, and three years later was graduated as a physician. For the first two years after graduation Dr. Portmann practiced in his home city and then, 1863, located at Mandan, North Dakota where he practiced three years. Dr. Portmann located at Jackson in the spring of 1886 and has since devoted his time to the practice of his profession in that village.

Dr. Portmann owns his home in the village and two Jackson county farms. He is a member of the A. F. & A. M. and of the Chapter of Knights Templar of the same order, as well as holding membership in the M. W. A. For twelve years Dr. Portmann served as coroner of Jackson county. He was a member of the school board eighteen years and was president of the village council one year. In Canton, Ohio, on September 13, 1889, Dr. Portman was united in marriage to Emma Ball, a native of Canton and a daughter of Ephraim B. and Lovina Ball. Three sons have been born to Dr. and Mrs. Portmann, Ursus V., Milton C. and Arthur B.