Archive:Albion Paris Whitney (1825-1884)

Archives > Archive:Biographies > Albion Paris Whitney (1825-1884)

Munro-Fraser, J. P., Historian, History of Sonoma County (Alley Bowen & Co., 1880)

HONORABLE ALBION PARIS WHITNEY.

The subject of this memoir, whose portrait appears in this work, is the son of William and Olive Whitney, and was born in Corinth, Penobscot County, Maine, September 15, 1825. In 1840 his parents removed to Aroostook County, in the northern part of the State. His education was obtained in the common schools of the State, and at the age of twenty he engaged in the lumber and milling business, pursuing the same at Fairfield, and at Kent in the same county, until 1856, when he removed with his family to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he remained one year, and then removed to Meeker County, in the same State, and laid out the town of Kingston, erecting mills, and engaged in flouring and lumbering business. At the same time he commenced a general merchandising business to meet the wants of the new settlement then on the frontier. Here he soon succeeded in building up a large business and securing the esteem of his fellow citizens.

In 1858 he was elected by the Republicans and Douglas Democrats to the State Legislature to represent Meeker, Benton and Stearns Counties.

In 1859 he removed to California, making the trip overland, and spent the first two years in the mines, until 1861, when he removed to Petaluma and engaged in the grocery business with Mr. Cross, in the old store on the corner of English and Main Streets, opposite his present location. From this small beginning he has worked his way steadily upward, until his business has become the largest in the County. He has united warehousing, commission and shipping business with his other vocation, having six large warehouses and employing several packets between Petaluma and San Francisco. He has ever taken a deep interest in all movements for the development of the resources of the County and the welfare of the people. He has been one of the most zealous supporters of the Sonoma and Marin District Agricultural Society, and its President for the last two years. He was a delegate to the National Convention at Cincinnati in 1876, which nominated President Hayes, and in 1877 he was elected State Senator from Sonoma County, hitherto largely Democratic. During the time he was in the Legislature, he was upon several important committees, and was a laborious and prominent member of the Senate.

On January 21, 1850, he married Susan D. Eastman, a native of Jackson, New Hampshire. Mr. Whitney has seven children living, the oldest of whom is in business in San Francisco; the second son is in the University of California; the eldest daughter is married and happily settled near Petaluma.