Archive:Hugh Monticello Whitney Obituary, August 1920

Whitney Family Groups > John Whitney Family > Ezra-6 Whitney Family > Hugh Monticello Whitney Obituary, August 1920

HUGH MONTICELLO WHITNEY

Whitney was a member of a family of millers, his father and brother being at one time in the flour business in Minneapolis, from where he came to St. Louis 30 years ago. He spent his whole life in inventing milling machinery, and with Mr. Pillsbury, who organized the Pillsubyr [sic] Milling Company in Minneapolis, perfected the first flour maker there. Twenty years ago, he invented a milling machine on which the patent already expired. As soon as the invention was perfected, he began working on improvements, and often told his wife that he could not die happy until he had made a machine which would mill flour less expensively than those now in use. Certain parts of the mechanism were finished before his sickness and while in his dormant condition, letters of patent came from Washington together with telegrams of congratulations which he never became conscious to read. Mrs. Whitney is the only one who knows anything of Mr. Whitney's investion [sic]. She stated to a representative of the Sentinel that with her little knowledge of machinery, she feared her husband's life work would be left unfinished, as she did not understand it thoroughly