Archive:Oliver H. Whitney (1820-a1886)
Archives > Archive:Biographies > Oliver H. Whitney (1820-a1886)
Portrait & Biographical Album of Clinton County, Iowa. Containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County (Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1886), pp. 551-552.
OLIVER H. WHITNEY. The subject of this personal history is a man of large intelligence and usefulness, was for many years a teacher in the public schools, but later a farmer of Brookfield Township. He was born in Greenwich, N.Y., June 27, 1820. His father, Erastus Whitney, was born in Suffield, Hartford Co., Conn., in 1790. His father, grandfather of our subject, was Isaac Whitney, born in Hopkinton, Mass. His father, Jonathan Whitney, was in the battle of Bunker Hill. The first ancestor of the Whitney family came from London in 1635, and located at Watertown, Mass. Our subject belongs to the seventh generation.
Erastus Whitney was but seven years of age when his parents moved to Vermont. There his father died six or seven years later. About that time Erastus went to Connecticut and lived with an uncle until he attained the age of twenty-one, and then removed to New York, settling in Greenwich. He was a carpenter by trade and labored at his vocation until death, in 1869. The maiden name of our subject's mother was Thirza Harmon. She was born in Suffield, Conn., and is the daughter of Benjaman and Permelia (Chafee) Harmon. She was born in 1790, and died at Greenwich in 1858. There were seven children born of this union, three of when grew to maturity, as follows: Isaac A., Oliver H., and Willard W., all living in Brookfield Township.
Our subject was the second child in order of birth. He attended school continuously until he reached the age of twenty years, but in 1840, deciding that the West would provide territory in which youth and vigor might expend itself, he emigrated, and spent nearly one year in Michigan, teaching school in Washtenaw County. In 1841 he went West to Illinois. Chicago was but a small town at that date, and he decided to allow himself a short tour about it. It contained but a few hundred inhabitants at the time, and he made no stay of any consequence. He went on to Adams County and engaged in pedagogic pursuits. This he continued until the sping of 1865, a period of twenty-four years. In 1848, accompanied by Andrew Inman, he visited Clinton County and selected a claim on section 5, Brookfield Township. Going to Iowa City he entered land at the Government office. There was no road to the city but an Indian trail which he followed. After entering this land he returned to Illinois and lived there until 1865. He then came to Clinton County, and settled on the farm, beginning improvements. Since coming here he has taught four terms of school, and with the exception of that time has devoted himself exclusively to agricultural pursuits.
Mr. Whitney married, June 6, 1877, Miss Frances K. Toomy, who was born in County Kerry, Ireland, and is the daughter of Stephen and Mary (King) Toomey. She came to America with her father when ten years of age, and settled in Canada where her father died, and five years later she removed to Greenwich, N.Y., and lived until her marriage. Mrs. W. landed at Quebec when she first came to America. Her father died in a few weeks after their arrival, and Mrs. Whitney was placed in a convent. She remained there a year and a half, when she was adopted by a family at St. John and lived there three years, when she went to New York State. Herself and sisten then earned sufficient to send for a brother in the old country, who afterward joined them in paying the passage for their mother.
In politics Mr. Whitney is a Republican. His farm comprises 160 acres of good prairie and forty of timber land. A fine portrait of Mr. Whitney is shown on another page of this work.
Copyright © 2006, Carolyn W. Cook and the Whitney Research Group
