Family:Whitney, Alexander M. (1819-1842)

Alexander M.⁷ Whitney (John Merrick⁶, James Rex⁵, Caleb⁴, William³, Joshua², John¹), son of John Merrick⁶ and Clarissa (Montgomery) Whitney, was born 19 Jan 1817, Adams Co., MS, and died 5 Oct 1842.

He married, but no details of this are found. No wife is living with him in the 1840 census.

He resided in Louisiana; was clergyman in the M. E. Church.

"Alexander M. Whitney was born of respectable parents, in Adams County, Minnesota [sic], January 16, 1817. He was reared in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. While a youth he was sent to Augusta College, where he received a good English education. He was exemplary in his moral deportment from childhood. At the age of eighteen he was awakened to a sense of his sinfulness, and as a seeker of salvation, united with the Methodist Episcopal Church in Fayette, Jefferson County, to which place his father had removed. On the 5th of October, 1842, he expressed great comfort in listening to Sister Dunwody read the Holy Scriptures. With her he had conversed a short time before on what was the most desirable frame of mind to die in. He said he preferred the frame of prayer rather than praise. Soon after the reading of the Scriptures just referred to be requested all present to join him in prayer. He himself commenced; and with unwonted appropriateness and unusual energy he prayed ten or fifteen minutes, in a tone quite as loud as usual. In his prayer he earnestly besought his heavenly Father to give him dying grace. He closed, and said, "Amen." He then asked his physician if he considered him in full possession of his faculties, who answered, "Certainly." He then expressed gratitude to God, asked Sister Dunwody if she recollected their late conversation, requested that his parents should be written to, and almost immediately died."^[1]

Census

• 1840, no township listed, Choctaw Co., MS: A. M. Whitney, 1 male 20-29; 1 engaged in learned professions or engineers.

References

• All data imported from Frederick Clifton Pierce, The Descendants of John Whitney, Who Came from London, England, to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635, (Chicago: 1895), pp. 216-217.

1.^  Maxwell Pierson Gaddis, Last Words and Old-Time Memories, pp. 111-112.

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Copyright © 2011, Robert L. Ward and the Whitney Research Group.