Family:Whitney, George Lewis (1865-1945)

George Lewis⁸ Whitney (Horace Isaac⁷, Jesse⁶, Isaac⁵, Jason⁴, Mark³, Benjamin², John¹), son of Horace Isaac⁷ and Mary Elizabeth (Jackson) Whitney, was born 14 Feb 1865, Shelby, MI, and died 18 May 1945, Bad Axe, MI.

He married, 30 Oct 1890, Saginaw, MI, Elizabeth M. Curry, of Port Austin, MI, daughter of Robert Curry. She was born Aug 1864, Montreal, QC, and died after 1940. She immigrated in 1871. She may be the Elizabeth M. Whitney who died 11 Feb 1945, Detroit, MI, aged 86, born 11 Sep 1858, Toronto, ON.

"GEORGE L. WHITNEY. An enterprising and public-spirited citizen and wide-awake business man of Bad Axe, the county seat of Huron county, is George Lewis Whitney, who is mayor of the city and president of the Whitney & Chatfield Company, which conducts an extensive hardware and lumber business, based upon fair and honorable policies and also upon the personal popularity of the interested principals in the corporation. Mr. Whitney has won large and worthy success as a businessman of stability and aggressiveness and has proved a most valuable acquisition in both business and civic activities at Bad Axe, where he has maintained his residence since 1891. Further interest attaches to his career by reason of the fact that he is a native son of Michigan and a member of a family whose name has been identified with the annals of this commonwealth since early pioneer days.

"Mr. Whitney was born on a farm in Shelby township, Macomb county, Michigan, and the date of his nativity was February 14, 1865. He is a son of Horace Isaac and Mary Elizabeth (Jackson) Whitney, the former of whom was born in Chesterfield township, Macomb county, about eight miles northwest of the present city of Mount Clemens, and the latter of whom is likewise a native of the Wolverine state. . . . Of the children of Horace I. and Mary E. (Jackson) Whitney the eldest is George L., to whom this sketch is dedicated; . . .

"George L. Whitney duly availed himself of the advantages of the public schools, including the high school at New Baltimore, Macomb county, and as a youth he learned the trade of carpenter, as well as that of builder of fanning mills. In 1891, at the age of twenty-six years, he established his residence at Bad Axe, Huron county, and after following the work of the carpenter's trade for three months he became identified with the planing mill and lumber business. In 1902 he here purchased the hardware and lumber business of F. W. Hubbard & Company, and for the continuing of the enterprise he formed a partnership with Robert Grandy. One year later Mr. R. Grandy sold his interest to Reinhart Kleinpell, and the firm of Whitney & Kleinpell thereafter continued the business until the 1st of March, 1912, when Mr. Kleinpell retired, his interest passing to Ray P. Chatfield. The business was forthwith incorporated under its present title of the Whitney & Chatfield Company, with Mr. Whitney as president and Mr. Chatfield as vice-president and secretary. Mr. Whitney has been the potent force in the upbuilding of the large and important business enterprise of which he is still the executive head and which is the most extensive of its kind in Huron county. He has proved a man of excellent initiative and administrative ability and his success has been on a parity with his recognized integrity and progressiveness. The company of which he is president has a large and well equipped hardware establishment and in its lumbering operations it utilizes several acres of land, the yards lying contiguous to the railroad and thus having the best of transportation facilities.

"Bad Axe has no citizen who has shown more loyalty and liberality than Mr. Whitney, and the year 1914 finds him serving his fourth consecutive term as mayor of the thriving little city, besides which he is vice-president of the Bad Axe Board of Trade. As a master Mason he is affiliated with Bad Axe Lodge, No. 365, Free & Accepted Masons; his political allegiance is given to the Republican party; and he is a trustee of the local Presbyterian church, of which his wife and daughter are zealous members.

"In October, 1890, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Whitney to Miss Elizabeth M. Curry, of Port Austin, Michigan. She was born in the city of Montreal, Canada, but was reared at Port Austin, Michigan, where her father, Robert Curry, established his home when she was a child. Mr. and Mrs. Whitney have one child, Jessie Margaret, who was born at Bad Axe, on the 22d of May, 1891, who was graduated in the local high school and who also graduated from the Michigan Agricultural College, at Lansing, 1914. The family is prominent in the best social life of Bad Axe and the Whitney home is known as a center of gracious and refined hospitality."^[1]

He resided Bad Axe, MI.

Children of George L.⁸ and Lizzie (Curry) Whitney:

i.	Jessie Margaret9 Whitney, b. 22 May 1891, Bad Axe, MI; d. after 1910.

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), p. 591.

1.^  Charles Moore, History of Michigan (New York, NY: The Lewis Publishing co., 1915), Volume II, pp. 836-838.

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