William Collins Whitney

William Collins Whitney (July 5, 1841 - February 2, 1904) was an American political leader and financier and founder of the prominent Whitney family. A conservative reformer, he was considered a Bourbon Democrat.

William C. Whitney in his office (c. 1885)

William Whitney was born at Conway, Massachusetts of Puritan stock. His father was General James S.Whitney and his mother Laurinda Collins. William had a well known older brother, industrialist, Henry Melville Whitney (1839-1923), who was the founder of the West End Street Railway Company of Boston, and later the Dominion Coal Company & Dominion Iron & Steel Company in Sydney, Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island.

William Whitney graduated from Yale University in 1863 then studied law at Harvard, and practised with success in New York City. He was an aggressive opponent of the Tweed Ring, and was actively allied with the anti-Tammany organizations, the Irving Hall Democracy of 1875-1890, and the County Democracy of 1880-1890, but upon the dissolution of the latter, he became identified with Tammany.

He married Flora Payne, the sister of his wealthy Yale classmate Oliver Hazard Payne. They had five children:

1. Harry Payne Whitney (1872-1930)
2. Pauline Payne Whitney (1874-1916)
3. William Payne Whitney (1876-1927)
4. Oliver Whitney (1878-1883)
5. Dorothy Payne Whitney (1887-1968)

In 1875-1882, he was corporation counsel of New York, and as such brought about a codification of the laws relating to the city, and successfully contested a large part of certain claims, largely fraudulent, against the city, amounting to about $20 million, and a heritage from the Boss Tweed regime.

During President Cleveland's first administration (1885-1889), Whitney was United States Secretary of the Navy and did much to develop the United States Navy, especially by encouraging the domestic manufacture of plate armor.

In 1892, he was instrumental in bringing about the third nomination of Cleveland, and took an influential part in the ensuing presidential campaign. In 1896, however, disapproving of the "free-silver" agitation, he refused to support his party's candidate, William Jennings Bryan. Whitney took an active interest in the development of public transport in New York, and was one of the organizers of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company.

Thoroughbred horse racing

William Whitney was also a major investor in thoroughbred horse racing. He established Westbury Stable with a string of Thoroughbred race horses, competing against the successful stable of business associate, James R. Keene. At his vast summer estate near Old Westbury on Long Island, Whitney built an 800-foot stable with 84 box stalls and an adjoining mile-long training track. [1]A breeder of twenty-six American stakes winners, in 1901 Whitney won England's Epsom Derby with Volodyovski, leased by him from Lady Valerie Meux.

After Flora's death, he married Edith May Randolph, a former mistress of J.P. Morgan. She tragically died in a riding accident in 1899. Whitney never recovered from her loss.

William Collins Whitney died in 1904 and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.

The USS Whitney (AD-4) was named in his honor. The William C. Whitney Wilderness Area of the Adirondack Park is also named in his honor.

External links

• William Collins Whitney biography on the Whitney Research Group website.
• Whitney at the Naval Department

Source

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)