WHITWORTH, G. W., Posey County, IN., then Iberia Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller


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G. W. WHITWORTH, JEANNERETTE.--The subject of this sketch was born in Posey
county, Indiana, June 6, 1833.  He is the son of Joseph S. and Sarah  (Parker)
Hatfield, a descendant of the ancient Hetzfeldt family of Germany.  They were
married about 1810.  To them were born seven children:  Wesley,  James,  Lewis
(deceased in 1884),  Benjamin,  Thomas,  Henry and  George W., our subject. 
The paternal great-grandfather of George W. Whitworth, Abraham Whitworth,
about 1750, in company with two brothers and a sister,  Ferdal,  Thomas and 
Narcissus, emigrated from England to Virginia.  Abraham settled on the French
Broad River, near the line of North Carolina, marrying an American, Miss
Gawilney, who had been reared by General John Morgan, of Revolutionary fame. 
To this marriage was born four sons,  Isaac,  Ferdal,  Joseph S. and  Samuel. 
Joseph S. was born on the French Broad River, 1790.  His marriage and children
we have noted above.  After marrying he removed to what is known as Cotton
Grove Postoffice, Tennessee, where Wesley, James and Lewis were born.  In 1814
Joseph S. Whitworth volunteered in Andrew Jackson's army, under Captain
Weekley, and participated in the battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. In
1818 he removed with his family to Posey county, Indiana, and settled in New
Harmony, where he remained about two years.  Then purchasing a section of land
six miles east of New Harmony, he engaged in farming on an extensive scale. 
There the four younger children were born, among them being our subject.  Mr.
Whitworth sold his farm in 1842, and removed to Mount Vernon, Indiana.  In
1849 he came to Centreville, St. Mary parish, Louisiana, locating in 1870 in
Jeannerette, which at the time of his arrival was a plantation, there being
but five houses in the place.  He was one of the prime movers in building a
large sawmill, from which enterprise has sprung the flourishing town of
Jeannerette.  Joseph S. Whitworth died in Jeannerette, December 29, 1871, his
widow surviving him until June, 1876.

George W. Whitworth, the subject of this sketch, was educated at Greencastle,
Indiana, in the Asbury University, now Depau University.  After completing his
education he went, in 1856, to Kansas City, Missouri, and engaged himself as a
clerk.  He remained there until 1861, when, with his family, he removed to
Indiana, and in 1863 entered the United States service as regimental
quartermaster of the One Hundred and Fifteenth Indiana Volunteer Infantry.  He
did no duty with this regiment, however, but served as commissary of
subsistence on the staff of Gen. O. B. Wilcox.  After his term of service had
expired he engaged in merchandising in Greencastle, Indiana, whence he removed
to Minneapolis, Minnesota.  In 1879 he removed to Jeannerette, and engaging
with his brother in the saw-mill business.  He assisted his brother in
building up the enterprises of the town up to the time of the latter's death
in 1884.  He still retains an interest in the saw-mill business, which is
conducted under the name of Whitworth & Co., the firm being composed of the
subject, G. G. Walker, and Walter B. and Jos. E. Whitworth.  Their mill is
located in the town of Jeannerette, and has a capacity of twenty to thirty
thousand feet per day.  The Company owns about twenty-five hundred acres of
virgin swamp timber land, and employs about sixty men throughout the year. 
The Company dresses its own lumber, making shingles to use up waste timber,
and using, in doing so, only one machine, with a capacity of about twenty
thousand shingles per day.

In 1854 the subject married Sarah M. Kercheval, a native of Greencastle,
Indiana, a daughter of Edward R. Kercheval, one of the prominent men of Putnam
county, Indiana, whose great grandfather was a Huguenot who came to this
country during the persecution in France.  She was born in 1836.  To this
union have been born five children,  Walter B.,  Joseph E.,  Agnes S. (wife of
Dr. S. R. Gay),  Florence and  Alice K.  Walter B. and Joseph E. are
interested with their father in the saw-mill business.  Both are married; the
former to Miss Medora Allen, of New Orleans, and the latter to Miss Rachel E.
Stewart, of Wilmot, Nova Scotia.  In 1856 our subject became a Master Mason in
Kansas City, Missouri.  He is a member of Jacques de Molay Commandery of
Knights Templars, of New Orleans.  In religion he is a Presbyterian, and an
elder in that church.  In politics he is a Republican, and was one of the
prime movers in the white Republican party in this locality.

Southwest Louisiana Biographical and Historical, Biographical Section, pp.
134-135.  Edited by William Henry Perrin.  Published in 1891, by The Gulf
Publishing Company.