Winfred E. Whittemore Biography


	This biography appears on pages 8-11 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. V (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				HON. WINFRED E. WHITTEMORE.  

	Among those who by popular suffrage have been called to direct 
the affairs of a commonwealth is numbered Hon. Winfred E. Whittemore, 
now a member of the state legislature, from the district comprising 
Hamlin and Deuel counties. In business connections he is well known as 
a real-estate and insurance broker of Estelline. New York numbers him 
among her native sons, his birth having occurred in Saratoga county, 
February 22, 1868, his parents being Josephus W. and Lucy A. (Hoyt) 
Whittemore, both of whom were also natives of New York, where they were 
reared and married, subsequently locating on a farm in Saratoga county. 
They lived in the east until the spring of 1882 and then came to the 
west with Dakota territory as their destination. The father homesteaded 
a quarter section in Deuel county, two and a half miles northeast of 
Estelline, and there resided to the time of his death. He was killed in 
a storm in June, 1889, and after being thus widowed Mrs. Whittemore 
removed to Estelline.  

	Prior to his father's death Winfred E. Whittemore had been a 
student in the city schools of Estelline and had thus prepared for 
entrance into the State Agricultural College at Brookings, but owing to 
his father's death, he was obliged to change his plans and did not 
receive his college course. When eighteen years of age he began 
teaching and followed that profession through the winter months and a 
part of the summer seasons for about ten years. In 1891 he went to 
Minneapolis, where he pursued a business course in the Curtis 
Commercial College. He continued his work as an educator at intervals 
until the spring of 1895 but prior to that date had embarked in the 
real-estate business in partnership with H. H. Reeves, then cashier of 
the Bank of Estelline. Because of this partnership Mr. Whittemore at 
times worked in a clerical capacity in the bank but continued his 
activities in the real-estate field and in 1901 purchased his partner's 
interest and incorporated the business as the Whittemore Land & 
Investment Company, handling farm lands, loans and insurance. He now 
has a large clientage and is doing a good business in each department. 
He has brought many settlers to the county in his sale of farm lands, 
and also writes a large amount of insurance annually. In addition to 
his business in the town he owns five farms in Hamlin, Deuel and 
Brookings counties, having made judicious investment in real estate. In 
addition to his other interests he is a stockholder and a director of 
the Bank of Estelline.  

	In 1895 Mr. Whittemore was united in marriage to Miss Margaret 
Rice, of Brookings county, and to them have been born four children, 
Walton H., Myrton R., Elwin C. and Dorothy M. Politically a republican, 
Mr. Whittemore has for many years been an active factor in shaping the 
policy of his party in this portion of the state and has several times 
been called to public office. He served for one term as a member of the 
Estelline town board, has filled the office of township assessor and 
town clerk and in the fall of 1906 he was elected to the state 
legislature, serving through the tenth general assembly. In 1912 he was 
again chosen a member of that honorable body and in 1914 he was elected 
to represent his district in the state senate. His record at Pierre has 
repaid the support of his constituents, for he has given careful 
consideration to each question which came up for settlement and the 
weight of his influence has been cast on the side of the state's best 
interests. He had a very large part to do with the removal from the 
statute books in 1907 of the then notorious and rather infamous divorce 
law. He has ever placed the good of the commonwealth before personal 
aggrandizement and the benefit of the majority before partisanship.