George R. Whitney Biography


	This biography is from "Memorial and biographical record; an illustrated
 	compendium of biography, containing a compendium of local biography,
	including biographical sketches of prominent old settlers and 
	representative citizens of South Dakota..." Published by G. A. Ogle & 
	Co., Chicago, 1899. Pages 445-446

	Scan, OCR and editing by Maurice Krueger,mkrueger@iw.net, 1998. 

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GEORGE E. WHITNEY, an energetic and progressive young farmer and 
business man of Alpena township, Jerauld county, South Dakota, was born 
in Iowa, in 1871, and is of Welsh and English descent, but his 
ancestors came to America in colonial days. His father, Edson Whitney, 
was born in Vermont, and in early life was a stationary engineer. In 
the spring of 1883 he and his family came to Jerauld county and located 
on the southwest quarter of section 32, Alpena township, where a claim 
shanty was erected and a sod stable built. The county was not organized 
and named until the following fall. The family has been identified with 
its entire growth and development. The only stock they brought with 
them were three horses, but soon afterward a cow was purchased. In 
those early days the prairies were all wild and unimproved, there were 
no roads, and all supplies, lumber, etc., had to be hauled from 
Letcher. Often during the dry seasons the early settlers had to fight 
prairie fires by night as well as by day. In the spring of 1883, nine 
people lived in the shanty where our subject and his brother boarded, 
which was only 14x 16 feet, and all their seed, grain and horse feed 
were also stored therein. As it rained almost every night and the 
little shanty leaked, the occupants were often not very comfortable, 
but they made the best of their surroundings until better 
accommodations could be secured. 

The subject of this sketch spent the first eleven years of his life in 
Clinton, Iowa, and attended the city schools, his education being 
further advanced by study at home. He accompanied his parents on their 
removal to Jerauld county, South Dakota, and grew to manhood upon the 
farm where he still resides. He started out in life for himself at the 
age of nineteen years by operating rented land, and in 1892 made his 
first purchase on the southeast quarter of section 30, Alpena township. 
He erected thereon a claim shanty, which is now used as a barn. In 1898 
he bought another quarter section of land, so that he now has three 
hundred and twenty acres, and besides this operates another quarter-
section. He now has a good set of farm buildings, has a pasture of 
fifteen acres and ten acres of forest trees. He is engaged principally 
in raising grain and is interested in a warehouse in Alpena. 

In the spring of 1896 Mr. Whitney married Miss Mata E. McCaul, a native 
of Michigan, who came with her parents to Dakota in 1883 and was reared 
on a farm. Politically he is an ardent Republican, and has served as 
township assessor two years. He is a faithful member of the Baptist 
church and is superintendent of the Sunday school which meets in his 
community. He also takes an active interest in social affairs, and is 
widely and favorably known.