Biography: Winnebago County, Wisconsin: George A. WHITING ************************************************************************ Submitted by Kathy Grace, December 2007 © All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ************************************************************************ Transcribed from Lawson, Publius V. History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: its cities, towns, resources people. Chicago: C.F. Cooper and Company, 1908. v.2 p.682- 684 George A. Whiting, proprietor of the Whiting mill on the lower end of the canal. This handsome brick plant was rebuilt on the old site, after the fire which destroyed the original mill, August 23, 1888. The mill is equipped with eight 500-pound beating engines; one 84-inch four drinier paper machine, making book, colored writing and French folios, with a capacity of 20,000 pounds every twenty-four hours. The plant is run night and day and operated by both water and steam. The superintendent is Mr. A. Frazer. Mr. George A. Whiting learned the art of paper manufacture in the first paper mill in Neenah. He was born in New York State in 1849, and came to Ripon, Wisconsin, with his parents in 1854. Ambitions to start out for himself he left home at sixteen years of age, and engaged as clerk in a dry goods store in Neenah, where he remained for three years; and then he acted as traveling salesman for three years in the states of the middle west. He became one of the original stockholders in the paper making firm of Kimberly, Clark & Company, and November 1, 1895, purchased the interest of Mr. Hiram Shoemaker in the Winnebago paper mills, becoming the secretary, and in June, 1877, became superintendent of the mills. In 1882 he formed a partnership with William M. Gilbert, of Chicago, under the firm name of Gilbert & Whiting. They purchased the site of the dry dock, constructed in 1860, by Mr. Underwood on the lower end of the canal, and proceeded at once to erect a substantial brick paper mill plant and equipped it with the latest improved machinery for high grade book paper, which they made of white cotton rages and linen. After a successful career the firm dissolved in 1886, Mr. Whiting succeeding to the business. The original mill, when burned August 23, 1888, caused a frightful accident and loss of life by the explosion of a bleach employed to cook rags, becoming overheated in the conflagration, parts of it were thrown 400 feet, carrying away part of the office, killing fifteen people and injuring many more. The killed were: Sebastian Liebhauser, Gilbert Mericle, John Mohr, M. Muntner, F. Sandhofer, John Webber, Louis Resch, Jacob Vetter, John Hoffman, Frank Schiffer, Joseph Eul, Joseph Brueggen, H. Knoelke, Willie Bublitz; mortally injured, Thomas Jourdain, hip smashed, head and side bruised; badly injured, August Heckner, in head; Charles Shiffer, arm broken; Myron Fisher, leg broken; John Munch, back injured; Bennie Krouse, leg broken; M. Ager, leg broken; Henry Enghies, in face and hip; M. Samletski, in face; Dr. Frank Burroughs, in shoulder; John Felner, on head; John Lull, on body; H. Liebhauser, arm broken; John Teener, head and face cut; Joe Souter, ankle sprained. A son of William Bublitz had gone to the fire unknown to his parents, who were sleeping at home, and was killed. The citizens raised a fund of $3,000 for the relief of those left destitute by the death of fathers and sons, of which sum Mr. Charles B. Clark, of Neenah, gave $1,000. Mr. Whiting has been elected three terms mayor of Neenah was made a Colonel on the staff of Governor Schofield. Mr. Whiting was elected vice-president of the Chicago division of the National Paper Makers' Association, and afterward its secretary and treasurer. He was married at Neenah, June 29, 1870, to Miss Anna F. Babcock, born in Vermont, daughter of Rev. O.W. Babcock, late of Neenah. The other mills organized and erected by Mr. Whiting, the business of which is entirely handled and directed under Mr. Whiting from the office on Canal Street, Menasha, are the Wisconsin River Pulp & Paper Company mills at Whiting, and the Plover Paper Company mills at Plover, both on the Wisconsin river. The equipment of these mills is the very best of modern paper mill machinery. The plant of the Wisconsin River Paper & Pulp Company has six 1,2000-pound beating, two refining engines, one 108-inch and one 120-inch wide fourdriniers print paper machines running 500 feet per minute night and day, making 90,000 pounds of newspaper per day, of ground wood. The plant is run by both water and steam power. There is operated in connection with this plant a ground wood plant operating fourteen grinders, and nine wet machines, making 100,000 pounds ground wood each twenty-four hours.