Alameda County Biographies

HON. GEORGE EDWIN WHITNEY

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

Was born at Phillips, Franklin County, Maine, on the 19th day of September, 
1836.  His ancestors were English, and settled in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 
1632.  From this source, it is believed, has sprung most of those bearing the 
family name in the United States.  His father was George W. Whitney, a man well 
known in his county for his intelligence, integrity, and public spirit.  He held 
many minor positions of trust in the township government, and also was elected 
County Clerk in 1848, as a Freesoiler, in a county that had always been 
Democratic.  After the expiration of his term he continued to reside in 
Farmington, the county seat, engaged in mercantile business, until his death, in 
1866.  His wife, who still survives (1883), was the daughter of Capt. Peter 
Haines, a sterling pioneer of Livermore, Maine, the companion and neighbor of 
the Washburns, since distinguished in American affairs.  The subject of the 
present sketch pursued his preparatory studies at Farmington Academy, and his 
collegiate course at the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut (class of 
1857).  His mother desired to make him a Methodist preacher, to which 
denomination both his parents were staunch adherents; but, although always 
respecting the teachings and sincerity of this powerful body, he never could be 
brought into the fold of its communion.  Having in his junior years chosen to 
attend the Protestant Episcopal Church, with which he has ever since been 
identified, a free scholarship conferred by the Maine Conference out of respect 
for his parents, and intended to be reserved for candidates for the ministry, 
was, on the recommendation of the faculty of the college, transferred from him 
to another more likely to devote his talents to the holy calling.  After 
graduation he passed one year as assistant librarian of the Free Library of 
Boston, and one year as local reporter on the Boston Courier, after which he 
returned to Maine, and read law in the office of Hon. Robert Goodenow, at 
Farmington.  He had already seen too much of the world to be content to settle 
in a quiet country town, and as soon as he was admitted to the bar he left for 
California, in May, 1861.  The Civil War had then just commenced, but its extent 
was not foreseen.  In April an application had been made to Governor Washburn on 
behalf of the patriotic young men of Franklin County, Maine, to furnish a 
company for the war.  Of the seventy-five thousand volunteers called out by 
President Lincoln, two regiments were assigned to Maine; but Governor Washburn, 
willing to show the loyalty of his native State, had authorized the formation of 
ten regiments, eight to be held in reserve.  This was at a time when the 
lumbermen were returning in the spring from the logging-camps; they eagerly 
embraced the opportunity, and immediately filled the regiments, so that when the 
application made on behalf of Whitney and others to furnish a company was 
received there was no longer any opening in this direction.  Under these 
circumstances it was, upon consultation with his friends, determined that there 
existed no reason for deferring departure for California.  He left New York May 
21, 1861, on the North Star, and arrived in San Francisco June 13th on the 
steamer Sonora.  After visiting several interior towns, he returned to San 
Francisco and entered the law office of Hon. Edward Tompkins (Tompkins & 
Compton), with whom he remained until near the close of the year, when he 
commenced the practice of his profession on his own account.  In 1862, while law 
partner with C. H. Parker, under whose name the work was done, Mr. Whitney 
employed much time in annotating �Bancroft�s Practice Act,� the first work upon 
the Code of Civil Procedure published in this State.  The final revision was 
almost wholly done by him.  In 1865, believing himself sufficiently established 
to justify the step, he married Miss Mary L. Swearingen, formerly of St. Louis, 
Missouri, but then residing in San Francisco with her mother and her sister, the 
wife of Justice Stephen J. Field.  In 1867, upon the nomination for Governor of 
Hon. George C. Gorham, who for some time had held the office of Clerk of the 
United States Courts for the District of California, that position being 
considered an important and lucrative one, was urged upon Mr. Whitney.  
Apprehensions for his health, affected by close application to a business 
becoming important, induced him to make a choice which, under other 
circumstances, would have been unwise, involving, as it did, withdrawal for a 
time from the law, at a point in a professional career attained only after years 
of labor, and which, if once relinquished, is even more difficult to regain.  In 
the Clerk�s office there was plenty of work, if of a different kind.  In it were 
collected the records and papers of the United States Circuit Court, those of 
the late Southern and Northern District Courts, and all the records from the 
Land Commission to ascertain and settle the Mexican land grants throughout the 
State.  These had been kept by different clerks through a series of years, at 
different places, and according to their various notations, and were in a state 
little different from one of confusion.  These papers and records were all 
carefully scrutinized, arranged, and systematized, so as to be easily traced and 
found.  They system then adopted has ever since been continued, both in the 
Circuit and District Courts.  At the end of 1869 the new Circuit Courts had been 
organized, the clerks� offices of the Circuit and District Courts separated, and 
the appointment vested in different judges.  Upon his retirement from office in 
1870, Mr. Whitney spent one year in travel through the United States, Canada, 
and Europe, returning to California in 1871.  Becoming impatient at the 
difficulty of rebuilding a practice in San Francisco, he went to Salt Lake City, 
which was then about entering upon a period of great prosperity on account of 
the mineral discoveries then being made in Utah Territory.  He remained there in 
an important and lucrative business, until the speculative period had passed.  
Desiring to give his growing family better advantages than were attainable at 
that place, he returned to Oakland, where he has remained ever since, in the 
practice of his profession.  While residing in Salt Lake City, he was a careful 
observer of the enormities, both political and moral, practiced by the Mormons, 
under the cloak of religion.  In 1874 he prepared a bill intended to meet some 
of the most pressing evils.  It was introduced by Hon. Luke Poland, of Vermont, 
and is usually known as the �Poland Bill.�  Although subjected to some hostile 
amendments, it became a low at that session, and was the first practical 
remedial measure to be passed by Congress.  Some of the feature embodied in the 
more recent Legislation were also suggested by him, especially the provision of 
lodging matters pertaining to elections in a Commission appointed by the 
President.  Mr. Whitney has always been a Republican, and has taken an active 
interest in political affairs.  He was Chairman of the Executive Committee of 
the Republican County Committee of Alameda County, in the Garfield campaign, 
when the county gave a majority of two thousand for the Republican electoral 
ticket.  In 1882 he was elected to the State Senate from Alameda County, and 
served in that capacity in the Twenty-fifth Session of the Legislature.  While 
the Legislature has tto recently adjourned to speak particularly of the work of 
its members, it is not too much to say that Mr. Whitney was recognized by his 
colleagues of both parties as a careful and safe Legislator, whose voice and 
opinions always commanded attention and respect.  Among the measures introduced 
by him were the following:  An Act to provide for the separate custody of insane 
criminals; an Act on irrigation and water rights; an Act for the prevention of 
gambling by public officials and persons holding fiduciary positions; an Act to 
secure a representation of the industries and resources of California, at the 
International Exposition at Amsterdam; an Act providing for the support of aged 
persons in indigent circumstances.
 
History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 994-996