Business enterprise finds a worthy exponent in Charles W. Whittlesey, now the president of the Charles W. Whittlesey Company, wholesale druggists of New Haven. He has been continuously connected with this business for thirty-eight years and since 1882 has been its executive head. His plans are always well defined and promptly executed, and difficulties and obstacles in his path have seemed but to serve as an impetus for renewed effort on his part.

Mr. Whittlesey was born on the 18th of December, 1860, in New Haven, and comes of English ancestry, the family having been founded in America by John Whittlesey, who was a native of England and after crossing the Atlantic became a resident of Saybrook, Connecticut. He established a ferry between Saybrook and Old Lyme, which remained in possession of the family until 1839. It was at New Britain that Dr. Charles B. Whittlesey, father of Charles W. Whittlesey, was born and later upon the death of his father, spent most of his youth in Southington under the guidance of his grandfather, Roger Whittlesey, a graduate of Yale class of 1787. He became a physician by profession, having been graduated from the medical department of Yale in 1843. He entered the drug business in 1845, establishing the house which is now carried on under the name of the Charles W. Whittlesey Company, and in which he remained active up to the time of his death in 1878, when he was fifty-seven years of age. He was much interested in civic matters and in religious work as well, holding membership in the Center church. For many years he was very prominent in its affairs and long served as its treasurer. His aid and influence were always given on the side of progress and improvement and he held to high standards of manhood and citizenship. He married Esther Antoinette Wilcoxson. who was born at Milan, Ohio, but represented an old Connecticut family that removed to the Western Reserve about 1820 and which was of Scotch and English lineage. The Whittlesey family was founded in America during an early period in the colonization of the new world and representatives of the name participated in the struggle for independence. Mrs. Whittlesey passed away in 1908 at the advanced age of eighty years. She was the mother of six children of whom three are living: Mabel H., of New Haven; Mrs. Ellis Mendell, of Brookline. Massachusetts; and Charles W.

The last named attended the public schools of New Haven until he completed the high school course, and afterward entered the Sheffield Scientific School, from which he was gradu-ated in 1879 with the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy. Prior to his graduation he entered into active connection with the business left by his father, at 744 Chapel street, near State street, and there he thoroughly acquainted himself with the wholesale drug trade in all its departments. Later, in 1882, he assumed the management of the business for his mother and won success in the careful direction of her interests. In 1887 he purchased the business from the family and incorporated it in 1898, since which time he has been the president. The firm employs on an average of thirty-five people and the business occupies three stories of a four story building, having approximately twenty thousand square feet of floor space. The trade covers western Connecticut and Massachusetts and the undertaking is one of the most important commercial interests in New Haven. Mr. Whittlesey is also a director of the New Haven Bank and of the Morris Plan Bank. He displays keen discernment in business and his enterprise is the expression of laudable ambition and careful consideration of the questions relating to the trade.

On the 25th of November, 1891, Mr. Whittlesey was married in New Haven to Miss Delia Barnes Bradley, a native of this city and a daughter of the late Robert and Cornelia (Minor) Bradley. Mrs. Whittlesey passed away September 25, 1902, at the age of thirty-one years. There were three children of that marriage. Ethel was born in New Haven March 25, 1894, and is now in the university secretary's office in charge of war records. Robert Bradley, born October 11, 1895, left Yale in his junior year in May, 1917, to enlist in the service of his country and is now acting quartermaster on board the U. S. S. Narada. Charles B., who was born June 30, 1898, died March 22, 1900. On the 5th of January, 1910, Mr. Whittlesey was married to Miss Mary Reed Eastman, of Albany, New York, a daughter of the Rev. William R. Eastman, a retired clergyman, and Laura (Barnes) Eastman of Plantsville, Connecticut. Mr. and Mrs. Whittlesey have one child, Margaret, born in New Haven February 20, 1911.

Mr. Whittlesey is a member of the Connecticut Home Guard. His political indorsement is given to the republican party and in 1891 he served as a member of the city council. He holds membership in the Graduates' Club, the Country Club of New Haven, and the Drug and Chemical Club of New York. He belongs to the Center church of New Haven and is serving on its financial committee. His entire life has been spent in the city where he yet makes his home and throughout the entire period he has been connected with the drug trade. His is a record of a strenuous life—a record of a strong individuality, sure of itself, stable in purpose, quick in perception, swift in deduction, energetic and persistent in action.