Author: Whiting, Henry
Biography:
WHITING, Henry (1788-1851: ancestry.com)
He was born in Lancaster MA, the son of Orpah (Danforth) and John Whiting. His father had been a Brigadier General in the state militia during the Revolution and retired after the War of 1812 as Lt.-Col. of the 5th Infantry. Following in his father's footsteps, Whiting became a career soldier who began as a Cornet of Dragoons in 1808 and ended as a Brevet Brigadier-General and Assistant Quartermaster-General to the US Army. He served with distinction particularly in the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War of 1846-8. As a Captain in the 5th Infantry, stationed in Detroit from 1815 onward, he kept an illustrated journal of a march undertaken by his regiment in 1819 from Green Bay to Prairie du Chien as a report for the War Dept., on the strength of which he has been described as "Wisconsin's first geographer, first archaeologist, and first water-color artist" (Goff). He was subsequently attached to the staff of Gen. Alexander Macomb in Detroit and in 1820 married Eliza Macomb (who must have been a relative but does not appear to have been a daughter). The couple had two sons. His wife was with him when he died suddenly of a heart attack in St. Louis MO. Newspapers around the country carried the report of his death; his remains were transported to Detroit for burial in Elmwood Cemetery. Besides his military prowess, Whiting was a cultivated man of many interests. He wrote a book on The Age of Steam (1830) and a life of Gen. Zebulon Pike (1848), and contributed papers to historical and scientific journals. He was Secretary of the Michigan Historical Society and a Regent of the University of Michigan. (ancestry.com 1 Feb. 2021; Appleton; WorldCat; Charles D. Goff, "Captain Whiting's Journal," Wisconsin Academy Review 25:4 [1979] 3-10) HJ