Author: Whitney, Moses
Biography:
WHITNEY, Moses, Jr. (1802-44: ancestry.com)
He was born on 7 Oct. 1802, the eldest son of Moses Whitney (1775-1859) of Milton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, and his first wife Rebecca Dunbar (1768-1824). His father was a jeweller in business in Boston and an officer (eventually General) in the Massachusetts militia. The son also went into business in Boston, dealing mainly in furs and skins from a shop on State Street. He was sociable and a good citizen: newspaper records show him as a leader in the Franklin Debating Society, the Washington Society, and the Boston Clay Club (named for the politician Henry Clay [1777-1852]). He contributed poems to some of the festive occasions of these clubs, and to some local papers. With three friends he made a contract for Whimwhams with the Boston publisher S. C. Goodrich on 15 Nov. 1827. On 3 Oct. 1829 he married Elizabeth Sanderson at Milton. They had two children. He died in Boston on 18 Oct. 1844 after an illness of about three weeks. His writings were all of the ephemeral kind, although his obituarist in the Boston Courier maintained that if he had treated literature as an occupation rather than as an amusement, he would have achieved a “distinguished rank” in the literary world. (ancestry.com 30 May 2024; findmypast.com 30 May 2024; Boston Intelligencer 22 Jan 1825; Boston Patriot 19 Aug. 1825; Boston Daily American Statesman 24 Feb. 1827; Boston Courier 1 Jan. 1844, 16 Apr. 1844, 21 Oct. 1844; Lot #174, Bonham’s auction catalogue 14 Feb. 2013, skinnerinc.com) HJ
Other Names:
- Moses Whitney, Jr.