Whitney, Dewey

Born: 1796-XX-XX Marlboro, Vermont

Died: 1857-07-27 Franklin County, Mississippi

Flourished: 1838-03-22 Springfield, Illinois

Dewey Whitney received his classical education in New England. He studied theology with Gideon Blackburn of Kentucky. Whitney received his minister's liscense from the Muhlenburg Presbytery at Elkton, Todd County, Kentucky, on April 14, 1823. In 1827, he married Mildred R. Thornton, with whom he had two children. Whitney migrated to Illinois with his family in the early 1830s. In April 1834, Whitney joined the Sangamon Presbytery, Sangamon County. In June 1835, he organized the Presbyterian Church in the village of Chatham. In March 1836, Whitney won election to the pastorate of the Second Presbyterian Church of Springfield. He served as pastor of Second Presbyterian until February 1839. A serious bronchical infection forced Whitney to leave the ministry. Taking up the study of medicine, Whitney left Sangamon County and practiced in various locations in New York before migrating to Mississippi, where he died from a concussion suffered after a fall from his horse.

John Carroll Power and S. A. Power, History of the Early Settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Edwin A. Wilson, 1876), 714; History of Sangamon County, Illinois (Chicago: Inter-State, 1881), 605, 830; Augustus T. Norton, History of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Illinois (St. Louis: W. S. Bryan, 1879), I:209-10, 221, 222, 240, 245, 314.