Whitehurst, Willis G.

Born: 1828-XX-XX Winchester, Kentucky

Died: 1894-09-07 Dayton, Ohio

Flourished: 1853 to 1861 Springfield, Illinois

Willis G. Whitehurst was a telegraph engineer and executive and U.S. Army officer. In 1853, Whitehurst received appointment as superintendent for the construction of a telegraph line from Springfield, Illinois to Naples, Illinois. He married Mary A. Grubb in March 1854 in Sangamon County, Illinois. Whitehurst later moved to Atlanta, Illinois, where he worked as a telegraph operator. In April 1861, he became postmaster of Atlanta. He joined the U.S. Army in August 1861 as a second lieutenant in Company F, Thirty-Eighth Illinois Infantry. In August 1862, he received promotion to first lieutenant, and in May 1863, he became a captain. He resigned his commission in March 1864. After the Civil War, Whitehurst moved to Dayton, Ohio, where he helped manage the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company.

Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Sangamon County, 9 March 1854, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Illinois Daily Journal (Springfield), 25 July 1853, 3:1; 10 March 1854, 3:2; Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832-1971, NARA Microfilm Publication, M841, 145 rolls, Records of the Post Office Department, RG 28, 1865-1878, 32:258, National Archives Building, Washington, DC; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Atlanta, Logan County, IL, 4; Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls , Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; The History of Montgomery County, Ohio (Chicago: W. H. Beers, 1882), 751; The Dayton Evening Herald (OH), 8 September 1894, 2:3, 7; Gravestone, Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum, Dayton, OH.