Whitney, James F.

Born: 1809-09-25 Massachusetts

Died: 1851-08-14 Illinois

Flourished: Edgar County, Illinois

James F. Whitney was a sheriff, postmaster, and pioneer settler of Edgar County. He moved from Kentucky to Charleston, Illinois, in 1830. Two years later, he moved along with Leander Munsell to Edgar County, settling in Paris. In May 1836, Whitney married Elizabeth S. Morton in Coles County. Whitney was postmaster of Grand View, from December 1848 to May 1849. In 1850, he was living in Edgar County with his wife and their five children and was employed as a clerk in a mercantile business. Whitney was sheriff of Edgar County, from November 1850 until his death from cholera.

The History of Edgar County, Illinois (Chicago: Wm. Le Baron, Jr., 1879), 232, 254, 303, 310, 321; Register of all Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1849 (Washington, DC: Gideon, 1849),*475; Fitz Henry Warren to Abraham Lincoln; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Coles County, 4 May 1836, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Edgar County, IL, 199-200; Gravestone, Old City Cemetery, Charleston, IL.