pioneer businessman, speculator, promoter, b. Gilsum, N.H. He moved to Green Bay in 1819 where he opened a trading post, eventually served as sutler in various army posts throughout the area, and for a time competed with the American Fur Company. A shrewd speculator and businessman, Whitney built up a boat-line transportation system along the streams of interior Wisconsin, and in the winter of 1831-1832 built at Whitney's Rapids (Nekoosa) the first sawmill on the upper Wisconsin River. In 1831 he began construction of a shot tower at Helena on the lower Wisconsin, a site convenient to the lead mines and to south and east transportation routes. Whitney was active in the company operating this tower for several years, was also an incorporator of the Portage Canal Co. (1834), and in 1846 helped promote the federal land grant to aid in the Fox-Wisconsin Improvement project. In 1829, before public lands were opened for settlement in Wisconsin, he laid out Navarino (now part of Green Bay) on private land claims, and also invested heavily in lots and real estate in Sheboygan and elsewhere. One of the most successful speculators in the old Northwest, Whitney spent his later years caring for his large landed estate. F. C. Pierce, Whitney Descendants of J. Whitney . . . (Chicago, 1895); Wis. Mag. Hist., 24; Green Bay Hist. Bull., 1 (1925), pp. 1-5; WPA MS.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the Daniel Whitney Papers for details.

View a related article at Wisconsin Magazine of History Archives.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]