Early Years
Born in New York City, he was the eldest son of the very wealthy businessman and United States Secretary of the Navy, William C. Whitney and brother to William Payne Whitney.
Harry Payne Whitney studied at Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts then attended Yale University, graduating with a law degree in 1894. He was a member of the Skull and Bones.
In 1904, H. P. Whitney inherited $24,000,000 from his father and in 1917 approximately $12,000,000 from his uncle, Oliver Hazard Payne. On August 25, 1896 he married Gertrude Vanderbilt, a member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family with whom he had three children: Flora Payne Whitney (1897), Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (1899), and Barbara Whitney (1903).
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Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“Some men have a necessity to be mean, as if they were exercising a faculty which they had to partially neglect since early childhood.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)