Later Life
Whitney was a member of Ward McAllister's Patriarch Society until its dissolution in April 1897. After Flora's death on February 5, 1893, Whitney married a widow named married Edith Sibyl Randolph (née May). He commissioned McKim, Mead and White to build for her a residence in the Italian Renaissance style at Fifth Avenue and 68th Street. She died in a riding accident on May 6, 1899 at their estate in the Aiken Winter Colony in Aiken, South Carolina.
At his residence, 871 Fifth Avenue, Whitney gave a debutante ball for his niece, Helen Barney, on January 5, 1901.
He remained active in street-railway affairs until the reorganization of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company in 1902. At that time he retired from all personal identification with the company.
William Collins Whitney died on February 2, 1904, and was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.
The USS Whitney (AD-4) was named in his honor when launched on October 12, 1923 at the Boston Navy Yard. The William C. Whitney Wilderness Area of the Adirondack Park is also named in his honor.
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