Early Life
He was born in 1821 in Savannah, Georgia to Richard Whitaker and his second wife, Frances Snell. At the age of twelve, he left home with ten dollars and a gold watch to St. Marks, Florida, then the primary seaport of Florida's west coast. He worked there in the fishing trade and in time crossed paths with his half-brother Hamlin Valentine Snell, who later became President of the Florida Senate, Speaker of the House and later, Tampa's 8th mayor. Living in Tallahassee, Snell committed William to a formal education, arranging lodging and board. It was in Tallahassee that he met his would-be wife Mary Jane Wyatt. In 1840, at age nineteen, Whitaker enlisted in Florida's Mounted Militia for three months to fight in the Second Seminole War, for which he was compensated $70. The occupation entry on his enlistment papers read "school boy". Whitaker served with his Regiment at Fort Macomb and other wartime camps where illness plagued him. As the war was concluding, Whitaker traveled Florida's Gulf Coast and to Havana, Cuba, working in the fishing trade.
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