Page:History of Stearns County, Minnesota; volume 1.pdf/129

 expenditure of energy far beyond the capacity of the average man, he has also found time for other ventures. About 1899 he saw that the interests of the producers in Stearns county would be best conserved and promoted by the installation of cold storage facilities. Accordingly he and R. L. Gale organized the St. Cloud Cold Storage & Produce Co., of which he was made president, a position which he still retains. This company has met with the same success that has attained all his efforts. Another venture was the State Bank of Richmond, which he organized, conducted for several years, and sold in 1911. For some years past he has been a director in the Merchants National Bank, of St. Cloud.

Ultimately Mr. Whitney intends to build a dam similar to the St. Cloud dam on the site of the Sauk Rapids Water Power Co., which he acquired at the time when he began to be interested in the electrical plants at St. Cloud, in 1900. Mr Whitney is an extensive land holder, and owns a large number of farms scattered throughout central Minnesota. Of these he operates two and rents the remainder. It is interesting to note as a matter of history, that one of these farms which he operates is the old homestead of his uncle, Sylvanius Jenkins in Dakota county, on which Mr. Whitney spent so many happy hours as a care-free boy.

While Mr. Whitney has attained success in life such as has been achieved by few, and though his many interests make almost super-human demands on his time and energy he is affable and approachable, ever willing to lend his hand to every good cause. His good fellowship is shown by his membership in the I. O. O. F. and the B. P. O. E. No good work is projected that does not receive his help and encouragement, no public venture fails to find in him a supporter, and the fact that he refuses all offices, makes his opinion and influence on all public questions of all the greater importance. All in all he is a useful citizen, the extent of what his work has meant to St. Cloud and the state can never be estimated, the amount of the good he has done will never be known. His name is inseparably connected with the growth, progress and standing of the city. Mr. Whitney has been aided and encouraged in all his stupendous tasks, by a most happy married life. He was married October 13, 1891, to Alice M. Wheelock, of Moscow, N. Y., and they have three children, Wheelock, born in 1894, is studying electrical engineering at Yale University; Lois and Pauline are students at the St. Cloud high school.

Josiah E. Hayward. In the march of civilization, the extending of the outposts of settlement further and further into the wilderness, and the gradual subduing of the wild, there are three important factors, transportation, food and shelter. The early tavern keeper who could furnish accommodations, the man with ox teams who could transport goods onto far-away claims, the man with horses who could carry into the interior the people who landed from the steamboats—these men were of more immediate necessity than the teacher or the preacher. Among those whose work of this nature helped to make the conquest of the Northwest possible, may be mentioned the subject of this notice, generous, kindly, jovial and sympathetic "Uncle Josiah."

Josiah E. Hayward was born at Mechanics Falls, Maine, February 2, 1826, and at the time of his death in St. Cloud, March 13, 1895, had entered his seven-