James Whitney first came to the Ohio Territory in 1802 and immediately began the trade of shipbuilder. He built ocean going vessels for the Abner Lord, Benjamin I. Gilman, Charles Greene, and  Dudley Woodbridge. Later, he joined forces with Colonel Augustus Stone, and Whitney and Stone Steam Boat Yard built steamboats for several years.   Over his long life Mr. Whitney served the community in many ways at various times; he was a police man, Overseer of the Poor, elected to the Marietta city council, city treasurer, Mayor of Harmar, Treasurer of Schools, on the board of the Bank of Marietta and Postmaster of Harmar for many years. All the while he built ships, owned and operated his own mercantile in Harmar, owned and operated a Steam Saw Mill and was joint owner of the Steam Boat Yard. Whitney was also actively involved in the Methodist Church all during his life, serving often as a trustee. John and Mary Greene settled in Newport, Ohio, in 1798.  Ruth, one of their ten children, married James Whitney, and it was through their daughter Sarah that we have Whitney descendants today.  Sarah married Rev. William Herr.  Rev. Herr's obituary is included in the Cincinnati Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.  We are grateful to the church for sending a copy to us.  (A letter written by James Whitney at age 73 to protest a proposed bridge to be built in Cincinnati - Notice the irony of the last sentence. By this date his son, James Jr. was building ships in Marietta.)   Harmar Jan 22, 1847 William P. Cutler, Esq. Dear Sir, The mast of the schooner built here the last season is seventy three feet long – at least seventy feet above the water line. It will be born in mind that the masts cannot be taken our without considerable experience and lapse of time. The whole length including top mast and top gallant mast will be 105 feet. But the mast of a shop on 350 tons such as we built in1807, would be nearly 90 feet above the water when the topmast should be _____ to within about three feet of the Crossties at the mast head, after the top gallant mast should be taken down to the deck . We believe Captain Davis Statement in the pamphlet published at Cincinnati respecting the erecting a bridge entirely correct. It would seem improper to throw obstruction across the Ohio river after so many applications to the general Government to have them removed. Very Respectfully your Ob't Sv't James Whitney N.B. thru' vessels must all pass down at the height of the river in order to pass the Falls of Louisville. A delay of a few days only might occasion the lapse of a whole trip if not for a year. (This was written before locks were built on the River to control the flow. Previous to the locks, the River often became un-navigable during the summer months.)     From the Cincinnati Annual Conference of the Methodist Church, pages 300-302   Rev. Wm. Herr, D.D.                   Who may adequately portray even the outline of a life which for seventy years was devoted to the work of the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, and which for nearly one hundred years was learning the wonderful lessons of this probationary period?  Yet such is the work allotted to him who delineates the career of that hero of the cross, the Rev. William Herr.  He was born in Hagerstown, Maryland, March 9, 1806.  He was the youngest of a family of twelve children, all of whom preceded him to the life beyond.  When he was thirteen years of age, his parents removed to Lancaster, Ohio.  Here he entered a mercantile house, and was occupied with its duties for four years.  At the end of that time, feeling a greater desire for a professional than for a business career, he went to the Ohio University, at Athens, Ohio, with a view to prepare for the legal profession.  But before his college course was completed, he fully realized the truthfulness of the adage, “Man proposes, but God disposes.” This conviction was the ultimate outcome of a camp-meeting held at Wolf’s Plains, about four miles from Athens.  The spirit of revival, which was poured out at this meeting, encouraged the Revs.  H. S. Farnandis and R. O. Spencer, pastors of Athens Circuit, and E. T. Webster, a local preacher, to begin a protracted meeting in midsummer in the town of Athens, to see if, while the sheaves of golden grain were being garnered by the farmers, the ministers of the cross might not successfully thrust the gospel sickle into the field, already ripe unto the harvest, which the students of the university presented.  The first service was held in the Methodist Church, on Wednesday evening.  The presence of God was manifest in this initial service.  Soon several of Mr. Herr’s young friends were brought under conviction, and went to the mourner’s bench as seeks of religion.  This powerfully affected him.  It affects us in like manner, as we turn our gaze thither, and behold, appearing just above the horizon of the Methodist heavens, that benign Pleiades, Trimble, Ames, Sehon, Pilcher, Herr.  The sequel is best given in the graphic language of the subject of our memoir:  “Then I struggled for deliverance from the burden of sin, which seemed every moment to increase in bitterness and crushing power.  Midnight drew nigh, and there I was in all my guilt, agony, and helplessness.  Just then, as I was on the verge of despair, the Holy Spirit whispered in my heart, ‘Jesus saves to the uttermost all who come to the Father by him.’  My soul, springing into new being, lifted its voice in joyful accents: ‘Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it; shout, ye lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, for the Lord hath redeemed me, and glorified himself in me.’”  The story of his conversion was henceforth as marvelous and glorious to him as was that of Paul.  His Divine call to the ministry soon followed.  He did not run until he was sent.  He did not choose it as a desirable profession, but because a “Woe is me, if I preach not the gospel,” constrained him.  At the close of the collegiate year, he was licensed to preach by the Quarterly Conference of the Athens Circuit.  At the ensuing session of the Ohio conference, David Young, the presiding elder, presented the name of William Herr for admission on trial.  He was admitted, together with Jacob Hill, Thomas Thompson, Thomas Simms, Joseph J. Hill, Leonard B. Gurley, Alvin Billings, James W. Finley, George Huffman, Joel Dalby, Joseph Hl Trimble, Henry Colclazer, and David Cadwalader.  Thus did he enter upon a career of signal success and usefulness.  His commanding figure, his urbane bearing, his mellow and musical voice, his evident consecration to, and anointing for the work, made him an attractive and powerfully influential personality from the start.  Obeying the appointing powers, he went successively to Marietta Circuit, Charleston, W. Va., Gallipolis Circuit, Agent for Augusta College, Ky., Letart Falls Circuit, Mt. Vernon Station, Detroit, Mich., Detroit District; Town Street, Columbus; Western Charge, Cincinnati; Fourth Street, Cincinnati; Wesley (now Grace), Dayton; Columbia Street, Springfield, just fifty-three years ago; Walnut Street, Chillicothe; First Church, Xenia, Morris Chapel, Cincinnati; Urbana, Presiding Elder Dayton District, Piqua District, Superintendent American Bible Society, and Agent and President of the Preachers’ Relief Society.  He was ordained deacon, in Dayton, Ohio, in 1832, by Bishop Emory.  He received his Doctor’s degree from the Ohio Wesleyan.  In 1848, he was a delegate to the General Conference, at Pittsburg.  In 1830, Dr. Herr was married to Miss Sarah Whitney, of Marietta, the daughter of James Whitney, who was one of the founders of Methodism in Ohio.  She was the mother of his four children, who are yet living. They are Miss Sarah R. Herr, and Mrs. D. W. Engle, of Dayton, Ohio; John James Herr, of San Francisco, California; and B. Whitney Herr, of Louisville, Kentucky.  Mrs. Herr died in 1843.  In 1845, Dr. Herr was again married, to Eliza P. Swain, the daughter of Judge Swain, of Dayton, Ohio.  She has been a faithful and loving mother to his children, and a tower of strength and helpfulness to him in all his work, and an evangel of ministration to him during all his declining years, even to the very last hour of his life.  In 1878, at the session of the Conference held in Piqua, Dr. Herr preached his semi-centennial sermon.  It was a discourse of rare interest and merit, and is a valuable depository of early Methodist history in Ohio and the bordering States.  In 1895, he attended his last session of the Conference, at Troy.  His presence and words on that occasion were a benediction.  He spent the closing years of his life in Dayton, holding his Quarterly Conference relations with Grace Church.  His name was an ointment  poured forth.  His princely form, his noble countenance, his eagle eye, his snowy hair, contributed to give to him a patriarchal and commanding appearance, which made him a marked figure in an assembly or on the street.  He was the intimate friend of some of the really great men of the Church.  The Rev. Dr. F. Merrick and he kept up an almost daily correspondence for years, which was only terminated by death.  But the most of those whom he knew and loved went home before him.  Outliving his generation, he was as a lone palm-tree in the midst of a vast plain.  This solitary distinction, which his great longevity gave to him, did not make him pessimistic.  He was a hopeful and a happy old man.  The operations of the Church militant enlisted his liveliest interest even to the last.  Having loved the Church, he loved it to the end.  He was prayerful and liberal, even to the impoverishing of himself, right along through the gathering infirmities of old age.  It was a great disappointment to him as well as to many of his friends, that he was not able to be present at the last Conference at Piqua.  It was the scene of his closing work in the pastorate, and he naturally longed once more to look in upon a situation and faces which had been endeared to him by the struggles and triumphs of other days.  But it was not to be.  Something far better was in store for him.  He was going to the “General Assembly.”  His health, which had been in a precarious condition, gradually and surely declined.                  His last conscious words were to his daughter Sarah, who had bestowed some comforting ministrations, when he looked up with a smile, and said, “The Lord bless and keep you.”  It was befitting that he should enter the everlasting rest on the Lord’s day. Sabbath, March 28th, at the hour of the morning service, he “fell asleep in Jesus,” and so passed from the Church militant to the Church triumphant.  It was his request that the funeral should be a private one from the house. This expressed wish was complied with.  No memorial sketch was read.  The service was in charge of the pastor of Grace Church, assisted by the presiding elder. The Rev. Dr. W. A. Hale, of the German Reformed Church, and Dr. E. E. Baker, of the Lutheran Church, and Messrs. L. D. Reynolds and W. L. Adamson, as did devout men of old with the body of Stephen, took up the body of our revered father and brother, and went and buried it in beautiful Woodland Cemetery, at Dayton, Ohio, there to sleep.                         “Till the day break, and the shadows flee away.”                                                             W. A. Robinson.