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:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“Perfect present has no existence in our consciousness. As I said years ago in Erewhon, it lives but upon the sufferance of past and future. We are like men standing on a narrow footbridge over a railway. We can watch the future hurrying like an express train towards us, and then hurrying into the past, but in the narrow strip of present we cannot see it. Strange that that which is the most essential to our consciousness should be exactly that of which we are least definitely conscious.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)