Horace K. Whitney
(1823-1884)
Horace Kimball Whitney (July 25, 1823 - November 22, 1884) was a Mormon pioneer and early settler of Utah. He was the son of Newel K. Whitney and father of Orson F. Whitney, both prominent leaders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His wife, Helen Mar Kimball, had been sealed to church founder Joseph Smith in a celestial marriage as a plural wife before Smith's death, so she and Whitney were married "for time" (which time ended up being 38 years, during which they had 11 children).
Whitney was born in Kirtland, Ohio, the oldest child of Newel K. and Elizabeth Ann Smith Whitney. His parents were among the Campbellite followers of Sidney Rigdon in the area who joined the Church of Christ in significant numbers in 1830. This helped prompt church founder Joseph Smith to relocate the church's headquarters to Kirtland. Horace was baptized into the church at the age of nine by Reynolds Cahoon.
The Whitney family left Kirtland in 1838, intending to join the main body of what was now called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Missouri. However, church members were simultaneously being forced out of Missouri, so the family spent the winter in Carrollton, Illinois, before moving on to the church's next gathering place at Nauvoo. Although only 15, Horace secured employment in Carrollton teaching the country school.
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This entry incorporates text from “Horace K. Whitney” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.