Background
George Frederick Whitworth was born on March 15, 1816 in Boston, England. In 1828 his parents settled, according to one authority, near Mansfield, Ohio; according to another, in Terre Haute, Ind.
George Frederick Whitworth was born on March 15, 1816 in Boston, England. In 1828 his parents settled, according to one authority, near Mansfield, Ohio; according to another, in Terre Haute, Ind.
After serving as an apprentice to a saddler and harness maker, George entered Hanover College, where he was graduated in 1838.
Subsequently, he taught school in Lancaster, Ohio, and Greenburg, Ind. , and in 1843 was admitted to the bar. Soon, however, he determined to enter the ministry, and in 1847 was graduated at New Albany Theological Seminary (later McCormick Theological Seminary). After serving several Presbyterian churches, he was invited in 1852 to lead a company of colonists across the continent, and the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions appointed him missionary to Puget Sound. In October 1853 he reached Portland, Ore. , where he helped to found the First Presbyterian Church. Proceeding to Olympia, Wash. , early in 1854, he organized a church there and in the following year, one in what is now Claquato and another at Grand Mound. He was the first Presbyterian to preach in Seattle (March 1865), and in December 1869 established the First Presbyterian Church there. He served as moderator of the presbytery of Puget Sound, and of the synod; at various times he was also stated clerk of both bodies. A missionary's wage proving inadequate to support his family, he resigned from the mission about 1856 and turned for some years to secular occupations. From 1856 to 1865 he held many minor government offices and energetically promoted public improvements. He foresaw that Washington coal would prove abundant and good and wrote much upon the subject. In 1866 he became a member of the Lake Washington Coal Company, which soon went out of existence, and in 1868-69, with Daniel Bagley, he operated the Newcastle Coal Mines. He was also a member of the Seattle Coal Company, incorporated in 1870. Meanwhile, in 1866, he had left Olympia to assume the presidency of the University of Washington. He was an outstanding personage, and the reputation and character he brought to the Seattle institution did much to save it from extinction. He served only until June 28, 1867, but from the spring of 1875 to Christmas of 1876 he again occupied the position. He had charge of the university at difficult times, but under his leadership it made progress. He did much to popularize civil engineering and organized military and engineering departments. In 1883 he established an academy at Sumner, Wash. , and in 1890, while president of its trustees, incorporated it as a college. In 1899 the institution was moved to Tacoma and later to Spokane. In his honor it was named by others Whitworth College.
On July 17, 1838 he married Mary Elizabeth Thomson of Decatur County, Ind. , by whom he had seven children.