POETS of old, and not only poets, looked back with longing to a supposed Golden Age, a remote past in which peace and prosperity reigned supreme. Yet, in the life and times of William A. Whitehead, it was hard for some to imagine things could have ever been better. In one corner of New Jersey’s … More 102–The house of Parker
AMERICANS watched with apprehension, through the winter and spring of 1831-32, as an epidemic of Asiatic cholera swept westward across Europe, conscious that the proliferation of swift oceangoing vessels made it unlikely the plague’s process would stop at the far shores of the Atlantic. Fear combined with a morbid fascination to accelerate the sale of … More 101–This wholesome place
ON his first Washington visit, William A. Whitehead likely made his way to Capitol Hill as a pilgrim would, on foot. His approach from the west began at “two flights of steps laid in the slope of the eminence.” Above and before him, crowned by Charles Bulfinch’s copper-clad wooden dome–not the massive cupola familiar to … More 097–Pantheon
THE home of the Stuyvesant Institute, its stately façade aligned with Broadway, admitted within its walls a wide range of organizations, activities and initiatives, all in some way justified by a founding commitment to “the diffusion of useful knowledge.” Barely a year old in November 1838 when William A. Whitehead first passed through its doors, … More 045–The Dunlap benefit
SUNDRY and sustained attachments bound William A. Whitehead early to the nation’s commercial capital. They were established just after the Revolutionary War and well before his birth, upon his father’s arrival as a young immigrant from the Caribbean. A furniture-maker’s apprentice turned promising craftsman, then cashier in Wall Street’s most enduring financial institution, the elder … More 044–Barrow Street
FOR all that it has gained or lost in the tides of politics and war, Perth Amboy’s history attests to the power of place, the environment’s ability to span time and distance through the agency of human memory and motivation. For so many who spent the bulk of their lives elsewhere–and William Whitehead was by … More 009–Progress and place