Asa Whitney ( -1874)
1874 Obituary [1]
The death is announced of Mr. Asa Whitney, senior member of the firm of A. Whitney and Sons, car wheel manufacturers. Mr. Whitney was for some tune a partner of the late Mr. M. W. Baldwin, the style and title of the firm being Baldwin and Whitney. After the dissolution of his partnership with Mr. Baldwin, he started the business of manufacturing car wheels on a new principle, that of annealing them after casting them in chill. His works at Philadelphia grew to such an extent that they now cover the entire block from Sixteenth to Seventeenth streets and Callowhill-street to Pennsylvania-avenue, from 200 to 250 wheels being made daily.
In 1859 Mr. Whitney was elected president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and he laid the foundation of the system by which the Reading Railroad Company secured the coal trade of the Schuylkill region.