Brief Life History of Richard
When Richard Whitney was born on 23 February 1757, in Petersham, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States, his father, Aaron Whitney, was 42 and his mother, Alice Baker, was 39. He died in April 1779, at the age of 22.
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1776
Thomas Jefferson's American Declaration of Independence endorsed by Congress. Colonies declare independence.
1776 · The Declaration to the King
"At the end of the Second Continental Congress the 13 colonies came together to petition independence from King George III. With no opposing votes, the Declaration of Independence was drafted and ready for all delegates to sign on the Fourth of July 1776. While many think the Declaration was to tell the King that they were becoming independent, its true purpose was to be a formal explanation of why the Congress voted together to declare their independence from Britain. The Declaration also is home to one of the best-known sentences in the English language, stating, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."""
Name Meaning
English: habitational name from Whitney in Herefordshire, the etymology of which is uncertain. The second element is Old English ēg ‘island, piece of higher ground in a low-lying area’; the first appears to be hwītan, which is either the genitive singular of an Old English byname Hwīta (meaning ‘white’), or the weak dative case (originally used after a preposition and article) of the adjective hwīt ‘white’. The name may also derive from Whitney (now Whitney Wood) in Stevenage (Hertfordshire), probably named from Old English hwītan ‘white’ + (ge)hæge ‘enclosure’.
History: John Whitney came from London, England, to Watertown, MA, in 1635, and had numerous prominent descendents.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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