Whitney, Asa (1797–1872)

US merchant and railroad promoter. A dry goods merchant, he became head of his own firm in 1836. After suffering financial losses and the death of his wife in 1840, he travelled to China where he became very wealthy as an agent for several New York firms and envisioned the value of an American transcontinental railway to trade with China. He devised a plan for its construction that he presented to Congress in 1844, and spent the next seven years lobbying the public through newspapers, speeches, and pamphlets, including A Project for a Railroad to the Pacific (1849).

Whitney was born in North Groton, Connecticut. In 1852 he remarried and retired to his Washington estate. He died shortly after the first transcontinental railway was completed.

Whitney, Asa (1791–1874)

US inventor and manufacturer. A railroad superintendent and canal commissioner, he patented a locomotive steam engine in 1840. Settling in Pennsylvania, he later started a company, Asa Whitney & Sons, that became the country's largest manufacturer of train wheels. Whitney was born in Townsend, Massachusetts.