His sister Laurinda Collins "Lily" Whitney married Charles T. Barney, who became the president of the Knickerbocker Trust Company.

Educated at Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts, Whitney graduated from Yale University in 1863, where he was a member of Skull and Bones,[2]: 1099  and then studied law at Harvard.

Sharp initially won the franchise by means of bribery, but in December 1884 Ryan formed an alliance with Whitney and Peter A.B.

[4] The contracts issued under the previous administration were investigated impartially by a committee appointed by Whitney and comprising Commander Robley D. Evans, Commodore George Belknap and Herman Winter, chief engineer of the Metropolitan Steamship Company.

[8] Whitney promoted the adoption by industry of the technology needed for the construction of steel steamships and modern naval guns and the domestic manufacture of plate armor.

These constituted the nucleus of the "New Navy"[9][10] During Whitney's four years in the cabinet, his home in Washington, D.C., was a social center of great attraction.

[11] In opposition to Tammany, Whitney was instrumental in bringing about the third nomination of Cleveland in 1892, and took an influential part in the ensuing presidential campaign.

In the next general election, in 1896, disapproving of the "free-silver" agitation, Whitney refused to support his party's candidate, William Jennings Bryan.

At his vast summer estate near Old Westbury on Long Island, Whitney built an 800-foot (240 m) stable with 84 box stalls and an adjoining mile-long training track.

Whitney also spent time in the equestrian community of Aiken, South Carolina, revamping a local cottage into a 69-room winter residence that included 15 bathrooms, a full-size ballroom, a squash court and a stable to house 30 horses.

He was the breeder of twenty-six American stakes winners, including the great filly Artful from his stallion Hamburg.

[14][15] On October 24, 1903, the New York Times reported that W.C. Whitney had entered into a ten-year lease deal with Alexander John (A.J.)

The Whitneys lived in the now-lost Stevens Mansion at 2 West 57th Street[citation needed], where they commissioned Stanford White to renovate the interiors.