John Hay Whitney
1904 - 1982
British Prime Minister Harold McMillan proclaimed John Hay (Jock) Whitney "the best Ambassador the United States ever had here." Whitney was named to the post in 1954 by President Eisenhower, a golfing and hunting crony. Whitney was named for his grandfather, John Hay, who also had been our Ambassador to England as well as Secretary of State and private secretary to Abraham Lincoln.
Whitney and his sister, Joan Whitney Payson, were also born to the Turf, inheriting Greentree Stud outside Lexington from their mother, Mrs. Payne Whitney, in 1944. They raced the great Tom Fool and won the 100th running of the Belmont Stakes with Stage Door Johnny in 1968. Whitney and Mrs. Payson were prominent in other professional pursuits and also supported the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art. Whitney helped finance A Streetcar Name Desire on Broadway and the movie Gone With the Wind and he published the Herald-Tribune and Scientific American. Assigned to Intelligence in World War II, Col. Whitney escaped imprisonment by leaping from a moving POW train. Mrs. Payson had a lifelong love of baseball and owned the New York Mets franchise from its inception through the 1969 World Series victory.
Marker can be reached from the intersection of East Main Street (U.S. 60) and Midland Avenue (U.S. 60), on the right when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
