Named in 1887 for Washington Hadley (1817-1911), who didn’t so much cofound Whittier that year as bankroll it. A lifelong Quaker, Hadley was born in Greensboro, NC but moved to Indiana c. 1831 with his widowed mother. There he married native Hoosier Naomi Henley (1819-1901) in 1839 while managing a general store. Eventually he got into banking, and in 1865 he took his family to Lawrence, KS, whereupon he established the National Bank of Lawrence and appointed himself its president. Four years later, he was elected mayor of Lawrence. With the Hadleys’ daughter Meda marrying a son of A.H. Pickering in 1872 and another daughter, Laurie, marrying Elwood Newlin in 1878, Whittier’s town fathers were as much family as “Friends“. The Hadleys finally settled in Whittier full-time in 1892 and Washington incorporated the Bank of Whittier in 1895. In the final years of his life, he married his second wife Rebecca and organized the Whittier Savings Bank, serving as its president until his death. He was celebrated as the oldest banker in the world at that time. Whittier’s Washington Ave. might also be named for him.
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