William Whiting II

William Whiting (May 24, 1841 – January 9, 1911) was an American businessman and politician from Holyoke, Massachusetts. Whiting descended from an English family who first settled in Lynn, Massachusetts, during 1636.

Whiting was born in Dudley, Massachusetts, May 24, 1841. Whiting attended public schools and graduated from Amherst College.

Whiting worked for the Holyoke Paper Company and the Hampden Paper Company. At the age of 17 Whiting started at the Holyoke Paper Company working first as a bookkeeper. After three years working as a clerk, Whiting became a salesman first working out of the company's main office and later working as a commercial traveling salesman. Whiting organized the Whiting Paper Company in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1865. In 1865, Whiting built his first mill followed by another in 1872. When the Whiting Paper Company was first formed. L.L. Brown of South Adams, Massachusetts, was president and Whiting was agent and treasurer. Whiting later became president and his son, William Fairfield Whiting, became treasurer. Whiting later organized the Collins Paper Company and built a paper mill in North Wilbraham, Massachusetts.

In addition to his political and manufacturing careers, Whiting was a prominent philanthropist in Holyoke's history, and endowed the city with many of its secular institutions. In 1870 along with John and Edwin Chase, Whiting incorporated the Holyoke Public Library, serving as its first president. During his mayoralty Whiting privately funded the construction of the Holyoke Opera House, a venue which once hosted a wide variety of renowned Vaudeville and musical acts, as well as early motion pictures. In 1893 he led the efforts to found the Holyoke Medical Center, then known as Holyoke City Hospital, as the first non-sectarian medical institution in the city. Being a member of the Mount Tom Lodge of freemasons, his work in philanthropy was held in such regard that he would go on to have the city's second lodge named after him in 1909, an unusual honor as freemasons rarely name lodges after living persons. Following a period of declining membership and poor bookkeeping the William Whiting Lodge however had its charter suspended in 1997.