William Whelan
Cite this Page
"William Whelan," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/219.
- Position
- Gardener
- Years in President's House
- 1834 – circa 1844
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Male
- Race/Ethnicity
- Unclear from Context
- Biography
- Little is known about William Whelan outside of his work as gardener at the White House. In March 1834, James Maher, public gardener in Washington, D.C. who often worked on the White House Grounds, hired Whelan to tend the White House kitchen garden.1 President Andrew Jackson ordered the creation of separate kitchen and decorative gardens, which had previously been one and the same. Records of what Whelan grew in the kitchen garden are incomplete, but we know they included potatoes, cabbages, beets, peas, carrots, strawberries, raspberries, and several medicinal herbs.2 Whelan worked under Head Gardener John Ousley, earned 87 1⁄2 cents per day, and lived in a room in the West Colonnade formerly used as a stables.3 Whelan held his position for about ten years and served four presidents until he disappeared from White House records in 1844.4
- William Seale, The President’s House: A History (White House Historical Association, 2008), I:200.
- In 1840, Representative Charles Ogle (Whig-PA) gave a speech in Congress lambasting President Martin Van Buren for his supposed lavish spending at the White House, including on the grounds. Ogle listed some of the items grown in the gardens, from which we know some of the food and herbs tended by Whelan. See Jonathan Pliska, A Garden for the President: A History of the White House Grounds (White House Historical Association, 2016), 250.
- Pliska, A Garden for the President, 250; Seale, President's House, 202.
- Seale, President’s House, 265.
- Birthplace
- Unclear from context
- Unclear from context
- Related Workers
- James MaherGardens, Grounds, and Flower Shop, circa 1834 – 1859
- John OusleyGardens, Grounds, and Flower Shop, 1825 – 1852