His rise was neither rapid nor spectacular, but it was steady, continuous, and solid. When General Whitney died in 1879 he was president of the Metropolitan, and his son succeeded him in the office.
At forty years of age Henry M. Whitney was a fairly rich man, but known to few people. The work that made his name known throughout the country came afterward. He had begun to deal in suburban real estate in the vicinity of Boston, and had picked Brookline as especially fitted for development. It was a section much favored as a place of residence by Boston business men, and as a first step in the development of his holdings Whitney built, chiefly at his own expense, a magnificent boulevard from the town to Boston. Over this the men who had offices in the city were accustomed to drive daily, just as to-day they go in their automobiles.
The development and extension of the trolley in the late eighties gave Whitney another opportunity, and he built a trolley line from Brookline to Boston. When he reached the city limits he found himself against a stone wall.
The Boston horse-car companies would not allow him to transfer his passengers without their paying another fare, and would make no provisions for connections between the cars. They would not permit him to get a franchise, and they ridiculed the idea that their own lines would ever be operated by electricity. The Brookline line was sandbagged and rendered worthless, for all it could offer passengers was a pleasant, and, at the time, a novel ride to the Boston city line.
Whitney made several attempts to persuade the Boston companies to allow him to use their tracks, and offered to stand part of the expense of installing electric equipment. The offer was turned down, and the little “West End” road still hung on the ragged edge.
Then Whitney went to work in another way. He quietly bought up the stock of the various companies, and when at last matters came to a test he and his friends were in control, and the “West End” entered Boston. Later it gave its name to practically the whole Boston street railroad service.
As a first result of Whitney’s control and amalgamation of the Boston streetcar lines, that city was among the earliest in the country to benefit from an adequate trolley service.
In 1893 Whitney got control of the Cape Breton coal mines. Before then the mines had dragged along, doing a fair business, but not advancing to any extent. The people in Cape Breton did not have the money to develop them, and the English capitalists in control were disinclined to advance any money for the purpose.
Whitney saw a chance to push Cape Breton coal into new markets, and soon the mines at Louisbourg and Glace Bay were doubling and trebling their output, and Sydney and North Sydney became thriving ports. He had also entered the gas business in Boston, and he began importing Cape Breton coal for the gas and coke works at Everett, near Boston. Such an increase in industry gave a tremendous impetus to Cape Breton, but it was not until Whitney added steel, coke, and gas plants that Cape Breton realized the full benefit of his work.
About the time Whitney entered the coal-mining industry, a fisherman had come in with a killock so peculiar that it drew attention. Examination showed that it was almost pure iron ore. He had found it near Belle Isle, between Newfoundland and Labrador. Further search showed that there were enormous deposits of excellent iron ore at Belle Isle.