John Meek Whitehead, lawyer and Wisconsin state senator from Janesville, was born in Hillsboro, Illinois, on July 29, 1852, the oldest of ten children of Jacob and Elizabeth Paisley Whitehead. His boyhood ambition was to graduate from Yale, and after attending Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, 1871-1872, and Williams Seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts, 1872-1873, he succeeded in supporting himself through Yale, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in June, 1877.
Whitehead returned to Illinois and taught school in Ravenswood, a Chicago suburb, for one year before beginning his law studies in the Chicago office of Leaming and Thompson. After admission to the Illinois bar in 1880, he remained with the firm until 1883, when he moved to Janesville. There he joined Alexander E. Matheson in forming a law firm that lasted until Whitehead's death in 1924.
Whitehead was active throughout his life in politics, civic projects, the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Congregational Church. He was president of the Wisconsin State YMCA for twenty years. For forty years, he served as clerk of the First Congregational Church of Janesville and was intermittently a member of its board of trustees. He was moderator of the State Congregational Conference and was a member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the Congregational National Council, and its influential Committee of Nineteen. He was also president of the Wisconsin State Bar Association, 1921-1922, president of the Wisconsin branch of the League to Enforce Peace, and vice-president of the Wisconsin Peace Society.
Politically Whitehead was recognized as a leader of the stalwart or regular Republicans, and a lifelong opponent of Robert LaFollete. He was elected state senator in 1896 and held office until his voluntary retirement in 1912. In the senate, he was instrumental in achieving establishment of a state tax commission and was well known for his grasp of the legal implications and technicalities of proposed legislation. His interests also included history and proposed legislation establishing the Wisconsin Perry's Victory Centennial Commission, which worked with the national and other state commissions in commemorating events of the War of 1812. Whitehead was appointed a commission member in 1911 and its work became one of his chief interests until his death.
On July 12, 1881, Whitehead married Lavinia Fletcher Barrows. She died March 15, 1888, leaving two children, Philip B. and Dorothy May. On May 15, 1919, he married Juliet Claire Thorpe of Madison. Whitehead died following a stroke on August 31, 1924.
