Simon Houstin Whitmore for whom they named Whitmore, was born in Maine in 1825. He was married to Sarah Witham, also born in Maine. He registered to vote in California on September 10, 1884, at age fifty-nine. He listed his occupation as a blacksmith, and his residence as Mill Creek.

Samuel Houstin Whitmore reregistered to vote as Simon H. Whitmore on September 30, 1886. He listed his age as sixty-one, and his residence as Whitmore.

Simon Whitmore died during the winter of 1906 when he was eighty-two years old. The coroner's report states that he was living at Fern, California, and died of fatigue and exposure. He was interred in the Josephine Cemetery on December 25, 1906.

In the 1949 Covered Wagon, History of Whitmore, Mollie Witcher writes that Simon had four children, John, William (became a minister), Mrs. Welsh, Mrs. Rhodes:

Later Simon began to lose his eyesight. To be near his son John, he took up a homestead about seven miles northeast of Whitmore. He met his death on a cold winter day when he went out to look for his team which had wandered away. He tracked them to a deep rough canyon called "Devil's Den." There he became lost in the dense manzanita thickets. His body was discovered at daybreak. He was buried at home, and later moved to the graveyard at Whitmore.

John Henry Whitmore, Simon's son, was born July 19,1849, in Portland, Maine. His children were Lena, Frank, Marcia, and Charles.

John registered to vote in California on September 10, 1884, when he was thirty-five years old. He listed his occupation as a teacher, and his residence was Mill Creek. He reregistered on September 30, 1886, at age thirty-seven, with his residence listed as Whitmore.

His death certificate stated that he died on October 3, 1910. He was a school teacher and carpenter. The cause of death was a concussion of the skull at the base of the brain, by "Falling from a flume accidentally."

In the 1994 Covered Wagon, The Earlier Swede Creek Road, Russel Estep, Oak Run historian, wrote:

It was at the northerly end of Miner's Gulch, where flume carpenter John Whitmore fell. He was working on Terry's flume that brought rough-cut lumber down from Hatchet Mountain above Buzzards Roost to the mill at Bella Vista. There was a foot-wide plank walkway on the south side of the flume, and as John Whitmore stepped on the plank it broke, letting him fall onto rocks 70 feet below. It was John's father Simon Whitmore who carried settlers' mail free from Millville to Tamarack to get the postal route established.

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