Oren P. "O. P." Whitman (1838-1906) was born in Palmyra, Maine, and died in Peoria, Illinois. He claimed to have been related to the poet Walt Whitman. He was a shoemaker and lived in Alton, New Hampshire; Lynn, Massachusetts; Quincy, Illinois; and St. Paul, Minnesota, prior to moving to Beatrice, Nebraska, in the early 1880s where he was introduced to Christian Science. He married Cecilia Whitman (b. Hauffe) in Quincy in 1874. Whitman took classes in Christian Science from Jennie B. Fenn, Alfred Farlow, and Hannah Larminie, all students of Mary Baker Eddy's. He moved to Bloomington, Illinois, in 1888 and was the first one to practice Christian Science there, listing in The Christian Science Journal from 1892 until 1896, and being credited with forming a Christian Science church there. Whitman joined The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 30, 1893, and withdrew his membership in 1896. He was also a member of the National Christian Scientist Association. He subsequently moved to El Paso, Illinois, then Iowa, and finally settled in Peoria.

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