REVOLUTIONARY WAR SERVICE

Ben had extensive Revolutionary War service and is found on various payrolls for seven Alarms and twice as Muster Master between 1777 and 1782.  His sons Nehemiah and David served with him in four of those Alarms and son Jonathan in one.  His first period of service was in Capt. John Warner’s company in Lieut. Col. Herrick’s reg’t of Rangers.  There were 40 men in the company and Ben served 108 days entering August 18 and discharged December 3, 1777.  He was paid £3 12 shillings.  He was in Capt. Simeon Wright’s company in Col. Gideon Warren’s reg’t of militia November 7-13 1778.

Commissioned Lieutenant and Named Muster Master of Troops

He was called to service on three occasions in 1780: He was one of 44 men in Warren’s reg’t and Wright’s company on a Scout to Lake Champlain against Crown Point and then to Fort Ticonderoga the last of March; one of 40 men in Capt. John Spafford’s company, Col. Ebenezer Allen’s reg’t of milita serving eight days August 4-11 and received 10 shillings 8 pence in pay and 8 shillings 4 pence for subsistence and mileage; and 15 days in Capt. Nathan Blanchard’s company, Col. Allen’s reg’t for an Alarm beginning October 12 and ending November 12.  He served 15 days and was paid £1 6 shillings 8 pence in pay and subsistence.

His service in 1781 was in Blanchard’s company, Col. Thomas Lee’s reg’t of militia at Castleton in Rutland county October 21 through October 30.  He was a Drummer and received 17 shillings 8 pence for his 10 days of service. The Legislature commissioned him Lieutenant on February 25, 1782 and appointed him Muster Master of the troops to be raised on the west side of the Green Mountains.  He was paid 12 shillings on August 6 for service as Muster Master for Col. Lee’s regiment.

While the date of Ben’s appointment as Justice of the Peace has not been found he was serving in that position in Bennington as early as January 30, 1775.  Upon becoming a Justice, he was accorded the title of Esquire, a lifetime title strictly en-forced and consciously acknowledged.  The state confiscated and sold Tory estates beginning the summer of 1777 and Ben was appointed a Commissioner to examine claims against these estates December 29, 1778.  He also served as a Commissioner to review and examine claims of creditors to other estates and was a witness to various wills.

SERVICE IN THE VERMONT LEGISLATURE

Benjamin served five consecutive terms in the Vermont General Assembly:  1780, 81, 82, 83, 84, serving more terms than any other Rutland county Representative up to that time.  Every Town was entitled to at least one Representative.  Towns, like Rutland, with over 80 taxpayers were entitled to two.

Legislators, Justices, Judges, and state officers were chosen annually in September by the freemen.  In addition to the political excitement, wrestling matches and feats of strength enlivened election day and candidates dispensed pies, cakes, crackers, cheese, and spruce beer to the hungry and thirsty.  Following the announcement of the results, the winning Legislative candidates invited friends to help themselves to what remained.

The first session of the General Assembly was held at Windsor March 12, 1778.  It considered itself the state’s supreme authority with power to overrule the Courts and the Executive.  The members were a hardy and independent group, most with little or no experience in legislation.  Important Acts and Resolves were usually prepared in advance.

Ben, Lieut. Roswell Post, Rutland’s other member, and 64 others, took their oath of office October 12, 1780  in Bennington.  He was 53.  His father Francis was 41 when he began his first term.  Before being seated he agreed to the religious test required by Section Nine of the Vermont Constitution.

Religious Test Required by Vermont Constitution

I do believe in one God, the creator and governor
of the universe, the rewarder of the good and
punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge
the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be
given by divine inspiration and own and profess
the Protestant religion.  And no further or other
religious test shall ever, hereafter, be required
of any civil officer or magistrate in this State.

In addition to the House, the Assembly included a Council.  Thomas Chittenden was Governor, Benjamin Carpenter, Deputy Governor, and Ira Allen, Treasurer.  Allen, also Surveyor General and Ben’s old friend from Bennington, was a major influence on the members.

One of the first Acts of the Session was to pass a Resolution that provided that “no one born in the U.S. was to be considered a foreigner.”  The day after the Session opened, Ben was appointed to a Committee of five “to make alternations . . . ” in the law which allowed “removing disaffected persons from the frontiers.”  These were persons who refused to assist in defending the settlements and who were suspected of holding “secret and traitorous correspondence with and harbored and concealed enemies of Vermont and the United States.”  They were to be moved to the interior of the state.  Rutland, Pittsford, and Tinmouth were considered frontier towns.  He served on three other committees including the Committee to recommend what ought to be done to guard the frontiers.

On Committee to Negotiate Border between Vermont & New York

The second Session of 1780 met at Windsor beginning February 7 and he was named to ten committees including one to settle and establish all highways laid out in the state, one to prepare instructions for Vermont’s Agents to negotiate the border between Vermont and New York, and one to establish the frontier lines.

Ben chaired the Joint Committee on frontier lines which determined it would take 1,500 men to defend the northern frontiers and directed the Board of War to recruit that number, divide them into two regiments, and  station them proportionally on the east and west sides of the mountains.  It also recommended that £30,000 be raised to support the troops.  He was also on the Committee to join a Committee from the Council to propose methods to raise the money.

Ben’s second cousin, Moses Whipple of Croyden, N.H., served with him in the 1781 Session and both voted yes to the “Articles of Union” developed by the Cambridge Convention at which delegates from various New Hampshire and New York border towns voted in May 1781 to join Vermont.  However, shortly thereafter the Union was negated and Moses Whipple had to give up his seat in the Vermont Assembly.

On Committee Seeking Admission To Federal Union

The first of four Sessions of the 1781 Assembly opened in Charleston [now New Hampshire] October 11, 1781. Ben served on the all-important Joint Committee to nominate a Board of War and a Committee of Pay Tables and was on the Committee to prepare instructions for the Board of War to follow in 1782.  At the January 31, 1782 Session, he was directed by the House to call on Ira Allen, State Surveyor General, to determine the progress of Article Six of the Legislative program which directed Allen to survey the state and to provide maps of all granted townships and un-granted lands.  He also served on the Joint Committee to determine the number of commissioned officers, except field officers, needed to command the troops to be raised.  Field officers were to be elected.

Important business conducted this Session included informing the Continental Congress “in a decent and spirited manner” the state’s determination to support its just rights, repeat its desire “to be admitted into the federal Union,” and to provide for the payment of soldiers in the last campaign.

The Session that began June 13, 1782 passed an Act to punish conspiracies against the “peace, liberty, and independence” of the state.  The penalties were harsh: if six or more persons joined to resist an officer, and if among them there were six or more who denied the authority of the state, the penalty was banishment or imprisonment and confiscation of property. Those guilty of “trying to overthrow the government or to betray it into the hands of any of the United States or any other power” incurred the same penalties and if they did not leave the state or returned after leaving, were to be put to death.

Promotes Statewide Education Law

A primary legislative consideration in 1782 – nine years before Vermont was admitted to the Union – was education.  The Assembly enacted laws to divide townships into districts and to establish and support schools in those districts.  It provided for appointment of Trustees to supervise the schools and for the organization of committees to raise half the money needed to support the schools with the other half to be raised by the polls of the scholars or on the “grand list” as determined by each county.

The first Session of 1782,  Ben was on the Committee to compile a list of the number of troops raised by the various towns for the 1782 campaign.  It was also to prepare a bill compelling delinquent towns to pay their tax assessments.  On October 16 he was named House Chairman of a Joint Committee to determine measures to be taken for defense, anticipate needs for future defense, and advise the House on future disposition of troops.

Chairman of Tax Committee

He voted in the affirmative (37 yea, 15 nay) on October 21 on instructions to Vermont Agents lobbying the Continental Congress for statehood and to grant them plenipotentiary powers.  The second Session convened February 13, 1783 and Ben served on the all-important Committee to prepare the Rules and Regulations to be followed during the Session.  He was on a number of joint committees, some of them as House chairman, whose work resulted in bills to regulate fees; to devise a method to settle confiscated estates; to prevent “persons inimical to [Vermont} and to the United States from entering the state; to devise a more equitable method of taxation; and to adjust the 1782 cost of the militia.

His motion of February 25 to create a 3-man committee to join a Committee from the Council to prepare a bill to “regulate civil actions” was adopted by the House.

Free Trade Bill Passed

The House failed to agree with a Bill passed by the Council on March 5, 1784 that “would empower the Governor to settle a treaty of amity and commerce with the powers of Europe.”  Since it had not been admitted to the Union, many Vermont residents felt at liberty to negotiate with other nations.  The October Session passed a bill “to open free trade to and through the Province of Quebec” and for “negotiations on commerce between Vermont and other foreign countries.”

The first Session of the 1784 Session, Ben’s last, convened in Rutland October 14.  Nine items were on the House Agenda for consideration.  Ben was appointed House chairman of a Joint Committee to devise Rules and Regulations for a Council of Censors to be elected in 1785.   This was one of the most important committees of the Session.  The Vermont Constitution provided for a 13-member “Body of Censors” who were to be elected for one year at the end of every seven years.  Members acted as a Board of Review and could not be Councillors or Representatives.  They were to review actions of the previous Assemblies to make sure that the Constitution had been “preserved inviolate in every part” and to determine “whether the officers of government had performed well their powers.”  They could pass public censure, order impeachment, and recommend the repeal of laws that seemed at odds with the Constitution.  They could also call a Convention if they felt the Constitution needed changing but had to publish their reasons six months in advance of it convening to give voters ample time for review and to instruct their delegates.

NORTHERN ECHO OF SHAYS’ REBELLION

At the close of the American revolutionary struggle there was great discontent in the country mostly caused by flood after flood of worthless paper currency.  Before 1780, Congress had issued two-hundred-million dollars of Continental money which was received in Vermont at par until September 1777 when it sank rapidly.  It continued to sink until paper dollars were of little more value than copper cents.

Vermont was not responsible for any part of the national debt because it was not a part of the Union and managed its own financial needs by the sale of state land and by confiscation of Tory property.  But peace changed all that.  Every kind of property depreciated.  Foreign goods flowed in and foreign specie flowed out.  Farmers were unable to pay a small debt in specie because the debt at least doubled as the value of money diminished and Courts favored the creditor.  Some farmers couldn’t even pay the Court costs.  Courts, Judges, Sheriffs, and attorneys were as detested in the Green Mountains as they were in Massachusetts.

Creditors Favored Over Debtors

But before turning to clubs and muskets, farmers started with peaceful protest seeking reformist laws  in a non-violent way. Vermont Legislators initially ignored the demands.  In 1785 they set aside proposals for paper money permitting only gold, silver, and copper to be used for “the legal money of this state.”  It passed a two-year tender law by a close vote which represented a compromise between landed and commercial interests.  While institutionalizing a form of barter for farmers it gave creditors their “choice of what part of the debtor’s estate” to take thus severely punishing the yeoman for a lack of specie.  Still trusting the political system, farmers convened County Conventions to remonstrate.  The Assembly received petitions from farmers in10 western settlements causing the Assembly to consider a tender law and emission of paper.  But it failed to pass any laws, thus backing the mercantile interest to the detriment of subsistence-minded yeomen.

Initially both Gov. Chittenden and Ethan Allen sided with the farmers.  Chittenden said “that whenever people were oppressed they will mob.”  He published an address to the citizens in 1785 counseling the cultivation of the necessaries of life, particularly wool and flax, urging industry, economy, and non-importation, and asked for mutual forbearance and good will between creditor and debtor.

Public Assembly Limited

However, both men abandoned their pro-rebel policy in 1787 and the Legislature passed a Riot Act on March 8 which prohibited more than 12 armed persons from assembling in public.  Offenders could be shot on sight by county Sheriffs or captured and assigned to the service of any Vermont citizen for an indefinite period of time, thereby reducing convicted rioters to a state of slavery.  A Treason Act approved the same day strengthened the Riot Act by extending the death penalty to anyone active in an insurrection against the Vermont government.  Along with a quick militia response, the repressive legislation discouraged Court disturbances which accounted for the limited armed protest in Vermont.

On November 21, 1786, as the Judges entered Rutland to conduct Court, they were met by a group calling themselves a Committee of the People.  They presented the Judges a petition asking that the Session be postponed.  Ignoring the request, the Judges said their petition would be heard as a last docket item that afternoon.   However as the 2 p.m. Session was about to begin approximately a hundred men crowded into the Court Room and began haranguing the Judges for not granting the people’s request.  The Court adjourned until 9 a.m. and the Regulators, as the  men called themselves, refused to let the Judges leave, and called for arms which had been stored in a nearby house.  After about two hours the Judges and Sheriff were released and the Regulators marched about discussing their grievances and calling for a General Amnesty Act.  That evening they went to where the Judges were lodged and again asked them not to convene and were again refused.

Ben Joins Insurgents; Fined 10 Pounds

The next day about 150 well armed men took possession of the Court House and occupied it all day.  The militia arrived the following day and Court resumed.  That evening seven or eight of the Regulator’s ring leaders were arrested and 30 or 40 insurgents exchanged rifle fire with a company of militia and all but two or three were captured and jailed.  They were tried the next day.  Five were acquitted, 21 plead guilty and were fined from nine shillings and up and costs, and 14 were fined from£3 to £25 and were required to be bonded for good behavior for one year.  Benjamin Whipple, who the previous year sat on the Bench as an Assistant Judge, was among the latter group and was fined £10.

Thus ended the northern echo of Shays’ Rebellion.  On March 2, 1787, the General Assembly referred to the Rutland up-rising as the late “daring insurrection against government.”  Participation by people of Ben’s reputation and public service proves how general, deep-seated, and substantial were the grounds of discontent.  On October 24, 1788, Ben and others petitioned the Assembly to suspend the fines “laid on the rioters by the Supreme Court in Rutland county.”  The fines were suspended for one year and the Assembly continued to elect him as a Justice of Peace for the District of Rutland just as it did  in October of 1787, 1789, and 1790.

During his 79 years, Ben helped settle the frontier on three separate occasions.  First, as a boy of 7 when he moved with his family from a comfortable life in Ipswich, Mass. which had been settled for 100 years to Westborough in Worcester county, Mass. in 1734.  Westborough was then considered to be the colony’s frontier.  At age 34 with a wife and seven children he was one of the first settlers in what became Bennington, Vemont. At 50 he again moved his family, now comprised of nine children, to a new frontier – Rutland county Vermont.

Wherever he lived, Ben was an active church member and participant in local and state government.  He served in the French and Indian War and in the Revolutionary War.  Time and again his neighbors in Bennington and Rutland elected him to office and turned to him for help in settling legal matters.  He served as a Commissioner of Estates for several years, witnessing wills and appraising estates of the dead.  He served as Selectman, Constable, County Judge, Justice of the Peace, and state Legislator and was reelected to these posts many times over a 15-year period which is a testament to his standing with his neighbors.  He helped create the independent state of Vermont before it joined the Union and was not afraid to stand against that government when he believed it to be wrong.  His many descendants can be justly proud of this pioneer American and his many contributions to a new nation and the legacies he left us.

BENJAMIN AND HEPZIBAH’S BURIAL SITE

Benjamin and Hepzibah (Crosby) Whipple are buried in the Pleasant Street Cemetery (identified as Mount Pleasant Cemetery in early records) in West Rutland.  This cemetery is on the east side of West Rutland adjacent to old Route 4 (just before crossing a railroad track) located immediately behind Artistic Memorials, a business selling cemetery monuments.  The cemetery  is .4 mile east of the West Rutland Town Hall.  As you enter the cemetery’s swinging iron gate look for a large white monument with the name FENN.  The Whipples are in the second row behind Fenn.

Benjamin’s grave is marked by the Ann Story Chapter DAR as a Revolutionary War soldier.  Hepzibah’s stone is to his right.  The gravestones read as follows:

Benj. Whipple Esq.  Died April 30th 1806 Aged  79 years.
The stone is still in reasonably good shape and is relatively white in color.

Memory of Mrs. Hepzibah Whipple Wife of
Benjamin Whipple Esq. Who died May 10, 1779
in the 70th Yr of Her Age.   Balance of inscription
is not readable.  Stone is quite black.

The first Proprietor’s meeting for which records exist was the second Tuesday in October 1773.  Little public business of importance was conducted between 1775-80.   It had 134 freeholders in 1780 including Benjamin and sons Nehemiah and David.  Ben was listed fourth in the freeholder list.  He was elected Selectman in 1782, and 1783 and occasionally served as Pro-Tem Clerk.

The county was incorporated February 22, 1781 and included practically all of the western half of the state north of Bennington county.  Ben was among the first county officers serving as Assistant (side) Judge at the first Session of the County Court.  He served in this position from 1781-86.  Side Judges assisted the Chief Judge of the Superior Court.  In addition to the Chief Judge, any three of the Side Judges could hold Court.

Most of the early judges were not educated in law but possessed influence in their own neighborhoods because of their talent in transacting ordinary business.  John A. Graham, the first Acting Attorney in Vermont, was admitted to the Bar in 1785, the year he moved to Rutland.  He was 21.

The only transportation was to walk or ride horse-back.  The only wheeled vehicles were ox carts and rough lumber wagons and the roads – paths is a better word — could not be driven faster than a man could walk.  Sleighs and sleds were used in the winter.   It was a major task for the new settler to get to Rutland county.

Court House and Jail Built In 1784

The first Court House,  a 2-room building, was built in 1784.  The Court Room had a floor and elevated seats on the north side for the Judges and benches for jurors, witnesses, and spectators.  The other room had no floor and served all other purposes of the Court House.  A log jail was built a few yards northwest.   The whipping post was an important part of the punishment dispensed by the early courts.  Prisoners were stripped to the waist, tied to the ring in the whipping post, and lashed with a cat-o-nine tails; the number of lashes was determined by the Judge.

Vermont established its Post Office Department in 1784, seven years before it was admitted to the Union (1791).  Its purpose was to “promulgate the laws by conveying timely notice to the freemen of the state of all Proprietary proceedings and other matters of importance.”  Rutland was named one of five post offices.

Fort Rutland was built in 1775 and the Town became a northern outpost of the Revolutionary War.  It was the headquarters for state troops in 1778 and  home of the statute to the Green Mountain Boy with musket and powder and horn.  Thomas Rowley of Danby, Minstrel of the Green Mountain Boys, celebrated the resistance to New York authority in the early years of Rutland’s existence with the following:

West of the Mountains Green Lies Rutland fair;
The best that e’re was seen For soil and air.  We
value not New York, with all their powers; For
here we’ll stay and work.  The land is ours.

Smallpox Outbreak In 1802-03

In response to a smallpox outbreak in 1802-03 the Town authorized the Selectmen to license one or more “inoculation houses” to prevent its spread.  The Town also gave them authority to establish regulations “they think necessary and proper” to control the disease.  Prior to 1807, early physicians also did dental work.  They wrapped instruments known as “turnkeys” in a silk pocket hand-kerchief and wrenched out decaying teeth.

The Town was divided into two parishes on October 22, 1787 and a church established in the east parish on October 5, 1788 with 37 members from Pittsford, West Rutland, and Poultney.  The Church was established “upon the plan of the Convention of the West District of Vermont, which was supposed to be agreeable to the gospel.”  A petition submitted to the Legislature that same year by inhabitants of Whipple Hollow who asked to be allowed to establish a parish to be named “Orange Parish.”  The request was refused but the residents organized anyway, built a Meeting House, and employed Rev. Abraham Carpenter as pastor.  Known as a strict Congregationalist, he came from Plainfield, N.H. and remained with the Orange Parish until his death in September 1797.

A 1795 Description of the Town

Rutland was described in 1795 by John A. Graham, its first lawyer, as being about 60 miles from Bennington with a three-mile long main street with Federal-Square, an area of about five English acres, in the Town center.   The U.S. District Court, the Vermont Supreme Court, the Court of Common Peas, and the Court of Probate for the Rutland District met there.  The jail was about 100 yards south of Federal Square on the west side of Main street.  Handsome and elegant houses lined each side of the Square and Main street

“The upland is filled with lime-stone, the low lands abound with clay and produce wheat, rye, oats, barley, beans, peas, hemp, and flax.   The intervale lands on the creek are of deep rich soil and produce crops of hay and Indian corn.  There are two great falls nearby – Medes and Sotherland Falls.  A corn mill was built on Otter Creek in 1794 and the town had a printing office, an oil mill, a hat manufacturer, a large brewery, and a manufactory of nails.  Water was conveyed from the mountains in wooden pipes laid about two feet under ground.  Timber includes pine, maple, hemlock, and birch.  Pot and pearl ash are made in great abundance.  Wolf and bear often descend from the east mountains to kill sheep.  Land prices varied from 20 shillings to £60 an acre.”

Marble Quary Opened Near Whipple Hollow ca 1807

There was little growth in the area for several years until the marble industry was developed in the West Rutland-Proctor which contained one of the richest and most productive marble deposits in the United States. About 1807 a quarry was opened near Whipple Hollow.  It operated until 1850.

Rutland’s first newspaper, the  Rutland Courier was established by Anthony Haswell on April 1, 1793.  James Lyon started the Farmer’s Library – Vermont Political and Historical Register later in 1793.  It became the Rutland Herald .  The subscription rate was 9 shillings per annum “to those to whom we send the paper ourselves; 7 shillings and sixpence to those who call at the office and take them.”  The Rural Magazine – Vermont Repository, edited by Rev. Samuel Williams, was first published in January 1795 with the final issue published in December 1796.  Newspapers were used to advertise for runaway apprentices.  In March 1795, Isaac Hill of Mt. Holly advertised a runaway boy and offered “one peck of ashes” for his apprehension.  Newspapers were delivered by men on horseback.  In January 1796 Abe Sprague announced that he would “ride from the printing office in Rutland through Ira, Castleton, Fairhaven, Westhaven, Benson, and Orwell . . . every morning carrying papers to subscribers.

Whipple Families Living in Vermont at Time of First U.S. Census

According to the 1790 Vermont U.S. Census, the following Whipples were living in Rutland County:  Benjamin: husband and wife only.  Since Hepzibah died in 1779, this suggests Ben had remarried although no record has been found of a second marriage.  Nehemiah: eight family members, two white males 16 and older, 2 white females 16 and younger, 4 white females.  Jonathan: two males and two females.  Benjamin, Jr.: a wife, four males under 16, and three daughters.  David: a wife, one son under 16 and three daughters.  They were all identified as living in Rutland Town.

Abner: a family of three lived in Pittsford Town.  James: a family of three in Castleton Town.  Ethan: a family of five in Fair Haven Town.  Whipples living in Bennington county:  John: a family of nine in Stamford City.  Ezra: A family of nine in Sunderland Town.  Elijah: a family of 11 in Shaftsbury Town.  The following lived in Windham county.  Joliez: a family of three in Athenstown.  John: a family of four in Dummerston Town.  Moses: a family of five in Rochester Town.

NEXT:  BEN’S REVOLUTIONARY WAR & LEGISLATURE SERVICE

He was seven when the family moved to Westborough, Mass. where he spent the next 15 years of his life working on his father’s farm, his grandfather’s farm and corn mill, and assisting their neighbors Rev. Ebenezer Parkman with a variety of chores on his farm.

Hepzibah was born in the neighboring town of Shrewsbury and was a live-in helper at the Parkman home doing baby sitting and household chores.  Born October 17, 1727, she was 21 and Ben was 22 when they wed.

Hardwick, Massachusetts

Hardwick, on the western border of Worcester county, is near the territorial center of the state  and midway between New Hampshire and Connecticut.  It was an Indian hunting ground and one of the battlefields during King Philip’s War.  Its waterways include the Ware and Swift rivers and several brooks and ponds.  The original Township was purchased from the Indians for £20 on June 25, 1687.  The deed of sale, executed by Annagomok, a Nipmuch and Sachem of the area known as Wombemesscook and by James and Simon, sons and heirs of Black James, Sachem of the Nipmug Country, was recorded in Hampshire county May 7, 1732 (35 years later).  None of the original buyers settled on the land.

The first meeting of the new Town was March 5, 1738/39.  By the time the Whipples arrived, a grist and saw mill with water power from Moose brook had been built and a manufacturing plant that made potash kettles, tea kettles, pans, skillets, spiders, and other smaller culinary vessels began operation about 1750.

The Town Had A School; No Postoffice

Seven of Ben and Hepzibah’s nine children were born in Hardwick between March 1750 and March 1768.  When the family moved to Bennington in 1761,  Jedediah Rice, Hardwick’s physician preceded the Whipples to town and Joel Carpenter began his practice in March 1752 so the family had access to medical services.  The Town was divided into five parts and operated a school.  The School Master moved from area to area to conduct classes.   There was no post office and Hardwick mail was delivered to Worcester and the names of individuals receiving mail were advertised in the Massa-chusetts Spy.  Some letters were also delivered by the Post Rider who distributed newspapers weekly through the county.  Ben was a man of some learning and it is possible he purchased The New England Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure from Lieut. William Thomas, Northampton Post Rider, who sold it in 1758 and 1759.  It was published monthly and included articles on religion, politics, poetry, liberty of the press, etc.  The cost was 8 pence per issue.

The Great Awakening movement spread through New England in the 1740s.  The first record of the Separating Church in Hardwick was July 25, 1749, a month before Ben and Hepzibah arrived in town.  The Great Awakening caused many churches to split and those who left formed new churches known as “New Lights” and afterwards as “Separatists” or Separates.”  The members who remained with the old Church denounced the Separatist as “enthusiastic and unscrupulous disorganizers;” while the Separatists referred to their former church colleagues as “Old Lights who were cold, lifeless, and dead, utterly unworthy of the name of Christians.”

Ben and Hepzibah Join Separatists

From 1749 several references about dissenting members appear in Church records and on November 14, 1753 the Church named a Committee to meet with the Separated members to propose a reconciliation.  After only four years in the community 26-year-old Ben was named to this important Committee.  It’s importance is emphasized by the fact that his fellow committee members included the Church’s two Deacons

What the Committee accomplished does not appear in the record but interestingly, instead of reconciling the Separates, two of the Committee members – Whipple and Ichabod Stratton, Jr. eventually joined them.  Fifty individuals, including Benjamin and Hepzibah signed the Covenant for a new church.  So many of its members moved to Bennington, Vermont in 1761 that the Church as an organized body, including its Covenant and records, were transferred there, and it became the first organized church in what today is Vermont.

In the French and Indian War which began in 1753 though not formally declared until 1756, Hardwick furnished its full quota of officers and enlisted men.  Ben, 30, served as a sergeant in the campaign from February 18 to December 24, 1756.  The Company was commanded by Capt. Samuel Robinson, 48.  There were 24 Hardwick men in the company ranging in age from 17 to 48.  Six died in action and one in service.

The New Hampshire Grants

In 1761 the family moved to what was then known as the New Hampshire Grants and eventually became a part of Vermont. Though visited by the French explorer Samuel De-Champlain (1567-1635) in 1609, what is now modern day Vermont remained a no man’s land well into the eighteenth century.  Even though extensive Grants were allotted, the French made little attempt to settle and the region served as a passageway for French and Indian raiding parties harassing English settlements to the south and east.  In an effort to protect its western settlements, Massachusetts established Fort Dummer near what became Brattleboro in1724.  This is accepted as the first permanent settlement on Vermont soil in which white men have lived continuously to the present.  France relinquished its claim to Great Britain by treaty in 1763 but Britain was granting land in Vermont 22 years earlier.

The radicals among the Yankees living west of the Green Mountains formed the Green Mountain Boys at Bennington in 1770.  Ben was among their number.  They were led by Ethan Allen.  The Bennington headquarters of the Green Mountain Boys was Stephen Fay’s Catamount Tavern, a square two-story building with barn and stable.  Its sign on a tall pole in front was a catamount (wildcat) with barred teeth snarling defiance toward the New York border.  While New York owned the Grants, it could not govern them which resulted in land speculation of Vermont lands which were readily available for pennies per acre after 1764.

Vermont Becomes An Independent Country

Distractions caused by the Revolutionary War allowed residents of the Grants to determine their political destiny.  With no New York government present,  Grant leaders declared themselves “in a state of nature,” free to follow the example of the 13 colonies when they severed ties with England.   The idea of independence was gradually articulated in a series of Conventions throughout the state.  A Constitution was adopted at a Convention in Westminister in January 1777 and the name Vermont was made official in June 1777.

The Constitution provided for a representative Legislature, a functioning and responsible Court system, and a wartime administration.  The residents were unaware that the Continental Congress, under pressure from New York, had rejected statehood for the Grants on June 30.  Consequently, from July 8, 1777 to March 4, 1791, Vermont was a completely independent but tottering Republic.  The first general election in the new Republic was on March 3, 1778.  The General Assembly convened March 12 to count the votes for state officers and Tom Chittenden was inaugurated as Governor Friday the thirteenth.

Vermont Rejects British Offers; Maintains Indedpendence Status

Ultimate union with the 13 states was the goal of most Vermonters but the war created more urgent matters for those states to consider.  Consequently, the British approached some of Vermont’s leaders and offered to make the state a Crown dependency if it would join their cause.  The offer was declined and Vermont maintained its sovereignty for nearly 14 years longer.  Its government issued bills of credit, coined money, regulated weights and measures, established post offices, naturalized citizens of other states and countries, and corresponded with foreign governments.  The Treaty of Peace signed at Paris September 3, 1783 included Vermont in the territory belonging to the United States but until her admission as the fourteenth state, Vermont was what the legend on her copper coins declared her to be, “The Republic of the Green Mountains” and independent of every other government.

Vermont ratified and adopted the Constitution of the United States at Bennington in January 1791 and on March 4 Congress unanimously passed an Act to admit it to the Union as the fourteenth state, the first to be added to the original thirteen.  The Whipples undoubtedly participated in an all-day celebration in Rutland in March when news was received that the state had been admitted to the Union.  Among the eloquent toasts on that occasion: “To the union of Vermont with the United States.  May it flourish like our pines and continue as unshaken as our mountains.”

Bennington, Vermont

Bennington’s settlement was begun by Capt. Samuel Robinson of Hardwick who was attracted to the site when he camped there on his return from the French and Indian War.  His followers were families who had separated from the original Church in Hardwick.  They settled along the broad terrace of the slope now known as Monument Avenue.

Robinson sold Ben one-quarter part of the south east quarter of the original Right Number 21 in the Township on June 15, 1761 for £7 14 shillings 8 pence.  The transaction was recorded in June 1763.

Ben became a land speculator as early as August 20, 1761 when the Town of Glossenbury consisting of 23,040 acres [six miles square] was granted to Ben and 66 others [an average of 349.09 acres each]. There were at least 20 land petitions issued by New Hampshire in 1767.  Ben was one of 96 to receive Petition No. 19. The Town of Littleton comprising 23,040 acres was chartered on November 8, 1780 to Ben and 64 associates.  The name was changed to Waterford on March 9, 1797.

He was among petitioners who acquired townships in Two Heroes Township, Grand Isle county in October 1779, in Waterford Township, Caledonia county in November1780, and in Weston Township, Windsor county in October 1781.  His name was on a petition of October 18, 1769 requesting that land west of the Connecticut river be re-annexed to New Hampshire.  He was also a petitioner for a Township south of Shoreham (present Orwell) in May 1779 and for a tract adjacent to Peacham and the Connecticut river in June 1779.  In October of 1780 his name was on the petition to be granted Grovton (Groton) and for the Township east of St. George in October 1781.  The author does not know if any of these grants were made.  He was also active in Rutland land transactions buying and selling 17 properties between 1782 and 1803.

Early Homes Were Minimal Despite Large Families

The first houses in Bennington were minimal, probably two rooms on the main floor – a small bedroom and a great kitchen – in which the family lived, worked, cooked, ate, and received company.  Because of the large number of children, the Whipples probably added a large attic which served as a bedroom for the older children.  There would have been a front and back door and a door between the kitchen and bedroom.  Visitors usually pulled the latch-string on the front door and entered.  Nobody tapped except the Sheriff, the Constable, the Tax Collector, and the Parson.

The church custom then was to use a “meeting seed” (dried caraway) to help endure the religious rigors of the Sabbath.  All family members, from children to gray heads, chewed a small quantity of caraway seed and mixed it with saliva during church service.  How the custom got started is unknown but since our ancestor’s use of common herbs was far greater than ours, someone discovered that chewing the dried seeds helped them get through the lengthy Sabbath services.

Bennington’s first Town Meeting was held February 11, 1762.  The first church had no denominational identification and members were from the   Churches of Christ from Hardwick and  Sunderland, Massachusetts.   Among them were Benjamin and Hepzibah.   Reverend  Jedidiah Dewey was Minister. Approximately 100 individuals signed the Church’s Covenant.

Meeting House And School House Built In 1763

An original Meeting House and School House was built in 1763 and a subscription was undertaken in October 1768 to build a new Meeting House.  The new building was two story, 60 feet by 40 feet with no steeple.  School was kept in the upper story.  There were galleries on three sides and a sounding board over the pulpit which was in the middle of the west side.  Three doors and a porch were on the east side toward the Burying Ground.  A tier of wall pews was complemented by two tiers of square pews on each side of the main aisle.  The square pews were ornamented with little railings in place of a top panel.  Singers sat in the front seat of the gallery opposite and on either side of the pulpit.  The Hessian soldiers captured in the Battle of Bennington in August 1777 were housed here and the first Legislature of Vermont held its June 1778 Session here.

Agriculture was the leading industry of the first settlers.  Their only food supply was to grow it.  They cut trees, cleared a patch, burned the timber and brush, and planted corn and wheat among the stumps and began to acquire stock.

Ben Elected Selectman And Moderator

Two years after the Whipple’s settled, Ben’s leadership abilities were rewarded by his Bennington neighbors and he was elected Selectman in1763, 1767, 1768.  Among his first duties as Selectman was to recommend on April 18, 1763 the location to lay out a highway.  On March 27, 1764 he voted as Selectman to approve a road “beginning at the sawmill and running southerly through Samuel Safford’s land then thru Esq. Robinson’s lands then through Benj. Whipple’s land, and then into John Smith’s land into the road that comes from Pownall line the road to be two rods wide.”

He was elected Moderator three times: 1768, 1769; 1773;  A major item on the March 15, 1773 Agenda was whether “the Town would give liberty to inoculate for the small pox.”  The majority vote was no.  The Town Meeting of February 18, 1777 voted that anyone who was inoculated for small pox without permission of the Town Committee chosen for that purpose will be fined £20; anyone inoculated found on any public road or any house not his own for five days after being inoculated will be fined £5; anyone with small pox to go more than 30 feet from the Pest House without a certificate from the Committee will be fined £20; any person with small pox found on the main north and south and east and west roads through town “or on the road from the Meeting House northwest to Mr. Brakenridge through town” will be fined £20.

He also served as Fence-viewer in 1773; Tithingman in 1764 and 1770; Highway Surveyor 1764, 1768, 1770, 1772, and 1774; Deerriff and Schoolwright Committee in 1776; and  Constable in 1769.  He received his cattle mark in 1766 and sold land to Henry  Walbridge in 1764.

Ben On  Committee to Write Bennington Declaration of Freedom

He was a first corporal in the first Company of Militia organized in Bennington October 24, 1764.  He also was on the five-man Committee to propose the “Bennington Declaration for Freedom” in 1775.   Thirty-four men, including Ben’s son David, joined the five Committee members in signing the Declar-ation.  While not calling for independence from Great Britain, it sought reconciliation with the mother country if the American colonists were given all the rights of Englishmen in England.  This was a gutsy act considering the capture of Fort Ticonderoga, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and a formal Declaration of War by the Continental Congress, were still a few weeks away.

These men in the wilderness, far removed from the actual strife, knew that their signatures were neither idle nor meaning-less.  At least 27 of the 34, including David Whipple, fought in the Battle of Bennington and other conflicts of the Revolution, some of them dying. Ben’s son, Benjamin, Jr. also fought in that battle.  Descendants of these signers should take pride in the fact that their ancestors were among the first to declare their rights as Englishmen in New England.

TO BE  CONTINUED

Allen, my distant cousin, and I are direct descendants of Francis Whipple (1705-1783) and Abigail Lamson (1708-1799) of Westborough, Massachusetts.  They are Allen’s great (3) and my (5) great grandparents. Identified as “Father of Pancreatic Surgery”

Allen and doctor Walter Palmer established the spleen clinic at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center  in 1928 and accumulated valuable knowledge that led to innovative treatments of spleen and liver disease. Working with many colleagues, Whipple made numerous advances in understanding and managing splenic and hepatic disorders. He also contributed to the management of pancreatic diseases and as the pioneer of operations to remove pancreatic tumors became known as the “father of pancreatic surgery.”  He defined the symptoms of hyperinsulinism, now known as Whipple’s triad; spontaneously occurring hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), acute onset of the symptoms of severe hypoglycemia, and the relief of those symptoms by administration of glucose (sugar).

Prior to Allen’s work, the pancreas was forbidden territory to surgeons because of the risk of shock, hemorrhage, sepsis, and jaundice.  He performed one of the first successful radical operations for removal of an ampullary cancer of the pancreas (now known as the “Whipple Procedure”) in 1935.  Readers interested in further information on the pancreas are referred to History of the Pancreas:  Mysteries of a Hidden Organ published in 2002.  The book includes a long section on Dr. Allen O. Whipple.

Allen O. Whipple Society Established

From 1945-51, Allen reorganized the training program at Memorial Hospital in New York City and revised the surgical program at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. During World War II he was a member of the National Research Council and a visiting consultant for the Council of Great Britain and North Africa.  In 1951 he was elected a Charter Trustee at Princeton University and the following year the Allen O. Whipple Society was established to honor distinguished contributors to surgery.  He also received the Woodrow Wilson Award, the highest honor given to alumni by Princeton.

He was one of the founders in 1936 of the American Board of Surgery, the highest certification organization of a general surgeon’s training and competence.  He served as President of the New York Surgical Society, the Society for Clinical Surgery, and the American Surgical Association. He was a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, of England’s honorary Royal College of Surgeons, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He was editor of Nelson’s Looseleaf Surgery for 20 years and an editorial board member of the Annals of Surgery 1932-46.  In addition to many papers in medical and scientific journals, he wrote several books including The Evolution of Surgery in the United States, The Story of Wound Healing and Wound Repair, and The Role of the Nestorians and Muslims in the History of Medicine.

Dr. George Hoyt Whipple Wins 1934 Nobel in Medicine

Allen and I are distant cousins of Dr. George Hoyt Whipple, a 1934 Nobel Prize winner in physiology of medicine Our common ancestor is Joseph Whipple (abt 1640-abt 1709), the first Whipple of our line born in the English American colonies.

A recent article by Meredith Cohn in the Baltimore Sun reported that Dr. John L. Cameron, a surgeon for over 30 years at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital performed his 2,000th Whipple.  This surgery is the only one that gives pancreatic cancer patients a chance of long-term survival.

Pancreatic Cancer One of Deadliest Cancers

The pancreas is a gland behind the stomach that releases insulin to regulate blood sugar and digestive enzymes to help the body absorb food.

Symptoms of pancreatic cancer, such as pain, yellowing eyes and digestive issues, aren’t obvious, so the cancer often spreads before it’s discovered. Surgery is an option only when the cancer is caught early and hasn’t spread. The Whipple can take from four to nine hours and typically involves removing the head of the pancreas and the tumor, as well as the gallbladder, the common bile duct and part of the small intestine.

Pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest cancers, though it’s not as common as many other types. About 95 percent of sufferers aren’t alive five years after their diagnosis.

If they have the Whipple procedure, their five-year survival rate is closer to 20 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute. The institute estimates there will be nearly 44,000 new pancreatic cancer cases in the United States this year and more than 37,000 related deaths.

Dr. Cameron Enhances Odds of Surviving

To survive the cancer, patients have to survive surgery. Since Cameron took up a scalpel in the 1970s, a lot more do.

Cameron has not only greatly enhanced the odds of surviving the surgery at his own hospital, colleagues and surgeons outside of Hopkins say, but has also taught a generation of other doctors. And that has helped give some hope to those diagnosed with a disease that once was a certain death sentence.

“This has been a lifelong project of his,” said Dr. Julie A. Freischlag, chair of Hopkins’ surgery department and Cameron’s successor in the position after almost two decades. “A lot of surgeons do the operation well because he trained them. He’s probably responsible for more like 10,000 surgeries.”

Surgical Death Rate Almost Eliminated

The surgical death rate has dropped from a quarter in the mid-1980s to almost none today. The improvements have come from better selection of surgery candidates, improved anesthesia and post-operative care, and repetition, said Cameron and others familiar with the surgery.

“When I first became chair of surgery in 1984, I wanted to focus on an operation and a disease where there was a lot of room for improvement,” Cameron said a day before his milestone surgery. “That led me to pick pancreatic cancer and the Whipple.”

The patient death rate remains high because the cancer frequently returns. But Cameron said he views every patient as the one who will survive.  “Every patient I see I think we’re going to cure,” he said. “I tell them that and I believe it.  Cameron pointed to other advances that make his job easier, such as chemotherapy that keeps cancer from returning after surgery and shrinks tumors so more patients can have surgery in the first place.

A vaccine developed by another Hopkins doctor can keep the cancer at bay, he said. And then there is also a test in the works at Hopkins and elsewhere that someday may be used — like the PSA test for prostate cancer — to assess someone’s risk for developing the disease and their need to be scanned regularly.

Two of his four children work at Hopkins.  His son Andrew, a liver transplant surgeon, is inspired by his father’s unwavering enthusiasm for surgery — and by a good challenge.  He said, when he was a kid, every once in a while someone would come up to my father and say “you saved my wife’s life or my child’s life,” and that caused me to think what he does at hospital was so wonderful.

For ongoing information on The Whipple Procedure, sign up for Google Alerts using the Search Query name Whipple Procedure.

When Amil enrolled, West Point was  beginning its 36th year, having been formally opened 4 July 1802 during Thomas Jefferson’s administration. The curriculum was established by Bvt. Maj. Sylvanus Thayer when he became superintendent in 1817. The foundation for everything was mathematics. A math problem had one correct answer and it was the cadet’s duty to find it Thayer believed that math sharpened analytical powers and taught a manner of thinking transferable to other areas of life. Engineering was the other key to Thayer’s program. No deviation was permitted from these two fields of study. General Winfield Scott said the Mexican war was won because of the leadership of Academy men. West Pointers were in command of 55 of the 60 major battles of the Civil War and included such Academy graduates as Lee, Grant, Sherman, Stuart, Jackson, and Sheridan. West Point’s Honor Code: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do,” built the character of most of its graduates.

Amiel was originally commissioned in the artillery corps but was transferred to the topographical engineers 28 Sept. 1841 where until 1844, he worked on harbor projects improving navigation for New Orleans and the approaches to Baltimore, Md. and Portsmouth, N.H.Whipple Family Lived in Warner House at Portsmouh, NH

Mrs. Whipple and the children lived in the Warner House which has become a Portsmouth landmark while Amiel was in the field during the Civil War. The house is among the first buildings in America to be designated a National Historic landmark and is the first of Portsmouth’s historic houses to have guidebooks in French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. Its dramatic wall murals are thought to be the oldest colonial wall paintings still in place in the U.S. Much of the original Georgian style native white pine paneling graces many of its rooms. Benjamin Franklin supervised the installation of the lighting rod on the outside of the west wall in 1763. The Sherbourne family owned the home when the Whipples lived there.

In 1844 Amiel was assistant to Col. Graham, the Commissioner representing the U.S. in establishing the northeastern boundaries with Canada. From 1849 to 1853, he was in charge of the topographical engineers establishing the boundary between Mexico and the U.S. negotiated by the treaty which ended the war between the two countries.

Amiel In Charge of Surveying Route for Transcontinental Railroad

The 32nd Congress authorized the Army to survey three possible routes for a transcontinental railroad and in 1853 secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, later President of the Confederacy, assigned Whipple, then 35, to lead the south-central survey along the 35th parallel from Ft. Smith, Ark. to Los Angeles, an area mostly controlled by powerful Indian tribes. Unlike most of his military contemporaries, Whipple had a genuine interest in Indians and took great pains to establish good relationships with them. He wrote extensively on their languages and culture. The relationships he established helped explorers who came later, as Indians who remembered Whipple were willing to assist until they were mistreated.

Whipple was a competent astronomer and amateur ethnologist and his survey party was joined by a group of scientists closely associated with the Smithsonian Institution. Their route took them across Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), the Panhandle of Texas, New Mexico Territory, and present day Arizona. They forded the Colorado River 27 Feb. 1854 and reached Los Angeles 21 March.

Whipple Expedition Contributes to Smithsonian Institution

Though no transcontinental railroad would follow the 35th parallel in its entirety, the Whipple expedition laid the foundation for change in the southwest region. A federal wagon road program established in 1856 led to improvement of the Whipple trail and eventually short railroad lines moved along the route and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway followed Whipple’s trail for much of the way from Albuquerque to California.
Equally as important, the Whipple expedition expanded scientific knowledge about the heretofore mysterious country. Its reports (the [IT: Pacific Railroad Reports:IT] were published in 12 massive volumes and its maps were the first to show the contours of the trans-Mississippi West. The expedition was a “graduate school” for those scientists accompanying it and their specimens swelled the collections of the Smithsonian Institution and their reports represent a major chapter in the history of American science.

He was promoted to Captain 1 July 1855 and in 1856 was stationed at Detroit, Mich where he was in charge of the 10th Lighthouse District and navigation on the southern Great Lakes. He improved navigation by removing obstructions between Lakes Erie, Huron, and Superior making it possible for larger craft to use these shipping routes.

Becomes Chief Topographical Engineer For Army of the Potomac

At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was assigned to Washington, D.C. to develop topographical maps of the area around the nation’s capital. Shortly thereafter he became chief topographical engineer on the staff of gen. Irvin McDowell, Commander of the Army of the Potomac. President Lincoln, who considered Whipple a personal friend, signed his commission as mMajor 26 Dec. 1861.

Amiel was assigned to work on the defense of Washington and worked tirelessly building the fortifications from Chain Bridge down the Potomac to Alexandria, employing one Massachusetts and two New York regiments. He was chief topographical engineer at the Battle of the First Manassas and was in charge of making the maps of Northern Virginia which were used by both sides.

Charles William “Willie” Whipple wrote a short biography of his father in which he said President Lincoln was keenly interested in Amiel’s work to improve the defenses of Washington. “I remember,” Willie wrote, “that the President frequently came to dad’s headquarters and after a simple lunch and a glass of lemonade he rode with father to review one of his regiments or to visit one of the forts.”

Appointed Brigadier General in April 1862

He was appointed brigadier general in the Volunteers 14 April 1862 and given command of a brigade (Whipple’s Brigade) later a division (Whipple’s Division) and from April to October commanded forts constructed to protect Washington. His headquarters were at Arlington House (former home of Robert E. Lee). He simultaneously commanded the Army’s Balloon Observation Corps and personally launched balloons from Arlington Heights. When one of the Corp Commanders gave a dinner in honor of the President, Lincoln asked that his friend, Gen. Whipple be seated beside him.

General Whipple was ordered to field duty in October 1862 and commanded the Third Division of of Gen. Stoneman’s Third Corps. In the December battle of Fredericksburg, his Division supported Gen. Sumner’s “grand division” in the attack on the Confederate left. The army was reorganized in early 1863 and under the overall command of Gen. Joe Hooker and marched to Chancellorsville to engage Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Whipple’s Third Division engaged in some of the heaviest fighting and suffered some of the worst casualties in the battle fought from the first to the 4th of May. Lee was victorious and while Whipple’s division was overseeing withdrawal of Union forces towards Fredericksburg on 4 May, a Rebel sharpshooter shot him, the ball passing through his belt and exiting near his spine. He was on his horse writing an order to dislodge a rebel sharpshooter when a ball from that marksman’s rifle struck.

Killed by Confederate Sharpshooter

He knew the wound was mortal and told those gathered around him that they would not meet again and and that he wished them to take care of this men. He received the last rites of Catholic Church on the battlefield and was taken to Pitts Sherbourne’s (his brother-in-law) house in Washington where his wife and children were staying .  He died the afternoon of 7 May. President Lincoln had promoted him to Major General for Volunteers but the promotion arrived about an hour before his death and he died unaware of the honor given by a greatful country and President. He also received posthumously additional brevets for gallantry in action at Chancellorsville and for gallantry and meritorious services during the whole war.

Amiel’s Funeral Procession Led By President Lincoln

His funeral procession on 10 May, led by his riderless horse, and President Lincoln in an open carriage began its solemn march to the Capitol from Sherbourne’s house. Secretary of war Stanton and Generals Meigs and Heintzelman were among those who attended his funeral. He was buried in the Sherburne family plot in the South Cemetery in Portsmouth.

The President said he attended the funeral as a friend of the family and gave the widow his autographed photograph and a presidential appointment to their oldest son, Charles William, to attend West Point. After his assassination, a note was found on the President’s desk asking if anything happened to him, that his successor appoint David Whipple to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. President Andrew Johnson honored the request. Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Post No. 354 in Hall Co., Nebr. was named the A.W. Whipple Post.

Fort In Prescott, Arizona Named After Gen. Whipple

At the time of his death another fort was being constructed to defend Washington and its earthworks were named Fort Whipple in his honor. In 1864, a fort near Prescott, Arizona was named Whipple Barracks. Unfortunately, mail was wrongly routed for the two and the army solved the problem by renaming the first one Fort Myer in 1880 after Gen. Myer. Whipple Barracks at Prescott is a veterans domiciliary today, a parade field at Ft. Myer is named Whipple Field, and his name is inscribed on a War Memorial at West Point.

A mountain range in California is named for him as is the Whipple Yucca (Y[IT:ucca whipplei ssp.parishii:IT]), a member of the lily family that flowers from April through July. It is a native shrub with sharp, spiked leaves radiating from a central point and was a vital plant to Native Americans. All parts are edible, including the seeds and flowers, and its fibrous leaves and stalk were used to make cordage, baskets,and other woven objects.

Mountain Wildnerness In California Named After Whipple

Six miles from Lake Havasu City is Whipple Bay, a scenic marshy inlet on the California side. It is a wildlife haven and refuge for migrating birds. The Whipple Mountain Wilderness is in the background of the bay in San Bernardino county, Calif, 10 miles northwest of Parker, Arizona. The landscape is diverse, ranging from valley floors and washes to steep-walled canyons, domed peaks, and eroded spires towering to 4,000 feet. Sonoran cresote bush scrub and the Sonoran thorn forest decorate the area. In addition, dense stands of palo verde, ironwood, smoke tree, and cholla saguaro, foxtail, and Mojave prickly pear all grow here. This unique array of vegetation supports a variety of wildlife. Access to the eastern boundary of the wilderness is by 4-wheel drive vehicle on a power line road.

Amiel’s death, illustrating the heavy use of sharpshooters by both sides, is depicted in an exhibit at the Chancellorsville Battlefield National Park museum.

Amiel’s Papers Donated To The Oklahoma Historical Society

General Whipple saved much of the material generated by his various explorations and in 1950 his descendants donated the Mexican Boundary survey, the Pacific railroad route material, and some of his diaries to the Oklahoma Historical Society.

For additional information on Gen. Whipple see: Amiel Weeks Whipple Papers, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, Okla; Amiel Weeks Whipple, [IT:A Pathfinder in the Southwest:IT], ed. Grant Foreman, Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1941; Baldwin Mollhausen, [IT:Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Coasts of the Pacific with a United States Government Expedition:IT] trans. Mrs. Percy Sinnett 2 vols., London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858; rpt., New York and London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1969); [IT:Reports of Explorations and Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean:IT], 12 vols., Washington: Nicholson, 1855-60; and W.H. Goetzmann, [IT:Army Exploration in the American West, 1803-1863:IT] (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959).

Fort Whipple at Prescott originally encompassed 1,700 acres and was established to protect miners and settlers from Indian raids. In the 1880s, when a hospital was built there, Fort Whipple was the information and entertainment center of the Prescott area. The early newspapers relied on telegraph dispatches received at the Fort and the first experimental telephones were installed there. Achille La Guardia was bandmaster of the 11th Infantry from 1892 through 1898. Several of his family members, including Fiorello, later mayor of New York City, performed in the band. Several officers and ladies of the Fort staged theater performances to raise money for a town hospital and after a fire razed most of downtown Prescott in 1900, the Fort made its ovens available to local bakers so they could supply the devastated community with bread.

Today, mere traces remain to indicate how important the Fort was in the growth of Prescott. It was recently designated as an Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places and one of its magnificent old houses on Officers Row is now the Fort Whipple Interpretive Center, a satellite museum of Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott. The Interpretive Center, a joint venture of Sharlot Hall Museum and the Northern Arizona Veterans Affairs Health Care System opened in 2001. The 6,000 sq. ft. house is a repository of historical data and artifacts of Fort Whipple. [Sam Lowe, "Museum will tell Fort Whipple's colorful tales," [IT:The Arizona Republic:IT], 16 April 2000, p. F3.]

Amiel’s Great Grandson, Brig. General William Whipple

I personally knew Amiel’s  great grandson Brigadier General William Whipple and made arrangements for him to speak at a 50-year anniversary of one of the projects he oversaw for the Corps of Engineers on the Columbia River in 1998.

After graduating from West Point in 1930, Bill spent three years at Oxford in England as a Rhodes Scholar. During World War II he headed the logistical planning branch for the Normandy invasion in Gen. Eisenhower’s headquarters in England. After the war, he was Secretary General in the U.S. Office of Military Government in Germany under Gen. Lucius Clay. Both before and after the war he was assigned to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers developing water resource programs, notably in the Columbia river as the first District Commander of the Corps of Engineers (10/48-8/50) headquartered at Portland, Oreg. He retired with the rank of Brigadier General in 1960.

Upon retirement he became chief engineer to the New York World’s Fair followed by a 14-year stint as head of the Water Resources Research Institute at Rutgers, University. That assignment was followed by 10 years with the New Jersey State Department of Environmental Protection. He left state employment in 1990 to become a principal of Greeley Polhemus, a consulting firm engaged in Water Resource Planning and Policy. He has written a number of books and published over 200 papers on water resource matters. At 89, he was still an active participant in professional activities on the national level and has been a major voice calling for water resource development to be coordinated with protection of the environment and for a program of national action to accomplish this goal. Iin excellent health, he played tennis year-round.

The first provided that no officer of the Crown would have to stand trial in Massachusetts for murders committed in the line of duty. If soldiers fired into crowds of rioters, as they did in the Boston Massacre in March 1770, they would not be subject to local juries. American Whigs called it “The Murder Act,” since it appeared to sanction the killing of civilians.

The second, known as the Massachusetts Government Act, transferred power from the people to the governor. It provided:

(1) That all judges, justices of the peace, sheriffs, marshals, and other officers of the courts would be appointed by the governor, without consent of the Council and serve at his pleasure alone. This eliminated the people’s check on the judiciary and the machinery of law enforcement.

(2) That the Council would be appointed by the Crown to serve at it’s pleasure. This meant that the people who chose their representatives who chose the Council had no control over the governor and two of the three arms of the General Court were not subject to the will of the people.

Governor to Control Town Meetings

(3) Agenda items of Town Meetings, other than the annual March Town Meeting to elect town officials and a separate meeting to choose their representatives, had to be approved by the governor and no other meeting could be called without consent of the governor. This effectively barred the people from discussing rights and liberties, establishing Committees of Correspondence, or authorizing boycotts or provocative measures of any kind.

(4) Jurors would be appointed by the sheriffs who were appointed by the governor instead of from a list determined by the town. Consequently, the ordinary farmers and artisans lost the right to select the men who could seize their property or send them to jail.

All of these changes contradicted the 1691 Massachusetts Charter issued by King William III which extended voting rights to non Puritans. This new government affected every man who could vote in every town in the province. In Worcester county and other rural areas where an overwhelming plurality of adult males possessed the right to vote, disenfranchisement was unacceptable. In the summer of 1774, these rural folks decided the new government wasn’t for them.

Westborough Town Meeting Moves Toward Independence

The Westborough Town Meeting of June 17, took a major step towards independence. On that day it elected a Committee of Correspondence, a Committee to Provision Troops in Case of Alarm, and a Committee to buy a four-pound “field-piece, 400 weight of ball with 10-half barrels of powder, and 500 weight of lead and flints,”

The Government Act drastically reordered the structure of Massachusetts politics. Royal administration collapsed and authority was assumed by representative bodies formed at the local, county, and provincial levels. By summer, County Conventions emerged as the primary entity to coordinate and direct provincial political activity. Town leaders, recognizing the need for broad consultation and planning in the absence of a Provincial Assembly, created ad hoc County Conventions with town-elected deputies. While only advisory and lacking legal or coercive authority, the Conventions became instruments for achieving unified, cooperative action without jeopardizing local initiative or control.

6,000 Worcester Co. Citizens Meet To Prevent “Unconstitutional Courts

On September 6, a Convention of approximately 6,000 Worcester County citizens, organized in town militia companies, assembled on the Worcester Common, grouped by Town. Their goal was to prevent the newly organized “unconstitutional” Courts of Common Pleas and General Sessions from convening by convincing justices not to sit and the jurors and litigants to boycott the Courts. The towns where Whipple families lived – Westborough, New Braintree, Grafton, Hardwick, and Sutton – provided 1,270 of the 4,622 militiamen who attended.

Late that afternoon they performed a pageant of popular sovereignty –- requiring the Court officials to tread a path through the ranks of the people assembled on the main thoroughfare through town while continuously reading aloud their pledge to ignore the Government Act and suspend the Courts. The Convention also resolved that all militia officers should resign their commissions since they came from the governor. Instead, towns should elect their officers.

On September 7 the Convention asked those justices of the peace who had pledged to support the governor and criticized the actions of the people, to repudiate their pledges Eleven of the 14 complied so the Convention Resolved that all of the justices of peace who had held office as of June 30 –- except Timothy Ruggles, John Murray, and James Putnam who continued to support governor Gage –- should be obeyed until the Provincial Congress made other provisions.

British Control Over Worcester Co. Ended

British control over Worcester Co. was ended. The courts would never again meet under authority of the Crown, nor would any official appointed by the British government exercise any power there. The dramatic court-closing was a defining moment. Patriots throughout the colony closed the courts in subsequent weeks. Thereafter, a Provisional Congress assumed governmental jurisdiction

This first American Revolution succeeded on many counts. It ended the system of royal patronage, removed monarchical restraints on the people’s will, and led directly to the establishment of home rule. The revolutionaries of 1774 pioneered the concept of participatory democracy without shedding blood by establishing committees and conventions which responded to the will of the people. It was democratic to its core and set a standard of direct political participation yet to be bettered.

During his eight legislative sessions, Francis Whipple was a part of historic proceedings that led to the American Revolution and the creation of the United States. His descendants can be justly proud that he was willing to serve his neighbors and his province at a critical time in American history thus leaving a legacy that became the greatest nation on earth.

Massachusetts was agrarian, except for seaport towns. Westborough, for example, was a community of small property owners. Farms were 50 to 100 acres and the average family possessed a riding horse, a pair of oxen, two or three milk cows, a few steers, heifers, sheep, and poultry. Though living in the countryside, they belonged to the town where they worshiped, discussed politics, drilled with the militia, and bought goods or services. They came together every March in the Meeting House to elect officers for the year – selectmen, a treasurer, clerk, constable, tighingman, road surveyor, fence viewer, hog reeve, deer reeve, hay warden, etc. — and to conduct community business. Additional meetings could be called by the selectmen or by a petition from 10 citizens. Adult males came to town for Militia days.

All Courts Convened In Worcester County’s Shiretown

Each county had a shiretown (county seat). Worcester’s shire was the small town of Worcester where scores of men gathered for the county court sessions four time a year. The judicial system included the probate court, justices of the peace, an Inferior Court of Common Pleas, a Court of General Sessions, and the provincial Superior Court of Judicature. These entities touched the everyday lives of colonial citizens.

The high sheriff and the justices of the peace did the work of law enforcement. A justice of peace could put libelers, drunks, and wife beaters in jail as well as try cases of profanity, fornication, and unnecessary absence from church.. His word was law but subject to appeal for a jury trial at the county court.

Four judges appointed by the governor sat as the Court of Common Pleas and tried civil cases and appeals from the justices of the peace. They could include juries and heard suits for the collection of debts and conflicts over land titles and boundaries. This Court could take the money, livestock, and occasionally the land of a citizen.

Jurisdiction of the Court of General Sessions

The Court of General Sessions of the Peace met concurrently with the Court of Common Pleas. It was composed of the four Common Pleas judges and justices of he peace. It heard criminal cases, exercised administrative functions of county government, assessed the towns and determined county expenditures, operated the jails, authorized construction of county roads and bridges, and granted liquor licenses.

The Superior Court of Judicature included the Chief Justice of the Commonwealth and four associate judges and presided over criminal and civil cases and appeals from county courts. It represented authority of the Crown and met twice a year in the shire towns. The sheriff and his posse of notable citizens would meet the judges at the edge of town and escort them to their lodgings. On the following day, the judges in their scarlet robes and long wigs would perch on a raised platform while barristers in black gowns and attorneys in plain black suits pleaded before them.

This court system with numerous check and balances was an important part of provincial government which included three branches: the governor’s office, House of Representatives (where Francis Whipple served for eight terms), and the Council. Each had specific duties and could limit the powers of the others.

Governor Appointed by the King

The Crown appointed the governor who selected the judges, justices of the peace, militia officers, sheriffs, attorney-general, and receiver-general (tax collector). All had to be approved by the Council whose members were responsible to the people. Voters of each town elected its representatives to the House which met annually and its first order of business was to meet with the 28 members of the outgoing Council and select a Council for the upcoming session. Thus, on paper, the people retained considerable control over the provincial government.

Society was deferential to social rank and the ordinary citizens selected their rich neighbors to represent them in the General Court and in local offices which resulted in a few powerful men controlling the town and county affairs. Francis Whipple is a good example. During his 26 years of public service, he held dual positions: From 1752-58, he was simultaneously selectman, town clerk, and representative to the General Court. In 1762 and 1763, he was town moderator, selectman, and representative; in 1765, the year of the Stamp Act troubles, selectman, clerk, and representative; and 1768 and 1770 moderator, selectman, and clerk. In addition, during these years he was justice of the peace and held the titles of Mister and Esquire.

Stamp Act Passed in 1765 by Parliament

Parliament passed the Stamp Act in1765 to help pay the debt caused by the French and Indian War between Great Britain and France from 1754 to 1763. Many colonists resisted, calling it “taxation without representation.” Francis Whipple served in this session and voted against paying the new tax. The Act provoked people and they began to voice their views on colony-wide issues. They called for an end to individuals holding plural offices and wanted representatives who received an office or commission from the governor to be dismissed from the house. They demanded open sessions of the General Court so citizens could see and hear how public affairs were conducted; asked for a new fee table to determine how sheriffs and other officers of the court were paid; and demanded a new law to prevent bribery and corruption in the selection of representatives.

In 1768, parliament passed the Townshend Revenue Act which imposed a duty on goods exported to the colonies. This caused the house of representatives to send a circular letter to the other colonies stating the duties were unconstitutional, arguing that since colonists could not realistically be represented in parliament, they could not be taxed by it either. The duties were repealed in 1770.

The Crown Attempts To Impose Harsh and Arbitrary Rules/strong>