of Dorchester, Massachusetts & Providence, Rhode Island
Charles M. Whipple, Jr., Ph.D., Ed.D., Litt.D.
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Philosophy
University of Central Oklahoma
Barbara R. Carroll, B.A.
Genealogical Research Consultant
10 February 2005
This treatise reviews documentation sources and historical literature on Captain John and Sarah Whipple of Dorchester, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island and their immediate descendants. This is the fourth in a series of articles included in a book presently being written by the authors. As such, it is a work in progress. Comments, additions, and documented corrections are solicited. Send to charles@ whipple.net and/or to brcgenealogy@ yahoo.com
Early seventeenth century Massachusetts Bay Colony was a
two-year-old primitive theocratic settlement of
approximately 2000 inhabitants when a teenage youth named
John Whipple first set foot on its
soil.
"September 16, 1632, being the Lord's Day. In the Evening
Mr. Pierce, in the ship Lyon, arrived and came to an
anchor before Boston. He brought 123 passengers including
50 children all in health. He lost not one passenger, save
his carpenter, who fell overboard as he was caulking a
port. They were 12 weeks abroad. He had five days east
wind and thick fog, so as he was forced to come, all that
time by the lead, and the first land he made was cape
Ann."
John Whipple of 1632 must not be confused with two
middle-aged Whipple brothers, John and Matthew, who
arrived in Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1638. There is no
known relationship between the teenager John Whipple and
the Whipple brothers, who arrived six years later and
settled at Ipswich.
One of the present authors engaged the English genealogical firm, Debrett Ancestry Research Limited, to search for a possible relationship between the two Whipple families. Debrett examined the original registers of Bocking for the years 1575- 1632. Gaps exist in the registers: marriage registers are missing for 1575-92; baptisms for 1571-72, 1581-82, and 1606-55. The firm next examined the International Genealogical Index of Essex, with negative results. Research was then extended to the nearby parishes of Rayne, Stisted, Shalford, Halstead and Gosfield, and to the indexes of the Essex probate courts for the period 1600-1635.
A number of Whipples lived in those areas, including
Braintree, whose records, unfortunately, do not begin
until 1660. Nineteen marriages of Whipples (and the
similarly named) between 1538 and 1837 in Essex were found
in Boyd's Marriage Index.
John Whipple would have been put to work immediately upon
his arrival in Dorchester. Within less than a year, he
could have been on the crew that built New England's first
mill, as well as a bridge across the Neponset River. This
gristmill, called "Stoughton's Mill", was completed in
1634, and conceivably John was one of a privileged few to
witness the very first bushel of grain ground by
waterpower in the colonies. He likely participated in
building the first fish weir that same
year.
Consequent to the mill's completion, it was ordered that
a road or "cart way" be laid out from the town to the
mill, a route of some four miles made necessarily
circuitous due to the area's topography. "When Israel
Stoughton set up a grist mill on the Neponset River, a
road was built across the 'Great Lots' connecting the
original settlement with it. This became known as the
Lower Road, now Adams
Street."
The below photograph is of the Adams Street Bridge. The
surrounding buildings are mill offices, the successors to
the original Stoughton Mill. In the picture is seen two
bridges one on top of the other. The lower bridge is
listed on the National Register of Historical Places. A
recent article in a local newspaper stated, "One of the
region's oldest surviving bridges has been uncovered this
month by workers replacing the Adams Street Bridge over
the Neponset River on Milton line in Lower Mills. The
granite slabs that make up the doubledarched bridge have
been ferrying people across the Neponset since 1765- and
according to workers...it's in better shape than the
1930s-era steel and concreted bridge that was built over
its colonial predecessor." The article also alludes to the
"needed sandbagging along the raging Neponset to keep the
waters from infiltrating their workspace." It likewise
mentioned that the sandbagging was needed to, "keep the
river's fish from jumping ashore on their upcoming
spawning runs upstream...blueback herring, American shad
and rainbow smelt are expected to be passing through on
their way upstream...
His would have been a long and difficult struggle to
achieve financial success and personal contentment,
considering his penury when released from long years of
servitude. As an apprentice, he would have been at the
bottom of the social class ladder. Undoubtedly life would
have been difficult, although he probably ate regularly
and had a roof over his head. John and his fellow
apprentices may well have lived in a so-called "English
Wigwam," which for the lower classes was seen in New
England at the time. "The status of a servant may well be
shown by the deposition presented in Court at Salem in
1657 by an apprentice in the town of Newbury, who
testified that it was a long while before 'he could eate
his master's food, viz, meate and milk, or drink beer
saying that he did not know that it was good, because he
was not used to eat such victualls, but to eate bread and
water porridge and to drink
water'."
John's indenture ended when he was 20 or 21 years of age,
at which time he became a freeman and landowner. In time,
he acquired between 40 and 50 acres of land. After only a
few years in the new world, he was a property owner, a
circumstance that would have been next to impossible had
he stayed in Old England. At the 2 January 1637 Dorchester
town meeting, it was ordered that John Whipple be given
"eight acres near Stoughton's mill in the area known as
Neponset Village, this grant being in regard of a former
promise upon record."
Within two years or so of becoming a landed proprietor,
John was married to the 15 or 16-year-old Sarah They,
Darling, or Hutchinson.
If the Whipple household was typical of the time, John
was preoccupied with providing for his family, and Sarah
was busily engaged in rearing the children. The amount of
formal education the Whipple children received can be only
conjectured. Whether a child could read and write was
usually a consequence of the degree of literacy possessed
by the parents, particularly the mother. Sarah's level of
education is unknown, but John could read and
write.
The Whipple children, in all likelihood, had access to
but a few books, at least as they are known today. "During
the seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth, the
books usually found in the average New England family were
the Bible, the Psalm Book, an almanac, the New England
Primer, a sermon or two and perhaps a copy of Michael
Wigglesworth's horrific poem The Day of Doom...This book
expressed the quintessence of Calvinism. John Calvin's
theology was based on the belief that all men were born
sinners and since Adam's fall, by the will of God,
predestined from birth to hell and everlasting torment,
unless, happily, one of the elect and so foreordained to
be saved. Children could actually be put to death for
striking their parents. Even for children, frivolous
amusements were forbidden; a curfew was established; and
all were constrained to save souls and to labor for
material development."
The Whipple family diet would have been limited to home products, fish, and wild game. Butter and cheese were staples. Fruit was not common, except the wild berries and fruit of the forests. Rum brandy, wine, beer, and a little chocolate, were in use among their more well to do neighbors. At a commencement dinner at Harvard, in 1703, four barrels of beer, one of cider and eighteen gallons of wine were served. Because water was not always fresh or pure, the family would likely have consumed mildly alcoholic cider at nearly all their meals. It would have been the unenviable job of the oldest to fill up the cider jug from the cellar every morning. The white potato could not be purchased as yet, but turnips, onions, carrots, and parsnips were readily available. Honey was common. Apple and mince pies were a treat, as were Indian puddings and baked beans with pork, all cooked in their old-style brick oven adjoining the great fireplace, which covered almost one entire wall of the house. If a child had a toothache, tobacco was smoked for relief from the pain.
When his indenture was over, John paid a high price to
stock and maintain his farm. Livestock was scarce and
expensive by the time he acquired his own land. Horses
were £27, heifers £13, sheep 50s. Cows were
£30 to £40 each, a pair of oxen £40.
Commodities were also high, including corn at 5s a
bushel. At 3s a day, carpenter's wages were sufficient to
purchase about a half-bushel of corn. Surplus produce from
his farm not sold in Dorchester he likely took to Boston's
Thursday market.
That he was successful is confirmed by the fact that he
added substantially to his original allotment of eight
acres. A likely extant example of John's craftsmanship is
the Barnard Capen house, one of only three surviving
seventeenth century houses in Dorchester. It was built
around the year 1635 on Washington Street opposite
Melville Avenue, but "was moved to Milton about the year
1909."
In the year of the Capen house's construction, while
still a neophyte apprentice carpenter, John would have
witnessed a seminal event in the earliest history of
American democracy: the founding of the colony of
Connecticut. Approximately half of Dorchester's first
colonists, representing a significant part of its wealth
and intelligence, left to settle in the Connecticut Valley
at Windsor near the junction of the Connecticut and
Farmington Rivers. This move was forced upon them by the
autocratic, imperialistic policies and restrictions on
political and personal freedoms imposed by Governor
Winthrop and the majority of the colony's clergy. The
governor had little regard for the commoner. He wrote,
"the best part of the people is always the least, and of
that best part, the wiser is always the lesser." His
colleague, The Reverend John Cotton, expressed the
position of the majority of the colony's leadership when
he stated, "Never did God ordain democracy for the
government of the church or the
people."
Colony records are silent as to whether John participated
in the community life of the town. Due to the fact that he
was an integral part of the political and social scene in
Providence, it may be assumed that he acquired some social
and political skills while in Dorchester. He likely was
present at the first ever town meeting held in America in
1633, and was undoubtedly aware of the Dorchester
Directory, which was read at each town meeting. It
provided that every person could speak his mind "meekly
and without noise, but should not interrupt another
speaker, encourage support of town officers in the
execution of their offices, and not fault or revile them
for doing their duty..."
"Since John Whipple was a young, unmarried servant when
he first arrived in Dorchester, we should not be surprised
that he does not appear in the records more in the 1630s,
but he generated remarkably few records between 1640 and
1658, during which period he lived as a married man in
that town."
Documents are uninformative as to when or why John
Whipple of Dorchester, Massachusetts first became
interested in the place he was to call home for the
remainder of his life. Perhaps he had visited Providence
before on business or for pleasure. It was known that
Dorchester residents had previously relocated there. He
may have had prior knowledge concerning the substantial
land grants that were soon to be awarded. Was he asked by
friends or relatives while still living in Dorchester to
become one of fewer than 50 owners or
"proprietors"
Passable roads between the Bay Colony and Providence were
practically non existent; consequently, the 11 member
Whipple family, plus household goods, farming and
carpentry implements, and livestock, would have embarked
by boat around Cape Cod, down the coast to Newport, then
20 miles or so up the Narragansett Bay to their
destination. The size of the family itself would have had
an immediate impact, increasing Town Street's population
by about five percent. The very real possibility of
psychological trauma, particularly of the
children,
As seen on the above map, John had a choice between four
"Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" settlements:
Newport, Portsmouth, Warwick, or Providence. A fifth
choice would have been a small settlement on the Pawtuxet
River about five miles south of Providence, which was
under the political control of Providence. It is generally
conceded that Providence was the least desirable of
these.
"During the seventeenth century there was little need of
wharves...They were, in fact dependent upon Massachusetts,
or upon occasional Dutch traders for nearly all
manufactured articles...In revenge for Rhode Island's
refusal to expel the Quakers, they threatened to
discontinue all intercourse, and thus to deprive Rhode
Island of comfortable existence. 'We have not,' said the
Rhode Island legislature, 'English coin, but only that
which passeth among these barbarians, only corn, cattle,
tobacco, and the like, to make payment in, which they (the
Massachusetts people) will have at their own rate, or else
not deal with us."
The opposite panoramic view of the bluff that over looked
John's house, located where the light colored single row
apartment building now stands, was taken from the Smith
Street
It would have been readily apparent that his potential
neighbors were living at bare subsistence level,
particularly if he were viewing this scene in the year
1658, when the little settlement endured a severe
drought. Most of those who had congregated around The
Reverend Roger Williams over two decades earlier were
poor, unskilled, and undereducated. They were the outcasts
of Puritan society. "Among the associates of Williams were
no men of wealth, or of much mechanical skill. They were
nearly all farmers, and expected to draw their subsistence
from the soil. Their dreams of prosperity were of
meadowlands, corn fields, and flocks in the valley of the
Mooshassuc, and not, like those of the men of Boston, of
warehouse and anchorage by the shores of the Bay. They
had little beside the household effects which they brought
with them and their Massachusetts neighbors did their best
to prevent their acquiring
more."
Population growth had stagnated. Many of the original
inhabitants had moved about five miles to the south to
establish a sister settlement on the Pawtuxet
River. Others had simply become disenchanted and relocated
elsewhere in the colony. Several of the original home lots
had been abandoned for years, leaving houses, gardens, and
orchards in ruin. "It will be sufficient to observe that
the old townsmen gave no cordial welcome to emigrants, and
offered them no invitation by the establishment of
schools, or other means of improvement. They were
satisfied to remain a closed corporation. The descendants
of the settlers held fast by the home lots of the town
street, with the tenacity which in that age characterized
the owners of ancestral property. Few new comers could
gain a foothold in the
town."
"Providence grew very slowly. In 1638 there were only
twenty families, about 100 persons; in 1645, about fifty
families or 250 persons; in 1675, perhaps 350 to 400
persons. This slow growth resulted in part from fear of
the Indians; in part from the instability produced by
internal quarrels among the settlers; and in part from the
fact that the radical principles upon which Providence was
founded appealed only to the ultra- Puritans or more
eccentric and bold Englishmen an Englishwomen of that
day. Williams said frankly that his purpose in founding
the colony was to create a free community of seeker after
truth and a haven for those persecuted elsewhere for their
conscientious beliefs."
"Inordinately slow was the town in taking the first step
(toward growth). Down to 1740 or 1742 it was still, as in
the seventeenth century, but a long, straggling street by
the water front, where on summer evenings the inhabitants
sat in their doorways, smoked their clay pipes, and fought
the swarms of mosquitoes that rose from the marsh
opposite...The town was agricultural and agricultural the
proprietors were determined that it should
remain."
As to why the citizens of Providence would relent long
enough to allow a middleaged housewright from the
distrusted Bay Colony to join their "closed corporation"
is a centuries old conundrum. That information has long
since been lost in the mists of time. Not every one who
petitioned, even those suffering from severe religious
oppression, was admitted into a full share of the town's
largess. These were called "quarter-rights men" or simply,
freeholders. By means of a lifetime of hard work, John
obviously acquired a substantial estate, "much larger than
the average purchaser."
The large and growing Whipple family moved to Providence
because John wanted more land, and the town needed his
skills and money. This is a plausible scenario. But it,
by itself, could not likely have provided the decisive
impetus to embark on such a drastic life-altering
metamorphosis, considering the severity of the malevolent
consequences that would have ensued. Unless there had been
a stronger, more urgent reason, acquisitiveness would
probably not have been enough to counter the personal and
social stigma that would have attached to such a
decision. The divulgence that he was even contemplating
such an ill-advised move would have made him suspect. To
do so would have resulted in social disgrace for the
entire family. Close relatives would have had to disown
and vilify them. Their church would have ostracized
them. Moreover, it is entirely feasible that the members
of the John Whipple family were forced to leave their
comfortable home of over 25 years because they had already
been ostracized. To become anathema to their life long
neighbors and friends could only have been the result of
virulent prejudous. The sacrament of baptism/christening
would have been denied their children, which may have
happened in the case of their youngest daughter born about
1657/58. The Whipples had rejected the religion and/or
political leadership of their neighbors, magistrates, and
the clergy, so they in turn were rejected. Theirs would
have been a desperate flight to find freedom of
conscience, even if it meant moving to Rhode
Island.
The oppression, which drove the family into exile, was
deeply rooted in historical circumstances. The religion of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony was Puritanism, the only form
of Christianity in which John and his family would have
been allowed to officially partake. During mandatory
Sabbath services, they would have heard that there was but
one true church, and that that church was the
Congregational, or "New England Way." Sermons told of
unbelievers in a faraway place called Providence, led by a
man who had been excommunicated from their midst some
years before. This Providence, they were told, was a
"cesspool of sinners, a vile receptacle of all sorts of
riff-raff people that is nothing else but a sewer. It was
the asylum for all that are disturbed, a hive of hornets,
and the Sinke into which all the Rest of the Coloneys
empty their Hereticks."
It would be instructive to learn the circumstances that
surrounded the Whipple's decision to reject their life
long religious beliefs and
practices.
They undoubtedly heard about, or witnessed, the heresy
trial and banishment of the proto-Quaker Anne Hutchinson,
as well as the later trial of her sister Catherine Scott,
a noted Baptist convert to the Society of Friends. "John
Winthrop, the political king of Boston, and Rev. John
Wilson, its ecclesiastical Bishop, were opposed to Mrs.
Hutchinson's doctrine, known by the hard and today
meaningless name, 'Antinomian.' The debate...set all of
Boston on fire...banishment was the only means of saving
the Puritan Church and
State...."
Catherine Marbury Scott lived in Providence, where she had fled to escape Massachusetts. It was Catherine who convinced Roger Williams in 1639 to establish the first Baptist church in America, although Williams left the church within four months, and Catherine soon converted to Quakerism. She and her husband Richard, who lived next door to Williams, were the grandparents of two of John's step grandchildren through his eldest son. The Scotts were a constant irritation to Williams, being the first converts to Quakerism in Providence.
"After the arrival of the Quaker ship Woodhouse in
Newport in the summer of 1657, missionary evangelists of
the new sect fanned out in all directions... It was not
long before some of these zealous people decided to invade
Massachusetts to preach their views and denounce the laws
against Quakers. A widow, Harrod Garner from Newport, was
given ten lashes...in May 1658 for that offense. A month
later Thomas Harris and another Rhode Islander went to
Boston and denounced the sermon after Sabbath servce.
Both were whipped and imprisoned. In September, Catherine
Scott, who had given up the Baptist faith to become a
Quaker, received the same treatment. She was told that if
she came back again she might be hanged. In 1659 William
Robinson and Marmakuke Stephenson were hanged on Boston
Commons...Not before 1672 were Quakers allowed to preach
in Boston without arrest."
Typical of the religious atmosphere, the heretic Samuel
Gorton was arrested in Rhode Island and paraded down the
main street of Dorchester in chains, a sight the Whipples
could not have missed.
On the map above, John's property letter "C" would have
been to the right, or east, of the mill and bridge letter
"A" at Adams Street, and near the penny ferry letter "B"
in an area called "The Neck." At least some of his
property was located on the river itself, eight acres of
"salt marsh near the ferry." This ferry operated from a
point somewhere between the present Adams Street Bridge
and the Granite Avenue Bridge on what is now the north
shore of the Neponset River State
Reservation.
Having witnessed the unconscionable hanging of two Rhode
Island Quakers, which occurred earlier in the same year
that he was approved as a Providence
purchaser,
Consequent to becoming ensconced in his new home, John's
religious and/or political preferences became
non-issues. Due to laws that mandated separation of church
and state, early town records were strictly secular in
nature, and parrish membership records from that early
date are absent or
incomplete.
The photograph above is that of the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Providence, its predecessor being built about 50 years after Captain John's death. Extant records of the church commence about the year 1755; therefore, there is no way to know if seventeenth century Whipples were members. The first listed Whipple communicant dates from 1764. In contradistinction to earlier claims, the religious preference of Captain John Whipple cannot at this time be determined with a sufficient degree of certitude.
In a deed dated 23 November 1663, Captain John Whipple
wrote that he owned the former Towne Streete property of
Francis Wickes.
Due to its historical significance, this deed, which is over 1500 words in length, is discussed in some detail. Several important place names are mentioned.
"This deed beareing date the Tenth day of September in the Eighteenth yeare of the Reigne of our Soveraine Charles the Second King of England Scotland France & Ireland &c. That I Benedict Arnold of Newport, in ye Collony of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations in New England & (Sen) for good causes hereunto me moveing; And ffor & in ConSideration of NineScore Pounds Current pay of this Collony in hand Received before the Signeing & sealing...ye Whole Right ye said Towne to me Granted ...; The promised Percells hereby Sold, being as followeth; That is to say, ffowre houSelots or homeShares containeing in the whole Six & Twenty Rod be it More or less on ye west party & as Much on ye EaSt party; & one hundred & Twenty Rod in length be it More or less on ye South party, & and as Much on ye North party; Bounded on ye North party by ye Common & partly by ye howSe lot of Edward Manton, & on ye East by the HighWay or Common, & on ye South by land now in the PossesSion of John Throckmorton (Sen) & on the West by the Streete, or Way leadeing into Towne &c; All Which Sd ffowre Lotts together with howSeing, fenceing & other improvements thereupon Wholy Sold unto John Whipple aforesaid excepting about Two Acres lieing on the South Side toward the East...sold to Thomas Olney. Moreover, the percells of land that are hereafter mentioned are togethere with ye foresaid Howselotts Sold & by these present Made over unto ye above Said John Whipple; That is to Say, one low plot of ground Containeing about Nine Rod of land as it Was by me fenced in many years agone, lieing below the Streete betweene ye Forsd howSelots & ye River below the Mill; Bounded round by ye StreetWay & ye Common..."[ 81 ]
It is reasonable to assume that the Whipples lived from
1659 to 1661 in the abandoned house of William Arnold,
empty since 1651, the house and land John eventually
deeded to John Junior.
The June 2004 photograph below, taken from the rear of an apartment building that now occupies the spot where the Whipple house would have stood (about 50 yards north of Star Street), shows the incline of the hill on the Whipple property. Other areas of the incline rise from an angle of 45 degrees to about 60 degrees. A terraced area immediately to the top of the photograph, on what is now Benefit Street, would have held the family burial plot. The laying out of this street in the mid 1700s caused the Whipples, and about 50 other families, to move their ancestors' graves to the North Burial Ground.
That the Whipple family moved in immediately is evident
in a reference to John that appeared in town records in
early 1660/61, and his oldest daughter, Sarah, married in
1659 or early 1660. She married into the Smith family,
owners of the Smith Mill immediately to the northwest (on
the map below) of John's property. John's youngest
daughter, Abigail, married the son of The Reverend Gregory
Dexter, his immediate neighbor to the north. His middle
daughter, Mary, married into The Reverend Thomas Olney
Senior family (first house south of Gaol Lane), as did
John Junior.
By virtue of his new status as a part owner of Providence
Plantations, within two years of his arrival, John
received a grant of land in an area called the "north
woods" or Louquisset.
The twenty-acre homestead on Town Street, plus
twenty-four acres of commoning, that the Whipple family
purchased from Benedict Arnold may have been devoid of
structures, and its farm fields and orchards
overgrown. Early on, the Wickes family had become converts
to the religious teachings of a man named Samuel Gorton,
who banned by at least two other local settlements, had
tried to settle in Providence. "When Gorton applied to
the town for admission as a voter and landholder (or
freeman) in May 1641, the town denied his request, calling
him, 'an insolent, railing and turbulent person.' They
also excluded from town fellowship Gorton's followers,
John Wickes and Randall
Holden."
The June 2004 photograph below is of the present state of
the four lots on Constitution Hill looking northeast from
the northeast corner of Main Street and Star Street. This
newly-constructed single row of eight two-story
condominiums stand at the bottom of a sharply rising hill,
with Main Street to the left. The original Main (or Towne)
Street was much narrower when the Whipples lived
there.
Previously in the possession of absentee landowners for
well over a decade, their new acreage likely demanded much
of the Whipple family. Restoration and expansion of the
property was first priority. As a result, John appears
infrequently in town records for the first three years or
so. The first record of community activity in the
settlement occurred in January 1660/61, when as a
surveyor, he "laid out 5 acres of low land for Thomas
Clemance." This was recorded on 27 January
1660/61.
Not until 1663 is John seen as more than tangentially
involved in community affairs. In that year, he served as
a juryman on two occasions, and was a committee member
twice, one committee concerned with property boundaries
and the other with building a new towne
house.
In 1664, John again entered town records when his
neighbors called upon his training and experience as a
carpenter. Four years earlier, the town council had
overseen the building of its first ever bridge. Three
years later, the bridge had to be rebuilt. Then at a
Quarter Court 27 January 1664, it was ordered that "John
Whipple Senr. Be sent for to confer with the moderator,
Mr. William Field, about mending the bridge." A subsequent
agreement was made between Thomas Harris Sr. and Valentine
Whitman, acting for the town, and John Whipple. With the
help of two other men, John was hired to do the
work.
It would be informative, as well as interesting, to know
something of John's everyday experience as a
carpenter. However, as seen above, only on rare occasions
were the services of tradesmen required on public
projects. Fortunately, the contract wages John charged,
and some of the tools used, are known. Early town records
include an undated estimate in John's own writing on
constructing a leanto: "To making of ye leanto and work
about it, 06-00-00. To making of ye seller roof and
shingling it, 01-05-00. To making of a door and shelves in
ye leanto, 0-80-6." Among his tools were a froe, a Rye
bit, iron square, small jointer, carving tool, axe,
clearing plane, whetting steel, wimble stock and bits,
soding iron, compasses, and brass rule for a chalk
line.
"Taverns, inns or ordinaries, were words used
interchangeably in early New England to designate public
houses where meals, liquors and lodgings could be obtained
at reasonable prices. These places ranged from a single
room with a bar, a chair and a hard board bed, to larger
houses, with accommodations for a number of persons of
both sexes, where meals and comfortable lodgings could be
had, with a bar to supply all tastes with liquors of all
grades. Taverns existed in England from the thirteenth
century, and crossed the water with the Pilgrim and
Puritan founders. Children and servants (and Indians) were
not allowed to drink at taverns...profane singing,
dancing, and reveling were
forbidden."
"John Whipple Senior was one of the most competent inn
holders in Rhode Island. Because of the staid and sober
character of the Whipple Inn and its central location it
was a favorite meeting place for the Town Council and
Court of Probate. The October 1690 session of the Rhode
Island General Assembly met at the Whipple
Inn."
At least three of John Whipple's children (John Junior,
Joseph, and Mary Whipple-Olney), as well as at least two
grandsons (John III and James Olney) and one step grandson
(Sylvanus Scott), were actively involved in that business
for a half-century and more. John Junior established his
own inn by special request of the town, because the needs
of its citizenry were not being adequately
met,
"As Providence increased in size and importance more
strangers had occasion to visit the town, and it became
necessary to provide for their comfort and
entertainment. In the earliest days the only lodgings
available for visitors were in private houses and, as the
accommodations of few of those houses exceeded two rooms,
the guest quarters were neither sumptuous nor particularly
private. The first tavern on the Town Street of which
there is record was the one opened by John Whipple in
1674, halfway up Constitution Hill. This was followed by
another, immediately north of the home lots, maintained by
Epenetus Olney. In a more secluded spot some distance to
the north (Abbott Street) Roger Mowry had, for some years,
conducted an 'ordinaire' in a house, erected in 1653"
[bought by Samuel Whipple in
1671].
"...John Whipple was received as an inhabitant in
Providence, purchased a Proprietors' share and soon became
a leading citizen and a zealous supporter of Harris and
Olney. Williams says that he was a constant speaker in
town meetings and evidently regarded him as one of his
chief opponents...It seems probable that Williams
addressed his letters to Whipple, that they might become
more widely known in what was then the chief club house of
the village..."
Less than a decade after arriving in Providence as a
teenager, the youthful John Whipple Junior became a major
participant in a protracted verbal and legal conflict over
Indian land. Early on, John Junior allied himself with his
wife's father, Thomas Olney, his brother Samuel's wife's
uncle, William Harris, and William Arnold, his sister
Abigail Hopkins husband's uncle. These men were the
leaders of a consortium of proprietors who had for years
sought to extend the plantation's boundaries westward for
some 20 miles, allowing them to create vast land holdings
exclusively for themselves.
The letters in question, which Williams addressed to John
Junior in July and August of 1669, were a virtual diatribe
against the personality and moral rectitude of the young
man, not his father.
In the April 1676 meeting of the town council, John was
elected moderator; he had been elected to the council at
least twice before.
In his Last Will and Testament, dated 8 May 1682 and proved 27 May 1685, John Whipple Senior of Providence wrote:
"Be it known to all persons to whom this may come, that I, John Whipple of the town of Providence, in the colony of Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations, in New England ('Sen.") being in good measure of health, and in perfect memory, upon consideration of mortality, not knowing the day of my death, and having many children, and to prevent difference that otherwise may hereafter arise among them concerning my worldly estate, do see cause to make my will and do hereby dispose of all my estate in this world and do make my last Will and Testament.
"Having formerly given unto three sons, all of my lands and meadows in Louisquisset, namely, Samuel, Eleazer and William equally to be divided among them three only; excepting thirty acres, which I give unto my son John, at the North West End.
"I give unto my three aforesaid sons, namely, Samuel, Eleazer and William, each of them, a quarter part of one right of Common, for pasturing, cutting of timber, and firewood.
"I give unto my son Benjamin a right of land in the late division which is already made out to him.
"I give unto my son David a right of land in the late division which is already made out to him.
"I give unto my son Jonathan twenty-five acres on which he now dwelleth, also I give unto my son Jonathan one division of land which is ordered by the town to be laid out between the 'seven-mile line' and the 'four-mile line' and papers already drawn for.
"I give unto my son Joseph, my dwelling-house, and my three house-lots, and the garden next; also a six-acre lot lying on the southern side of the neck whereupon the town of Providence standeth; also twenty acres near Thomas Clemens, his dwelling; also I give unto my son Joseph my share of meadow near Solitary Hill, and the two six-acre lots, lying on each side of said Hill; also a six-acre lot, near William Wickenden formerly dwelt; also one division lying on the 'seven-mile line', which is already ordered by the town and papers drawn for; also I give unto my son Joseph, all other divisions which shall hereafter belong unto two rights throughout.
"I give unto my sons, namely John, Samuel, Eleazer, William, Benjamin, David and Jonathan twelve pence every one of them.
"I give unto my three daughters, namely, Sarah, Mary, Abigail, unto everyone of them, ten shillings.
"I give unto my son Joseph, all of my right of land in the Narragansett country. I give unto my son Joseph, all my movable goods, of what sort soever and all my cattle, and all my tools; also I do make my son Joseph my executor; also my will is that my son Joseph do see that I be decently buried; this being the real absolute Will and Testament of the John Whipple Sen; as aforesaid, I do hereunto set my hand and seal, this eight day of May, in the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-two.
Signed and sealed in the presence of
"I, Thomas Arnold, and John Arnold, the 27th day of May, in the year 1685, did upon these solemn engagements declare that they are witnesses unto the above will, and as these names so are there written do own it to be their hand. Shadrach Manton the 27 day of May, 1685, in the presence of the Magistrates and rest of the Council, full and truly declare that he is witness to the above will, and that he with his own hand wrote his name there unto, as, attest, Arthur Fenton, Assistant.
"Joseph Whipple did upon the 27th day of May 1685 in the presence of the Council as he is Executor of the Testament upon his solemn engagement testify and declare that this is the last Will and Testament of his deceased father as ever yet perfected as he knoweth of and that he when he made it, was of sound mind, and of a good memory.
Thomas Olney deposed that he had gone to John Whipple, at
his request, and obtained clarification of some of the
bequests.
The unexpectedly penurious amount of £41 in worldly
goods is informative if not enigmatic, until it is
understood that almost everything John owned apparently
had already been distributed to his children, who had long
since established homes of their own. He had lived as a
widower for almost two decades by then; accordingly his
creature comforts were minimal---two beds, three chairs,
and one old warming pan....
Above is an artist's rendering as to how the exterior of the Whipple house would have appeared in the mid 1660s shortly after the family had settled into daily life in their new home. The interpretation is based on knowledge of mid to late seventeenth century construction practices and of John's inventory of movable goods. Due to the family's apparent wealth and John's carpentry skills, the house likely could have been more substantial than others on Town Street. The front of the house, which would have faced south, could have been more elaborate than was usual at that time.
Captain John Whipple died 16 May 1685. The inscription on his headstone indicates that he was about 68 years old. John's first 15 years or so were spent at an unknown location somewhere in Old England; there followed a half century lived in New England, equally divided between Dorchester, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island. His wife, whose place of birth is unknown, died in 1666 at the age of about 42. Their children had all reached adulthood by the time of John's death. John Junior was the oldest at 45, Jonathan, 21, the youngest. Only Joseph 85, and Eleazer 74, lived a longer life than had their father. Their children eventually produced 77 offspring: 37 grandsons and 40 granddaughters. Of the grandsons, 24 bore the Whipple name, making his Whipple descendants the most numerous of the three Whipple men who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s.
John and Sarah were laid to rest in their own garden
burial lot, as was customary at the time. "Every home-lot
had its orchard, about haft way up the eastern hillside.
There, but a few paces from their homestead, were the
graves of the household. The family allotment soon became
alike their birth and burial places. There was no
anticipation of modern sanitary ideas, and the funeral
march was a long and dreary one, for, until a
comparatively recent date, the corpse was carried forth
upon the shoulders of the neighbors. Whether through
poverty or want of skill, or the early diffusion of Quaker
ideas, no inscriptions were set over the earliest
graves. This primitive custom of sepultare outlasted three
generations."
Nowhere else in the colonies was this cemetery custom
prevalent. "The parish churchyard of England had been
followed in the other colonies by common burial places,
attached or at least near to the meeting-house. It was a
feature of communal life and partook of the ecclesiastical
sanctity descended from the Roman through the Protestant
church. In Providence, death even could not end separatism
and a common burial ground could not be attained until
commerce began to relax the prejudices of the individuals
whose ancestors had been driven from Puritan
commonwealths."
Although Providence was settled in the year 1636, the
first mention of a public cemetery does not appear in town
records until 1700. That year marked a departure from the
individuality shown in the prior burial custom. At that
time, the proprietors set aside the most useless sand hill
in the area, located at the junction of the Pawtucket Road
(Main Street) the "Country Road" to the Louquisset, for
the burial of the dead. "The lot lying between Archibal
Walker's southward to the brook that cometh out of Samuel
Whipple's land, eastward with the highway, and westward
and northwestward with the Moshassuck River, was voted to
remain common for a training field, burying ground, and
other public uses."
Nevertheless, during the next 40 years few availed
themselves of the opportunity. "While there were no
interment records kept during the first 150 years of use,
the study of the gravestone carvers who made the early
markers helps us accurately date many gravestones carved
long after the deaths they commemorate. Existing
gravestones in the North Burial Ground mark only 18
burials here by 1725 and 29 by 1730. There undoubtedly
were unmarked burials, but without records we have no way
of knowing how many. An educated guess would be that ten
percent of the burials were marked with gravestones. This
would indicate that there were 180 or more by
1725."
On 27 October 1746, a petition, signed by Stephen Hopkins
and John Whipple (both Captain John Whipple descendants)
and others asked for a street eastward of Town Street. It
was to spare no ones houselot and imperiled all the
household graves. Soon after, the first order was made for
a new road to be called Benefit Street. It was to extend
from Powers Lane on the south, so far northward as the
great gate of Captain John Whipple. The John Whipple gate
opened northwardly from his property into the Town Street
at the head of Constitution
Hill.
"Old habits die hard. Families did not immediately
embrace the new town burial ground and abandon the family
burial grounds on their own property where their parents
and grandparents were buried. We know this by the dates on
gravestones in those cemeteries when they were moved years
later. There are two apparently earlier gravestones [than
Samuel Whipple's] in this burial ground, those for
Capt. John Whipple (1617-1685) and his wife Sarah
(1624-1666) (see picture on P.13) but these do not in fact
deserve the honor of being the first. Not only were they
moved here from a Whipple family burial plot elsewhere in
town, but they were not contemporary with the deaths they
mark. We know this from evidence provided by gravestone
studies. Both beautiful slate stones were carved by George
Allen (1696-1774) of the part of Rehoboth, Massachusetts
that is now East Providence, Rhode Island. Allen was not
yet born when the Whipples died. His well-documented
carving style would indicate that they were made sometime
after 1750, possibly at the time when their graveyard was
removed to North Burial
Ground"
To reach the burial area shown in the photograph above,
drive north from downtown Providence on North Main
Street. The cemetery is located on this street,
approximately one mile north of downtown. Enter the main
gate on the south side of the cemetery. Proceed northward
on the street to the right named Eastern Street, stay on
this street a distance equivalent to two city blocks. Stop
at the clearly visible small sign that marks an east/west
walkway, which reads "Dahlia Path." The Whipple burial
area is about 15 yards on the left along this path. There
is a large white and gray monument to the east that has
the name "TEMPLE" inscribed on it. (The Temples married
into the Joseph Whipple Junior
family.)
The first two headstones to the left of the box tomb are
those of Captain John and Sarah Whipple. Most of the 27
headstones present in this Whipple burial area represent
the descendants of John Whipple, called the
"bonesetter,"
The Captain John and Sarah Whipple headstones are among but a few with dates from the 1600s, and as such are among the oldest dated markers in the cemetery. Dozens of their generational cohorts were moved to the North Burial Ground in the mid-1700s, but few of their descendants had headstones made to mark their places of reburial. John's headstone is 36 inches high and 27 inches wide. Sarah's is 24 inches high and 20 inches wide. Both are three inches in thickness containing the following inscriptions:
It has been remarked that some of the information inscribed
on John and Sarah's headstones is
inaccurate.
Captain John and Sarah Whipple