Many followers of this blog have asked me to write a synopsis of the Matthew Whipple family. Volume 1 of my 4-volume family history-genealogy describes the family history in 1,209 pages beginning in England ca 1560 and ending in Oregon in 2007, a span of 447 years. The family moved to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638. Consequently, the family had lived in America 369 years at the time the book was published. That is why part of the title is An American Story.

The following post is lengthy but if read to the end, the reader will gain a good understanding of how the family helped lay the foundation and make North America a reality. Our Whipple ancestors were among the first to cut the primeval forests, to cultivate the virgin soil, to build a home on the frontier, to worship in the log meeting houses, to create the United States. Whipple descendants should be proud they led the way to America.

A readable family history must be more than a collection of names, dates, and places. My history presents the context of specific lives by presenting the times in which our ancestors lived, the food they ate, the medical care they received, the amusements they enjoyed, the housing they lived in, the work they did, the education they received, the books they read, their religious practices, how they celebrated holidays, how they dressed and furnished their homes, what their towns and farms were like, what the weather was like, and how the countryside looked felt, smelled, and sounded. Read the rest of this entry »

Zebulon Whipple (5th great grandson of Matthew, Sr.and 4th of Matthew,Jr.) was born in Tolland, Tolland Co., Conn. 28 May 1796 and died of lung congestion 7 June 1879 in Sheffield, Lorain Co. Ohio, at 83. He married Aveline Stanton in Kingsville, Ashtabula Co., Ohio, 24 Nov. 1822. The daughter of Andrew Stanton and Lucy Ufford, she was born in Tolland 10 January 1804 and died 5 June 1897 in Sheffield at 93. She moved with her parents to Kingsville by by ox team in 1813 where they began farming two miles southwest of Kingsville.

Zebulon served in the War of 1812 and was present at the attack at Stonington Point, Conn. 9 Aug. 1814. The British commander, Commodore Thomas Hardy, with four vessels, entered the harbor and threatened to destroy the town. The town ignored his threat and set up defenses near the end of the peninsula. When the British bombardment began at 8:00 p.m. the American cannoners returned fire and sank one of the barges and forced the bomb ship to retreat. The bombing stopped at midnight and began again at sunrise and continued until noon of 12 August before the British finally gave up and sailed away. Despite being bombarded with more than 60 tons of metal and 170 bombs, the town did not lose a single life or house. This was the only British action in Connecticut in the war.

Zebulon traveled from Connecticut to Ohio by foot in 1818 and arrived at Kingsville 30 days later where he purchased some wild land and converted it to a farm. He became a prominent member of the Masonic order.

His will, dated 27 Jan. 1877 at Sheffield, was probated in 1879 and included. bequeaths to Aveline and sons John R., Gilbert, Wilson S., Andrew J., Henrietta Whipple, wife of John R., Martha J., wife of Andrew J., and a grand daughter with a Whipple surname (given name can’t be deciphered). Bryan C. Smith of Sheffield was executor.

Zebulon Whipple and Aveline Stanton had the following children:

i. Susan S. born in Kingsville in 1824 and died 11 August 1847 in Sheffield, at 23 years of age. She was a school teacher at the time of death.
ii. Gilbert born in 1826.
iii. John R. born in 1828.
iv. Andrew Jackson born 23 January 1832.
v. Perry M. born in Sheffield 3 February 1836 and died there 3 January 1869 at 32 years of age. His death was caused by a bite from a hog.
vi. Wilson S.22 August 1843.

John Adams Whipple, great (9) grandson of Matthew, Sr. (Matthew, Jr.’s 8th) was among the first generation of Americans to practice photography and became an innovator and a leader in this new field. [SEE GALLERY, PAGE 3, FOR PHOTOGRAPH OF JOHN ADAMS WHIPPLE.]

The first true photograph was created in the summer of 1827 by Joseph Niepce, a French researcher working in England, and in 1839 the newly discovered daguerreotype process was developed in Paris. John, then 17, made his first photographic image “with a sun-glass for a lens, a candle box for a camera, and the handle of a silver spoon as a substitute for a plate.”

He moved to Boston from Grafton, Mass, in 1840 where he earned his first fee for preparing chemicals making chloride of iodine. This led to his first business venture — making chemicals for daguerrean artists. He was listed as a chemist in the Boston Directory. Read the rest of this entry »

Most of us from the various American Whipple lineages recognize the Betsy Ross flag of 13 stars, the 48-star flag, if we were born before January 1959 (Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union as the 49th and 50th states on January 3 and August 21, 1959), and the current flag of half a hundred stars. But how many Whipples know about the 48-star Whipple Flag named after its designer, Wayne Whipple?

The American flag evolved over many years and did not spring into existence when Betsy Ross finished her work in Philadelphia in May 1776. The first flag to have been raised on the North American continent was probably flown by Eric the Red or his son Leif when they raised the Viking sea rovers’ banner (a black raven on a white field) in 1000 A.D. The first flag linked to the future Stars and Stripes was probably the red ensign with small white upper canton, the ancient symbol of England (the Cross of St. George) raised by the English settlers of Jamestown and Plymouth. Read the rest of this entry »

The Whipple Museum of the History of Science is at the University of Cambridge in England. It was established in 1944 when Mr. Robert Stewart Whipple presented his collection of early scientific instruments and antiquarian books to the University. The museum is housed in the historic First Cambridge Free School erected in 1618 and extensively remodeled during the 19th century. The site was acquired by the University late in the century and expanded in 1894 to provide scientific laboratories. The site underwent major internal reconstruction and restoration in the mid 1970s and re-opened as the Whipple Museum in 1976. The main gallery of the Museum is housed in a large hall with Elizabethan hammer-beam roof trusses. The Whipple Library is in an adjacent room allowing visitors to combine essential sources for research in the history of science.

The Museum is preeminent in and internationally renowned for its collection of scientific instruments and models, dating from the Middle Ages to the present. Microscopes and telescopes, sundials, early slide rules, pocket electronic calculators, teaching and demonstration apparatus, as well as laboratory equipment are included in the collection. Among the specific items are: the first circular logarithmic slide rule, c. 1640, a grand orrery, c. 1750, an astronomical screen c. 1757, a set of mathematical instruments, 1717, a precision balance, 1790, electro-static generator, c. 1785, Azimuth compass, 1711, and many others. Read the rest of this entry »

England, when the Matthew Whipple family lived in Bocking, owed its economic well being to the woolen cloth industry and Essex County was one of the great wool and cloth counties. Colchester was its main cloth center with Bocking and Braintree among the more important secondary markets. Less important were Coggeshall, Hawsted, and Dedham.

Essex’s first known fulling mill was in Bocking and dates from 1303. It was used during the whole of the cloth industry period and may have been the mill near the church.

Before the industry flourished in England, the country’s wool supplies were exported to the great continental cloth-making centers in Flanders, a geographical region located in parts of Belgium, France, and the Netherlands along the North Sea from the Strait of Dover to the Scheldt estuary. Today it is within the borders of northern Belgium.

By the mid 1200s when the industry began to flourish, the English government placed high taxes on wool export and eventually banned all wool exports. And to enhance the growth of the industry, it passed a law in the 1330s banning the wearing of foreign woolen cloth.

Residents of Flanders were known as Flemings and they settled in Bocking, Colchester, Coggeshall, Halstead, and Shalford as early as 1304, making these places flourishing centers of the industry. Edward III (1327-77) gave the industry a great boost by inducing large numbers of Flemings, who “respected woolsacks much more than Englishmen,” to emigrate and teach his people a better style of weaving. However, the largest number of Flemings arrived during Elizabeth’s reign (1558-1603). Read the rest of this entry »

Blaine, I have read through those volumes multiple times. I am so impressed with your work and follow through in getting them published. I had no idea when we compared notes and spoke during the NERGC conference that I was actually a Whipple descendant. I really value your volumes highly and consider it special to have met you and know of your genealogical expertise and work on behalf of the family. A job well done. Thomas J. Kemp, Director, Genealogy Products, News Bank, Inc., Conn. 11-23-2010.

The Church of England was an important institution in Bocking. It was organized nationwide with archiepiscopal Peculiars, parishes administered by the Archbishop of Canterbury instead of by the diocese in which they are located. Bocking is still a “Peculiar.”

From early in the thirteenth century, Bocking rectors were called the Dean of Bocking. Adjacent to it’s Deanery with its seventeenth century gable and chimneys, is an old barn and dovecote with 135 nests of lath and plaster. The dovecote is interesting because it was built when John Gauden was the Dean in residence. Gauden achieved wide fame when he claimed authorship of the Eikon Basilike.

[The Eikon Basilike, The Pourtrature of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, was a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to King Charles I of England. It was published on February 9, 1649, ten days after the King was beheaded by Parliament in the aftermath of the English Civil War. Written in a simple, moving, and straightforward style in the form of a diary, the book combines irenic prayers urging the forgiveness of Charles’s executioners with a justification of royalism and the King’s political and military program that led to the Civil War. Read the rest of this entry »

Bocking, the Whipple’s English home town, is on the Blackwater River near the center of Essex county and about 45 miles from London. Its closest neighbor is Braintree. In the early 1600s they were known as the “Busy Bees” of Essex. Their prosperity was due to the wool-cloth trade started in the days of the Flemish weavers. They were also famous for beautiful silks and beautiful windows.

The origin of it’s name is unknown. Some sources say it was named for a Viking chieftain named Bocca; others say it was Boca, a Saxon chieftain. A more picturesque supposition is the name is derived from the Saxon word “Boc,” a beach tree, and Ing, here meaning meadow-land, usually low-lying and situated by a river. A third source says it was named for free land taken from the folcland or common, and held by a private owner by “Boc” or charter. Earliest records refer to it as Boccinge, Boccinges, and Bockyng. Read the rest of this entry »

Blaine, I want you to know how much I appreciate the 4 volume set of Matthew Whipple genealogy. It is a beautiful masterpiece of research and compilation that will take a prominent place in my family’s Whipple historical background. The binding and format are especially attractive, and we will treasure your due diligence for generations to come. Nancy Dorian, Green Valley Arizona. 8-31-1010.