This is the final post on Lucien Whipple family and includes details on Sarah’s death in June 1898 and Lute’s in May 1904.

For reasons unknown to the author, the Whipples returned to Eugene after only two years in Kansas. They more than doubled the purchase price of their farm, which they sold to Rosa Chrisman for $800.00 on September 1, 1870.

Lute purchased a home in Eugene from F. B. Ragland for $350.00 on January 3, 1871. He did resume farming and became a Patent Right Agent and followed many lines of work until retiring in the late 1890s. How the family was impacted by the depression that began in 1873 is unknown.

He was employed in 1873 to help build the Eugene covered bridge which still stands today.  He conducted the Eugene Federal Census in 1880, ran a meat market in 1894, and was named Town Marshal in 1895. When the town voted to dissolve its corporate entity March 28, 1896, his law enforcement career ended. He also participated in home talent plays and was in the cast of American Born presented by the Alexander Dramatic Combination in February 1885. Admission was 15 cents for children, 25 cents for adults, and 35 cents for a reserved front seat. Proceeds were to benefit the Eugene Brass Band.

He was one of the organizers and the first Vice President of the Total Abstinence Society, dubbed the Reformed Roosters, organized in February 1886. His son Jim was the Society’s first Secretary.   He was also an organizer of the Eugene Chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) and elected its Colonel.  The Whipple School was built in 1881 on land he owned. Between 1881 and 1909, it had 13 teachers, including his granddaughter Clara Fultz who taught the 1911-12 school year. In the fall of 1909 only the first five grades were taught and it was closed in 1920 and the building was advertised for sale in 1923. (more…)

When the Soviet Sputnik went up on Oct. 4, 1957, so did hundreds of amateur telescopes across America. They were already in the hands of school students as part of Operation Moonwatch, given to them by astronomer Dr. Fred Whipple, director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Cambridge, Mass.

Whipple wanted youth to view meteors and comets during the International Geophysical Year (July 1957-December 1958) and student amateurs participated alongside “tens of thousands of professional scientists from sixty-seven nations staffing hundreds of stations around the globe.”  Moonwatch said: “Keep Watching the Skies” and Whipple’s network was ideal for tracking the Soviet hardware and for satellite spotting. The students reported their sightings to the SAO, which then computed the orbital data. (more…)

On Nov. 5, 1906, Fred Lawrence Whipple, a descendant of Captain John Whipple of Providence, RI, was born in the commercial trading town of Red Oak, Iowa.  I was fortunate to make his acquaintance during his time at Harvard and we communicated several times about his family background.

Frank Daniels III, a member of the staff of the Pilot Newspaper in Southern Pines, North Carolina in his article, “Separating the Comments from the Chaff,” published recently wrote this about Fred L. Whipple. (more…)

The Whipple Procedure was developed by Dr. Allen Oldfather Whipple, whose parents William and Mary were missionaries in Persia, was born there in 1881 and died in963.  Known as the “Father of Pancreatic Surgery,” he was graduated from Princeton in 1904 and earned a medical degree at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1908. He interned at Roosevelt Hospital and served a brief tenure at the Sloane Hospital for Women in New York City.

He became a surgeon to the outpatient clinic at Presbyterian Hospital and was Director of Surgical Service at Manhattan’s Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center from 1921 to 1946. At the time of his retirement in 1946 he had also been a Professor of Surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University for 25 years, training over 300 new surgeons. He was considered a gifted teacher and innovative surgeon.

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 great (5) grandparents.   We 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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

The story of the Statue of Liberty is a story of change. The people of France gave the Statue to the people of the United States 125 years ago (1885) in recognition of a friendship established during the American Revolution. Over the years, the meanings of the Statue have grown until she has become an international icon of freedom and liberty, the most recognizable symbol of democracy and quite possibly the most photographed statue or monument anywhere in the world.

The idea of the Statue originated around 1865 with Edouard de Laboulaye who saw the United States as a country that had proved that democracy was a viable type of government after surviving a Civil War and abolishing slavery. He also saw the gift as a way to reflect his wish for a democracy in France. Artist Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, who was known for large-scale work, was commissioned to design this sculpture and in 1874 came to the United States to look for a location for his monument. When he saw Bedloe’s Island from his ship as he sailed into the New York Harbor, he realized it was a perfect location because of the never ending audience it provided.

Bartholdi recruited French engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923 and builder of the Eiffel Tower in Paris) to build a skeleton for his statue and used a technique called repousse to create her copper skin – hammering out each piece of copper until it was only 3/32 of an inch thick (the same as two pennies put together). Eiffel, realizing flexibility was needed to allow the Statue to sway in the sometimes violent harbor winds, designed a massive iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework which allowed the copper skin to move independently– yet stand upright.

The Statue became a joint effort between American and France. America built the pedestal, and the French assembled the Statue.

Completed in France in July of 1884, the Statue was disassembled and shipped to the United States, arriving in New York in June 1885. When the pedestal was finished, the Statue was re-assembled (it took four months) and dedicated October 28, 1886 in front of thousands of spectators. In his dedication address, President Grover Cleveland emphasized the spread of American ideals. The Statue is 305 feet from the ground to the tip of the flame – equivalent height of a 22-story building – and was then the tallest structure in New York.

The Statue faces Southeast and was strategically placed inside of Fort Wood which was a perfect base. And it’s position is perfect for ships entering the harbor to see her as a welcoming symbol. Classical images of Liberty have usually been represented by a woman and this Liberty’s face is said to be modeled after the sculptor’s mother.

It’s crown is open on a limited basis. The torch has been closed since the “Black Tom” explosion of July 30, 1916, which was one of the largest acts of sabotage to our nation prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941.

The torch is a symbol of enlightenment lighting the way to freedom and showing the path to Liberty. It’s official name represents her most important symbol: “Liberty Enlightening the World.” The torch, replaced in 1986, is a copper flame covered in 24K gold. It is reflective of the sun’s rays in daytime and lighted by 16 floodlights at night. The original torch, removed in 1984, is inside the lobby of the monument.

The tablet of law, held in the Statue’s left hand, has the date of American Independence July 4, 1776, written on it in Roman numerals (July IV, MDCCLXXVI). The seven spikes on the Statue’s crown represent the seven seas and continents of the world.

It’s location is on Liberty Island on federal property administered by the National Park Service and within the territorial jurisdiction of the State of New York. Visitors ride Ferries to and from the Park. They depart from both the State of New York and New Jersey. Ellis Island, the former federal immigration station, is a national museum of immigration, and is separate from Liberty Island.

Engraved on the pedestal is Emma Lazarus’ poem, The New Colossus written in 1883, the year of father’s birth. Its best-known lines are:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore;
Sent these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me …

The poem was placed on a plaque and affixed to an interior wall of the pedestal in 1903 where it was ignored until the 1930s when Europeans seeking asylum from Fascist persecution began arriving in large numbers. Then, recognizing the Statue’s true intentions, it was quoted in speeches and set to music by Irving Berlin and in 1986 the plaque was moved to an introductory exhibit in the pedestal. No one has described the American dream in a more memorable way:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame*
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed sunset-gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles, from her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome, her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin-cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied Pomp,” cries she
With silent lips, Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The Wretched refuse of your teeming shore;
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door?”

* The brazen giant of Greed fame refers to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, a bronze monument to the sun god, destroyed by an earthquake in 226 B.C.

Your comments are welcome.

If a man means to be an historical figure, it is a good idea to impress a literary patron – a Homer, a Virgil, a Boswell, a Longfellow. Odysseus, Aeneas, Samuel Johnson, and Paul Revere were fortunate in this regard. General William Whipple of New Hampshire and Commodore Abraham Whipple of Rhode Island were not. As a result, they have been left out of practically all the history books about the American Revolution. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow put Paul Revere on the Revolutionary map. He even gave us the exact hour at which Paul reached Concord on his “midnight” ride despite the fact Revere says he was captured by the British before he got there.

The Revolutionary accomplishments of the General and the Commodore were among the significant exploits of the struggle for independence. Both joined the struggle early in the contest. Both immediately rose to positions of leadership. Both were recognized by their peers for their outstanding contributions: William for the major role he played in the Continental Congress from 1776 to 1779; Abraham for his unbelievable exploits in the Continental Navy from 1775 to 1780. Unfortunately, historians mostly ignored them.

Though carrying the same surname, they were not related by blood but were related by commitment to the American cause. (William descends from “Elder” John Whipple of Ipswich and Abraham from Capt. John Whipple of Providence). (more…)

President John Calvin Coolidge was born in Plymouth Vt. July 4 1872 and died January 5, 1933 in Northampton, Mass. age 60.  He married Grace Anna Goodhue in Burlington, Vt. October 4, 1905.  Daughter of Andrew Issachar Goodhue and Lemira Barrett, she was born in Burlington January 3, 1879 and died July 8, 1957 in Northampton, age 78.  They are buried in Plymouth.

They are distant cousins.  Their common ancestor was Matthew Whipple, Clothier, of Bocking, England.  Grace descends through his youngest son, “Elder” John of Ipswich, Mass. while Calvin descents through his oldest son, Matthew, Jr. of Ipswich as well as through ”Elder” John, making him a double descendant of Matthew the Clothier.

He earned a B.S. from Amherst College in 1895, read law in the office of Messrs. Hammond &  Field of Northampton, was admitted to the Bar June 29, 1897 and began practice in that city.  He was elected to the Common Council and Vice President of the Northampton Savings Bank in 1898, served as City Solicitor 1899-1902.  Chairman of the Republican County Committee of Hampshire County in 1904, he was defeated as candidate for Northampton Board of Education in 1905, elected to the State house of Representatives in 1906 (two terms), elected Northampton Mayor (1910-11), elected to the State Senate in 1911 (four terms including Senate President (1914-15), elected Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor in 1915 (three terms), and elected Governor in 1919 (two terms).

His firmness and vigorous action as Governor at the time of the Boston Police Strike in the autumn of 1919 gave him a national reputation and he received a few votes for President at the 1920 Republican National Convention in Chicago.  Senator Warren of Ohio won the nomination on the tenth ballot and Coolidge was nominated for Vice President on the first ballot.  They easily won the election November 2 and were inaugurated March 4, 1921.  He was elected President November 4, 1924 (382 electoral votes) defeating Democrat John W. Davis (136 votes) and Progressive Robert M. LaFollette (13 votes). (more…)