Author: Whipple, Oliver
Biography:
WHIPPLE, Oliver (1743-1813: ancestry.com)
Although he lived in New Hampshire and adopted the persona of a farmer, Whipple was in fact a well-educated lawyer from out of state. The son of Jeremiah and Hannah (Bowen) Whipple, he was born in Cumberland RI, graduated from Harvard in 1766, and became a lawyer with a practice first in Portsmouth NH (1771-91), then in nearby Hampton (1791-1802), and finally in Georgetown (now part of Washington DC). In 1774 he married Abigail ("Nabby") Gardiner of Boston, the daughter of a wealthy client, Dr. Silvester Gardiner. They had one son and at least one daughter but there must have been marital strife: the couple divorced and were then remarried, again in Boston, in 1797. Whipple was elected state representative for Hampton 1796-1800. In 1799 he wrote to Alexander Hamilton pleading for a captaincy for his son in the army. Begging letters, generally petitioning for sinecures for himself, became a habit but led to nothing. Besides his private practice, he was an occasional lecturer; one of the Georgetown papers announced a lecture "on the Formation of Man" scheduled and presumably delivered on 30 Jan. 1813. But on Mar. 24, the same paper announced his sudden death, the cause unspecified but probably not suicide. He had been sleeping at his office and dining at a boarding-house. He had not been seen over the weekend of Mar. 12-14 but was found on the Monday and thought to have died on the 14th, a Sunday. He was buried on Mar. 16 with what the newspaper obituary described as "that respectful attention, which his correct conduct and amiable manners had always commanded while he lived." (ancestry.com 30 Jan. 2021; findmypast.com 30 Jan. 2021; "To Alexander Hamilton from Oliver Whipple, 6 August 1799," Founders Online30 Jan. 2021; "Oliver Whipple to Thomas Jefferson, 29 March 1810," Founders Online 30 Jan. 2021; Federal Republican and Commercial Gazette [Georgetown] 27 Jan. 1813, 24 Mar. 1813) HJ
Other Names:
- O. Whipple