Author: Whitwell, Benjamin
Biography:
WHITWELL, Benjamin (1772-1825: ancestry.com)
Born in Boston (or possibly in nearby Lancaster), the son of Sarah (Wood) and Samuel Whitwell, he attended the Latin School and graduated from Harvard in 1790. After being admitted to the bar (1793) he married Sally Sprague in Lancaster in 1795 and established a legal practice in Augusta ME. There is no record of children and his wife must have died since in 1808 he married again, this time in Boston; his second wife was Lucy Cushing Scollay and again there is no record of children. He had some business in Boston as well as in Maine--from 1814 to 1816 he was Deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth in MA--but did not move permanently back to Boston until 1820. He was in demand as a public speaker and like his father before him was honoured by being named Orator for Boston. He died at sea, returning from Charleston SC where he had travelled for his health. His death was registered in Providence RI and he was buried in Phenix RI. There is said to be a biographical sketch of him in William Willis, A History of the Law . . . and the Lawyers of Maine (1863) but it has not been seen. (ancestry.com 3 Feb. 2021; findmypast.com 3 Feb. 2021; Dedham Gazette 12 Aug. 1814; Columbian Centinel [Boston] 20 Apr. 1825; James Spear Loring, The Hundred Boston Orators [1852] 368) HJ