John Whipple 1617-1685

*John Whipple was first mentioned in the Colonial records in Oct 1632 when he was ordered to pay a small fee to his master, Israel Stoughton, for wasting shot and powder.  He was, at that time, about 14 years old. It is believed that he arrived in the new world with Israel Stoughton in 1631, who had sailed to the colonies on the Mary and John.  It is most often claimed that John Whipple was born in Bocking, Essex, England, since that is where Stoughton was from. But nothing has come to light to verify this.

By 1637, he had been given a grant of land in Dorchester, MA where he and his wife, Sarah, settled. His wife’s maiden name is not known. She is sometimes called Sarah Darling, but there seems to be no record of who she really was. There, eight of his eleven children were born. The youngest three were born in Providence RI. There is some confusion with John Whipple of Ipswich, MA, who some say was a cousin. This is still up in the air and may never be solved.  John Whipple of Dorchester was married c. 1638 while John of Ipswich was married in 1659. John of Dorchester and his wife are my 9^th gt. grandparents.

John and his family relocated to Rhode Island around 1659. In 1666, John Whipple became the owner of a piece of land, sold to him by Benedict Arnold, for £180. The deed dated “the tenth day of September in the 18^th year of the reign of our sovereign Charles II King of England, Scotland and Ireland…”  John’s son, John Jr., married Mary Olney and they lived in the house that had belonged to William Arnold, father of Benedict.

John acquired quite a bit of land in or near Providence but also land in Louquisset and other parts of RI. His Will of 1685 specifically states which sons were to receive which pieces of land. Some of these were 6 acres and one was 60 acres.

John served the community in several different capacities over the years. He was on the Town Council, served as Town Clerk at three different intervals, and was a Deputy of the RI Gen. Assembly 8 different times.

Their eleven children:

(Whipple)

John             1641-1700              m. Mary Olney

Sarah           1642-1710              m. John Smith

Samuel         1644-1711              m. Mary Harris

Eleazer         1646-1719              m. Alice Angell

Mary             1648-1698              m. Epenetus Olney

William          bef.1652-1712        m. Mary Tower

Benjamin      1654-1704              m. Ruth Matthewson

*David          bef. 1656-1710        m. Hannah Tower

Joseph         1662-1746              m. Alice Smith

Jonathan      1664-1721              m. Margaret Angell

Abigail 1665-1725              m. Stephen Dexter

David and William married two sisters, Hannah and Mary, both daughters of John and Margaret Ibrook Tower.

David and his family lived in Providence RI, on the estate he inherited from his father, until 1692. At that time he purchased the estate of John Blaxton, son of William. John’s father was the first person to settle within the original lands of Rehoboth, which today is in Cumberland RI. Capt. Joshua Hubbard married David and Hannah, in Hingham, on Nov 11 1677. His will is date Mar 24 1709 with Hannah as executor. 

*David and his wife Hannah had 8 children:

(Whipple)

Israel            1678-1720              m. Mary Wilmarth

*Deborah      1681-1755              m. Benjamin Tower

Jeremiah      1683-1721              m. Deborah Bucklin

William          1685-?                   m. Elizabeth Wilmarth

Sarah            1687-?                   

Hannah         1690-1708

Abigail           1692-?

Their daughter, Deborah married Benjamin Tower, who was her first cousin. Benjamin’s father, John Tower was an older brother of Deborah’s mother Hannah Tower Whipple and her aunt Mary Tower Whipple.

At this point, the Whipple line ‘daughter’s out’ and the family line continues with Tower. This family has been discussed in an earlier blog and explains how they ended up in a part of Nova Scotia, which later became New Brunswick. There is considerable reference to the Tower family and the families they intermarried with in the records of Sackville, NB.

Benjamin and Deborah married about 1699 in Rehoboth MA. They had 11 children:
(Tower)

Gideon         1700-1772              m. Mary Ray

Patience       1702-c 1743           m. Nathan Carpenter

Sarah           1704-1792              m. Elisha Sabin

Margaret       1706-1787             m. Jeremiah Bartlett

Zipporah       1709                      m. Joseph Jackson

John             1711                       m. Hannah Hancock

Hannah         1714                       m. William Hancock

Benjamin      1715-1792              m. Ruth Unknown

Hester           1718

*Joseph        1721-1761              m. Judith Briggs

Enoch           1724-1774

Joseph Tower was lost at sea in 1761. He had been a grantee of Sackville but did not take possession of his grant. He and his wife Judith Briggs had 7 children, the last one born posthumously. Judith and her children were in NB by 1770 when Joseph Jr. took possession of the grant, originally his father’s. This same Joseph eventually moved to Ira, VT, having married Ellen Mason. Nathaniel Tower married Lucy Tingley and, at some point, departed for Lennox PA. Another son, Joshua died as a toddler in RI. William was lost at sea and no records have been found to show he married or had children. Their daughter Lucy married Gideon Smith and remained in Sackville. The youngest child, born after her father was lost at sea was Nancy and she married Gershom Maxwell, in Sackville. The oldest child, Benjamin, married Anne Finney and they are my 5^th gt. grandparents.

The descent is:

Phoebe Elizabeth Tower m. Edward Buck

George Buck m. Phebe Palmer

Catherine Buck m. Edward Cole

Rebecca Cole m. Alexander Chambers

Alvina Broderick m. Patrick John Broderick  -  my grandparents.

I apologize for the lack of photos. I searched for anything pertinent associated with the people and places in this blog but was unable to find anything appropriate.

Papers of the Rhode Island Historical Society

The NEHGS for the year 1878, vol. XXXII, p. 426

The Annals of Our Colonists, p. 48

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rigenweb/articles/251.html     History of                  Cumberland RI