The Whipple Family

My last two posts have focused on the parents of my great-grandmother, Lizzie Whipple Brown. Lyndon Leander Whipple and Alida Electa Hand both came from families with New England roots. Both families came to Michigan via New York State. In this post, I’ll share some of what I have learned about the Whipple family. In a future post I’ll relate some things I have discovered about the Hand family.

The Whipples of America have an entire website devoted to them: http://www.whipple.org/. According to the home page of this site, “Captain” John Whipple “was the first ancestor of present-day American Whipples to arrive in the New World. He landed at Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1632 (or 1631 or 1630) as a teenager. Initially indentured to Israel Stoughton, he soon became a ‘freeman,’ married, and began raising his family in Dorchester. He moved with his family to Providence, Rhode Island, in 1658.” This move may have been the result of a law that was passed in the same year, banishing all Quakers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

My fourth great-grandfather, Jonah Whipple, was born in Glocester, Providence, Rhode Island, on October 22, 1761. By 1795 he was living in the town of Johnson, Vermont, where he took the “freeman’s oath” (enabling him to vote) in that year. Probably at about that time he married Hepsibeth Melvin, of Cambridge, Vermont. (Hepsibeth is an alternate spelling of the biblical name “Hephzibah”, which means “my delight is in her.”). Hepsibeth had been born in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, on March 4, 1767. Both of her parents came from old Massachusetts Bay families. According to the census of 1800, Jonah and Hepsibeth were living in Johnson with two children under ten, a boy and a girl. These would have been Nathan M. and Cynthia. My third great-grandfather, Jonathan, was born in 1800, most likely after the census was taken.

1825 Lower Canada Census, Stanstead, Quebec

At some point after 1807 but prior to 1825 Jonah Whipple moved to Chateaugay, New York, with his children Nathan, Jonathan, Daniel, and Mary Ann. We don’t know whether or not Hepsibeth moved with him. Sadly, it appears that she was separated from Jonah for a number of years. According to the 1825 census of Lower Canada, Hepsibeth and her youngest child, John, were living in Stanstead, Quebec, just across the border from Vermont. The census lists her as “widow Hepzibah Whipple” although in fact her husband Jonah was alive and probably by that time was living in Chateaugay, New York. Most likely Hepsibeth was in Stanstead because her oldest daughter, Cynthia Whipple Morrill, was living there with her husband, Gilman A. Morrill. Jonah and Hepsibeth’s son John married Esther Bickford of Hatley, Quebec, and lived his entire life there. Hepsibeth died in 1837 and is buried in Ayer’s Cliff, Quebec. Jonah died in Chateaugay on January 6, 1843 and is buried there.

Jonathan Whipple

Jonathan Whipple, the father of Lyndon Leander Whipple and grandfather of Lizzie Whipple Brown, was born in Vermont in 1800. According to an account I haven’t been able to verify, he married Lucinda Kentner on April 22, 1826, in New York State. Lucinda had been born in Plattsburgh, in Clinton County, New York, in 1806. In 1830 Jonathan, Lucinda, and their oldest son Levi were living in Madrid, New York, in St. Lawrence County. Lucinda’s sister, Clarinda, and her husband, Garret Van Brackley, were also living in Madrid. In 1840 Jonathan, Lucinda and their family were living in Chateaugay, where Jonathan's brothers Nathan and Daniel were living, as well as his father, Jonah.

By 1844 (the year after Jonah’s death) the Jonathan Whipple family had moved to Sterling, Macomb County, Michigan. Apparently they moved to Michigan because several of Lucinda’s siblings and their families moved there. In the 1850 and 1860 censuses, Jonathan’s occupation is listed as “farmer.” Sometime just before 1870, Jonathan and his wife Lucinda moved to Fairgrove, in Tuscola County, Michigan, (in the "Thumb") along with some of the families of Lucinda's siblings. 

Jonathan died in Tuscola County sometime in 1882. Lucinda lived until February 18, 1899. They are buried in the Gilford Township Cemetery.