Individual Details

John Whipple was in Dorchester MA as early as 1632, in service to Israel Stoughten, carpenter. He received a grant of land at Dorchester neck in 1637 and sold it in 1658. He received an allotment of land in Providence RI in July of 1659. He and his son John took the oath of allegiance there in 1666. According to an inscription on his tombstone (which was too new to have placed at the time of his death) he died in 1685 at about 68 years of age. This differs from other information found at various homepages.

John Whipple sold his 45 acre Dorchester property, 15 November 1658: "John Whipple, carpenter...his now dwelling house and housements scituate and being in Dorchester near the river Naponset together with thirty-seven acres of upland more or less thereto adjoining, also eight acres of salt marsh more or less lying near the place commonly called the penny ferry." Suffolk Land Records, Deeds, 14 vols. (Boston: 1880-1906) 3:204-05.

"Was it coincidence that one month after the proclamation of the death penalty for Quakers, 19 October 1658, John sold his property...and began preparation to leave for Rhode Island, the only safe haven in New England for members of that sect? However, it is just as conceivable that Captain John could have become disenthralled with religion in general." Irvin Richman, Rhode Island, Its Making and Meaning (New York: B.P. Putnam Sons, 1908) 292.

His title of "Captain" was strictly honorary. There is no record that he or his compatriots, including Roger Williams, used a weapon against the warring Indians of 1675/76 (the Indians refused to take up arms against Williams), or ever led a group of men into battle as an officer.

Last Will & Testament dated 8 May 1682. Proved 27 May 1685. Joseph Whipple, Executor.
Names sons: John, Samuel, Eleazer, William, Benjamin, David, Jonathan, Joseph Daughters: Sarah, Mary, Abigail

The homepage of Susan Hill Shannon which seems to be well sourced and documented states that Whipple was born 21 Dec 1617 in Bocking, Essex, England and died 10 Aug 1683 in Providence. The only problem with this is that the Bocking Whipples do not seem to be the same family and his gravestone gives the date of death of John Whipple as 16 May 1685. It is not actually know where in England John [of Rhode Island] came from. The sketch of John Whipple in Great Migrations Begins points out that at least one researcher has hopelessly confused the John of Providence and the John of Ipswich who was born in Bocking.


Below are verbatim excerpts from Dr. Charles M. Whipple Jr. , “A History of Captain John and Sarah Whipple of Dorchester, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island 1617-1685: A Multigenerational History of the First Whipple Family in America” (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: Trafford Publishing: 2007).
Page ii: “Barbara R. Carroll was the lead researcher on this book… Barbara is a member of The Association of Professional Genealogists”
[For more details on Barbara Redman Carroll see https://www.apgen.org/directory/search_detail.html?mbr_id=282]
Page xiii: “…this volume in an indepth biography of Captain John and Sarah…. It lays to rest a plethora of erroneous information and misguided theories previously published.”
Page 1: “John Whipple of [16 September] 1632 [a 15-year-old passenger on the Lyon with John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony] must not be confused with two middle-aged Whipple brothers, John and Matthew, who arrived in Massachusetts in 1638. There is no known relationship between the teenager John Whipple and the Whipple brothers…”
Extensive excerpts from this book are also online at http://whipple.org/charles/johnandsarah/. This site also provides further insights on the unknown origins of John’s wife, Sarah:
“Many published genealogies state John Whipple married Sarah They or Darling ca. 1639. (He would have been 22-23, she 15-16.) Torrey, (13) who refers to her only as Sarah (no surname), says the marriage took place in Dorchester, but does not provide a confirming record.
No evidence has been found to confirm that Sarah's maiden name was either They or Darling. Neither appears among early Dorchester surnames; the closest being Thayer. Sarah's tombstone states she was born in Dorchester and died in Providence in 1666, aged about 42 years. If the year and age are correct, she would have been born ca. 1624. Thus, she could not have been born in Dorchester, unless she was a Neponset Indian, since Dorchester wasn't founded until 1630. English settlers didn't marry Indians in those days, so we can presume she was white. With a birth date of 1624, we can be sure that if she was born in New England, it must have been in Plymouth, which was settled in 1620. Travel by a ferry operated by Bray Wilkins at a cost of a penny per person between Dorchester and Plymouth was common in 1638. (14)”

ORIGINS OF CAPT. JOHN WHIPPLE: BACK TO SQUARE ONE?
Dr. Charles M. Whipple Jr. continues his active and unrelenting research of the ancestry of Captain John Whipple, who arrived in Dorchester, Massachusetts aboard the ship Lyon in 1632. (John died in 1685 in Providence, Rhode Island.)
Uncomfortable with conclusions drawn from 1988 and 1990 research reports published by Debrett Ancestry Research Ltd of Winchester UK, he again commissioned Debrett to research further the Whipples of Essex County in the 1500s and 1600s.
Debrett published its new report in January 2022.
In that report, Debrett concludes that the John Whaples who was baptized in Great Waltham on 13 December 1618 was NOT the same person as young John Whipple who arrived at Dorchester Massachusetts in 1632.
Rather, John Whaples was buried in Great Waltham on 29 April 1638, four years after having been mentioned in the will of his grandmother in 1634.
During the coming weeks, the databases of the Whipple One-Name Study and the Whipple Genweb will be updated to reflect this latest research.
Other pages will likewise be updated to correct our previous conclusions.

In February 2022 the Whipple Website (now the Whipple One-Name Study) received a new document entitled The Whipple Family of Bocking and the Whaples Family of Great Waltham prepared by Debrett Ancestry Research Ltd of Winchester, UK. That document (commissioned by Dr. Charles M. Whipple Jr.) presents evidence that Captain John is not the John Whaple(s) of Great Waltham, England. the Whipple One-Name Study now retracts its acceptance of the connection.

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