Background
Abraham Whipple was born on September 26, 1733 at Providence, R. I, a descendant of John Whipple, one of the original proprietors of the Providence Plantations.
Abraham Whipple was born on September 26, 1733 at Providence, R. I, a descendant of John Whipple, one of the original proprietors of the Providence Plantations.
He had little formal education.
Choosing a seafaring life, he acquired a knowledge of navigation and accounting and engaged in the West India trade in the employ of Nicholas Brown. In 1759-60 he commanded the privateer Game Cock and in a six-month cruise captured twenty-three French vessels.
In 1772 with a party of fifty men he burned his majesty's schooner Gaspée, which had run aground near Pawtucket, a daring exploit, sometimes regarded as the first overt act of the Revolution. When in 1775 the Rhode Island General Assembly ordered two vessels to be fitted out for the defense of trade, it turned to Whipple as the most experienced sea captain in the colony and appointed him commodore of the little fleet.
On June 15, the day that he received his commission, he captured the tender of the British frigate Rose, the first prize of the patriots taken by an official vessel. After cruising during the summer in Narragansett Bay, he was sent to Bermuda for gunpowder. On his return he transported some naval recruits to Philadelphia, where his ship, the Katy, was taken into the Continental Navy, and he was made a captain in the service, the fourth officer in that rank. In the essay that resulted in the capture of New Providence and the inglorious fight with the Glasgow, he commanded the Columbus, 20 guns. For permitting the enemy to escape he and his superior officers were haled before the Marine Committee at Philadelphia, which, after investigating the charges against him, reported that they amounted to nothing more than a "rough, indelicate" treatment of his marine officers, and ordered him to repair to his ship.
In 1778 he sailed for France in the frigate Providence to procure munitions and carry dispatches. After visiting Paris and being presented to the king, he went to sea with a small fleet under his command, and reached home in safety, having taken a few prizes.
In 1779 as commodore of several vessels, with the Providence as his flagship, he made a cruise and had the good fortune to fall in with a fleet of heavily laden East-Indiamen. He cut out eleven of them, eight of which reached port. The spoils were worth more than a million dollars, one of the richest captures of the war. Later in the year with four Continental vessels he arrived in Charlestown, S. C. , where he was entrusted with the naval defense of the city. With one exception, the Continental vessels were dismantled and their guns and crews taken ashore to reinforce the land batteries. On the fall of the city Whipple was made prisoner. Paroled, he was sent to Chester, Pa. , where he remained until the end of the war. For several years the commodore lived on his farm near Cranston, R. I. Responding to a call to the sea, he made a voyage to England as master of the General Washington.
On the formation of the Ohio Company he emigrated, with his wife, two daughters, and a son, to Marietta, Ohio, where for six years he cultivated a small plot under the protection of the fort. When peace with the Indians was assured, he moved to a farm and supported himself by his own labor until 1811 when Congress granted him a pension. In 1801 his rural pursuits were interrupted while he made a commercial voyage to New Orleans, Havana, and Philadelphia.
The period from 1759 to 1760, was one of the most eventful ones of Whipple’s career, where he captured around 26 ships of French origin, as a captain of the ship ‘Game Cock’. Another event for which Whipple is remembered is the ‘Gaspee Affair’ of 1772. The British customs Schooner ‘HMS Gaspee’, which had enforced unfair trading regulations, was destroyed under Whipple’s leadership. His ship, the St. Clair, is said to have been the first squarerigged vessel built on the Ohio River to make a voyage to the sea.
In person Whipple was short, thickset, and muscular, with dark-grey eyes.
On August 2, 1761, he was married to Sarah Hopkins, a sister of Stephen and Esek Hopkins.
