Naval officer; born in
Providence, R. I., Sept. 16, 1733; went to sea in early life; commanded a ship in the
West India trade, and in 1759-60 was captain of a privateer, capturing in a single cruise twenty-six French vessels.
His vessel was called the
Game Cock.
In June, 1772,
Whipple commanded the volunteers who burned the
Gaspee in Narraganset Bay.
In 1775 he was put in command of two armed vessels fitted out by
Rhode Island, and was given the title of commodore.
With these he drove
Sir James Wallace, in command of the frigate
Rose, out of Narraganset Bay.
He was in command of a flotilla in the harbor of
Charleston at the time of the siege and capture of that city in 1780.
On March 21 of that year, the
British marine force, under
Admiral Arbuthnot, crossed the bar at
Charleston.
It consisted of one 54-gun ship, two 44-gun ships, four of thirty-two guns, and the
Sandwich, also an armed ship.
Whipple was in the outer harbor with a flotilla of small vessels.
Finding he could not prevent the British ships from passing the bar, he fell back to the waters immediately in front of
Charleston and transferred all the crews and
guns of his vessels, excepting one, to the batteries on the shore.
The commodore sunk most of his own and some merchant vessels near
Shute's Folly, at the mouth of the
Cooper River, to prevent British vessels from entering it. After the capture of the city he lost his vessels, was made a prisoner, and so continued during the remainder of the war. On the formation of the Ohio Company he took his family and settled at
Marietta, where he died, May 29, 1819.
