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finally closed with a sweeping victory for the Buckeye candidate, the crystallization was complete, and the name "Buckeye" was irrevocably fixed upon the State and people of Ohio, and continues to the present day one of the most popular and familiar sobriquets in use.

So early as 1841 the President of an Eastern College established for the education of young women, showing a friend over the establishment said, "there is a young lady from New York, that one is from Virginia, and this," pointing to another, "is one of our new Buckeye girls." A few years later the Hon. S. S. Cox, a native Buckeye, and then a resident of Ohio, made a tour of Europe and wrote home a series of bright and interesting letters over the nom de plume of "A Buckeye Abroad," which were extensively read and helped still further to fix the name and give it character. The Buckeye State has now a population of more than three million live Buckeyes, Buckeye coal and mining companies, Buckeye manufactories of every kind and description, Buckeye reapers and mowers, Buckeye stock, farms, houses, hotels, furnaces, rolling mills, gas and oil wells, fairs, conventions, etc., and on to-morrow we propose to celebrate a Buckeye centennial.

COMMODORE ABRAHAM WHIPPLE.

A PAPER BY HIS GREAT-GRANDSON, DAVID FISHER.

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN-From the printed circular I hold in my hand, I read, "the seventh of April, 1888, is a day in which the immediate descendants of the first settlers of Marietta principally have an interest."

As a descendant of Commodore Whipple, it is with emotions of reverence, pleasure, and pride that I am permitted to be present at the Centennial Celebration of Marietta, and pay respect to the memory of those resolute, determined, fearless pioneers, who founded this beautiful city, from which has extended the civilization, growth, prosperity, and influence of the "Great Northwest." How many, or who of these descendants there may be present, I am not aware, but to all such I extend a hearty greeting.

The little I may have to say will have reference particularly to Commodore Whipple and incidents in his earlier life, leaving to other and more competent persons the eulogies of Putnam, Cutler, Varnum, Parsons, Tupper, Sproat, Devol, Meigs, and others.

Commodore Abraham Whipple was born near Providence, R. I., September 26, 1733. At the age of thirteen, his father, having sold his farm, he, with his parents, removed to Providence. In 1761, August 2, Whipple married Sarah Hopkins, a niece of Governor Hopkins. By this marriage they had two daughters, Catherine, who married Lieutenant Colonel Sproat, and Polly, who married Dr. Ezekial Comstock, of Smithfield, R. I. By this last marriage there were two children, Dr. W. W. Comstock, who died a few years since at Middleboro, Mass., and Sarah Ann, who was my mother, and who died at Wrentham, Mass., in September, 1855. Colonel Sproat died at Marietta, August 29. 1819, his wife having died October 15, 1818.

The close of the Revolutionary war found many who had risked their all in sustaining the government, penniless and in want, the paper currency in which they had been paid having

depreciated to almost a worthless value. This poverty was, in great measure, the cause of the forming of the "Massachusetts and Rhode Island Company," who hoped by seeking new homes in the then far West to regain at least a small part of what they had lost, or at least to secure a living for themselves and families. If I have been rightly informed, Commodore Whipple and Rufus Putnam made the journey from Providence to Marietta in the fall of 1787, and on their return to New England with a favorable report, the colony decided to remove in the spring of 1788 to where Marietta now stands, arriving April seventh of the same year.

From boyhood Whipple had a strong love for the sea, and before he was twenty-one years of age had made several voyages. During these voyages he taught himself navigation and bookkeeping.

In the old French war he became captain of the privateer sloop "Game Cock," and, as reported in the Boston Post Boy and Advertiser of February 4, 1760, he, during one voyage, took twenty-three prizes, from which he realized some $60,000, a very large sum at that time.

Commodore Whipple was a man of great muscular power, undoubted courage and daring, a lover of the truth, generous and kind, possessed of a mind fertile in expedients, which often made him a match for superior forces. As an illustration: In one voyage he was chased by a French privateer, with more men and guns than himself, but having made as great a show of men as possible, by setting up hand spikes with hats and caps on them, he boldly turned his vessel and bore square on the enemy, who, taken aback by the maneuver, with all haste escaped from their cunning opponent.

The one thing for which Commodore Whipple's name should be kept in remembrance is the fact that he struck the first blow of the Revolution, in 1772, on the water. On the 17th of June, 1772, the packet "Hannah," plying between Providence and New York, was chased by the armed British vessel "Gaspee," and was decoyed by Whipple to a shoal place, where the "Gaspee" stuck fast, while Whipple, in the "Hannah," reached Providence in safety. The news created great excitement, and a large crowd

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was soon collected by the beating of drums. On a sudden a man, disguised as an Indian, appeared on the roof of a house nearby, and gave notice of a secret expedition that night, and invited all stout hearts to assemble at the wharf at nine o'clock that evening, disguised like himself. That man was Whipple. That night sixty men obeyed the call, and went out in eight row boats to capture an armed vessel. There was but one musket in the expedition. They were hailed by the sentinel on board the "Gaspee," demanding who commanded those boats. Whipple replied: "I am Sheriff of the County of Kent and Providence Plantations. I come to arrest Captain Dudingston, and if you do not at once surrender will blow you to atoms." The boats were well supplied with stones of a convenient size, which were brought into use. Whipple fired the musket, wounding the sentinel in the thigh, and at the same time the men poured in a broadside of stones, which soon cleared the deck of the "Gaspee," and Whipple, leading the men, soon had possession. They secured the men as prisoners, fired the vessel, returning to Providence without casualties. A Royal Commission offered a reward of one hundred pounds for the capture of any one engaged in the assault, and afterwards a reward for the body of the Sheriff of the County of Kent, dead or alive, but without success, as those loyal men could not be bought. The silver cup I now hold in my hand was at that time taken from the "Gaspee."

In May, 1776, the Legislature of Rhode Island passed an act renouncing all allegiance to the King of Great Britain, and ten days before the battle of Bunker Hill the same Legislature purchased and armed two sloops, giving the command of one to Whipple. On the 15th of June, 1775, Whipple, in his official capacity, attacked two British boats, capturing them and, by this act, fired the first gun of the Revolution on the water.

This bold act was done under the guns of the British frigate "Rose," commanded by Sir William Wallace. Wallace in the meantime had learned who captured and burnt the "Gaspee" and wrote the following curt note: "You, Abraham Whipple, burned His Majesty's vessel, the 'Gaspee,' and I will hang you at yard arm. Signed, William Wallace." To this Whipple re

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