Elliot Whipple

Professor Elliot Whipple has been appointed to the newly established chair of Social Science, which includes also Political and Governmental Science, at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill. He was born on September 11, 1842 at St. Johnsbury, Caledonia County, Vt. His early education was obtained at the district public schools of Johnsbury and Columbia, N. H., and at the Colebrook and Oxford Academies of the same State. In 1860, he entered Dartmouth College, graduating with the degree of A. B. in 1864. In 1870 he received the degree of A. M. from Wheaton College. From 1864 to 1867 he taught in public and private schools in Massachusetts. In 1867 he was appointed tutor in Wheaton College, which position he occupied until 1870, when he was appointed Professor of Natural Science at that college. Two years later he became Professor of Mathematics at Westfield College, Iowa. From 1873 to 1875 he was Principal of Bunker Hill Academy in Illinois. In 1875 he became Professor of Natural Science at Westfield College,and in 1877 Superintendent of Schools at Mishawaka, Indiana. Two years later, in 1879, he returned to New Hampshire as Principal of McGaw Normal Institute at Merrimack. He remained there for seven years, when he went to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to become Superintendent of the Ramona Indian School. In 1887 he returned to his former position as Professor of Natural Science at Wheaton College, which position he has lately resigned to accept the new chair to which he has been elected. Professor Whipple is a member of the National Teachers' Association and of the Illinois and the New Hampshire State Teachers' Associations, having served in 1877 as District Vice-President of the Illinois Association, and from 1880 to 1885 as Treasurer of the New Hampshire Association (The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 4 (1894), p. 127). 


Elliot Whipple, whose ancestors from Connecticut settled in Waterford Vermont soon after the Revolutionary War, is Professor of Social Science and Pedagogy in College. His grandfather Daniel Whipple cultivated a small farm in Waterford. His father, Ira Whipple, married Phidelia Davis and settled in St Johnsbury, Vermont, where Elliot was born September 11, 1842. The family removed to Columbia, NH when he was seven years of age. He was educated in the district schools of that town and in Colebrook Academy, N.H., finishing his preparation for college at Orford Academy, N.H. and graduating at Dartmouth College, N.H. in 1864. He began teaching in district schools in 1858 and earned a part of the money necessary for college expenses by teaching school each winter. Mr. Whipple was married to Samantha Johnson of Stratford, N.H. in 1863. Her father Elisha Johnson was a farmer whose ancestors were from Connecticut and settled in Stratford in 1790. She was educated in the district schools and at Lancaster Academy, N.H. and St. Johnsbury Academy, VT. Mr. and Mrs. Whipple were engaged in teaching in Massachusetts from 1864 to 1867 and moved to Wheaton IL in the latter year when their eldest child, Harlan W. Whipple, was about two years of age. Mr. Whipple was employed as Principal of the preparatory department in Wheaton College and afterward became Professor of Natural Sciences in the same institution. In 1869 their only daughter, Maud Whipple, was born. She graduated from the classical course of Wheaton College in 1892 and became teacher of English and stenography in the same institution in 1893. Mr. Whipple resigned his professorship in 1872 and for fifteen years was absent from Wheaton being constantly engaged in teaching in other institutions in Illinois, Indiana, and New Hampshire. In 1887 he returned to Wheaton to take his old position as Professor of Natural Sciences which he held until the summer of 1893 when he was transferred to the newly created chair of Social Science. Professor Whipple has done considerable work in county institutes in various counties in Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. He is the author of Animal Analysis a method of teaching zoology. He received a State teacher's certificate in Illinois in 1875 and a first grade certificate in the city of Boston in 1885. Harlan W. Whipple graduated at Williams College in Massachusetts in 1888 and was married to Emma E. Gould of Andover, Mass. December 1890. To them was born a son Harold C. Whipple while they were residing in Tacoma, Washington in February 1892 (Portrait and biographical record of Cook and Dupage counties, Illinois. Lake City publishing co., 1894, p. 315-316).