Butte County
Biographies
THOMAS F. WHIPPLE
THOMAS
F. WHIPPLE.--Among Butte County's men of prominence,
Thomas F. Whipple stands a unique figure among the progressive men of Northern
California. For many years actively engaged in political life, he
is now Supervisor of the Third Supervisorial District, incumbent in the office
since January, 1913. He has the further distinction of being a native son, born
of an old pioneer family. His father, David Whipple, was born in the Old
Dominion, or to speak the literal truth, he had the unusual experience of being
born on a canal boat, of parents who were residents of Virginia.
The elder Whipple removed with his parents in his boyhood days to Illinois,
where he grew up and married Miss Adeline Patience Allen, a native of Hartford,
Conn., who lived with her daughter, Mrs.
Emma Danforth, at Oroville, until her death, October 8, 1917, at the advanced
age of ninety-three years. In 1854, David Whipple crossed the plains with his
wife and her mother and one child, David Scott Whipple, spending the first
winter in the new home at Marysville, the next spring removing to Merrimac,
then known as Pea Vine, on the Oroville and Quincy
Road. He preempted a one-hundred-sixty-acre home
place at Wyandotte, a portion of
which Thomas F. Whipple is now living on. During the summer David Whipple ran
the saw mill at Pea Vine, furnishing lumber for the minters, and worked
clearing up the land and raising stock in the winter time. In 1872 he returned
to Adams County, Illinois, to dispose of his farming interest in that place. In 1873
he purchased a farm at Hamilton Bend (the former county seat of Butte
County), upon which the old jail
was located, utilizing it for a granary. He still retained the Wyandotte
ranch while running the ranch at Hamilton Bend. About 1876 he disposed of the
Hamilton Bend place at a good advance in the price of the property, and came
back to the Wyandotte ranch, where
he lived until the completion of a well rounded life, dying at the age of
seventy-eight years, December 28, 1898. During his lifetime he was constable of
Butte County
for several years. Of the children born to him the three oldest died in Illinois.
Of the five others remaining: David Scott is a farmer at Wyandotte, who married
Emma Hamilton, and who lives just below the home place of his brother, Thomas
F.; Andrew J. died in his early manhood at twenty-seven years of age; Florence
A. is now the wife of George W. Simpson of Brush Creek, Butte County; Thomas
F., the subject of this review; and Emma L., widow of Frank C. Danforth.
Thomas
F. Whipple was born October 4, 1861, at Merrimac, or Pea Vine, as the place was
then called. Thomas F. obtained an excellent education in the graded schools of
Wyandotte. He became interested
with his father in stock-raising, becoming the main stay of his father in this
business during the twenty years that the elder Whipple was afflicted with
sciatic rheumatism before he died. In 1891 he was united in marriage with Miss
Mary Agnes Fahey, daughter of M. Fahey of Oroville. Her mother, Mary (Quinn)
Fahey, died nineteen years ago, and was the mother of thirteen children, two of
whom died in infancy. The remaining children are: Margaret McDonald, now living
in Stockton; James L., interested in dredger-mining at Junction City, Trinity
County, Cal.; Mary Agnes (Mrs. Thomas F. Whipple); Dehlia Tobin, living in
Stockton; Michael E., living at Marigold, Yuba County; Edward A., residing at
Fair Oaks; William M., dredger-mining at Oroville; Charles J., dredger-mining
at Fair Oaks, Sacramento County; Thomas H., now living in Los Angeles; Nellie
E. Gross, living in Oakland; Tatu, a resident of Oroville.
Mr.
and Mrs. Whipple have two children: Lois L., who graduated from Notre Dame
Convent at Marysville, afterwards graduating from a private normal school in San
Francisco, and is now teaching in the Oroville grammar
school; and Oscar L., who was at home with his father, until joining Company I,
Twenty-first Infantry, United States Army.
Thomas
F. Whipple is a man of more than ordinary ability. He was Deputy Field Assessor
of Butte County
for eighteen years, and continued the occupation of stock-raising and farming
until four years ago. He has sold all of his land except forty-two and one half
acres, fifteen acres of which is set to almonds, ten acres to olives, and about
one acre to pears and apples. Mr. and Mrs. Whipple have a comfortably, well
equipped modern home, and are highly respected and popular with all who know
them. Mrs. Whipple is a member of the Catholic Church at Oroville. Mr. Whipple
is a member of the I. O. F.
Transcribed by Sande Beach.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 808-809, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Sande Beach.
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