Whipper, William

Life Span
to
    Full name
    William Whipper
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Estimated
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    Black
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    Occupation
    Businessman
    Relation to Slavery
    Slave or Former Slave
    Other Affiliations
    Abolitionists (Anti-Slavery Society)

    William Whipper (Still, 1872)

    Scholarship
    The locality of Columbia, [Pennsylvania,] where Mr. Whipper resided for many years, was, as is well-known, a place of much note as a station on the Underground Rail Road. The firm of Smith and Whipper (lumber merchants), was likewise well-known throughout a wide range of country. Who, indeed, amongst those familiar with the history of public matters connected with the colored people of this country, has not heard of William Whipper? For the last thirty years, as an able business man, it has been very generally admitted, that he hardly had a superior.

    Although an unassuming man, deeply engrossed with business - Anti-slavery papers, conventions, and public movements having for their aim the elevation of the colored man, have always commanded Mr. Whipper's interest and patronage. In the more important conventions which have been held amongst the colored people for the last thirty years, perhaps no other colored man has been so often called on to draft resolutions and prepare addresses, as the modest and earnest William Whipper. He has worked effectively in a quiet way, although not as a public speaker. He is self-made, and well read on the subject of the reforms of the day. Having been highly successful in his business, he is now at the age of seventy, in possession of a handsome fortune; the reward of long years of assiduous labor. He is also cashier of the Freedman's Bank, in Philadelphia. For the last few years he has resided at New Brunswick, New Jersey, although his property and business confine him mainly to his native State, Pennsylvania.
    William Still, The Underground Rail Road (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), 735.
    How to Cite This Page: "Whipper, William," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/12446.