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Acknowledgments This study of the long life and far-ranging career of Abraham Whipple took over three years to complete and involved research at many locales within the United States and abroad. My visits there were pleasant and rewarding , and I remain especially grateful to the individuals working at several research sites. I also remain appreciative of the many persons who offered suggestions concerning the locations of data relating to Abraham Whipple, as well as those who reviewed my writing. First and foremost, my scholarly colleague and friend Dr. Michael Crawford , head, Early History Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C., deserves my special thanks. Dr. Crawford is the present editor of the monumental series Naval Documents of the American Revolution. (This highly praised collection, which now totals eleven volumes, is an invaluable tool for scholars investigating naval activities during this nation’s lengthy struggle for independence.) Dr. Crawford prompted me to initiate my study of this very noteworthy but largely neglected naval hero. He also gave generously of his time to review and to offer advice and criticisms along the way. Dr. Crawford provided valuable information concerning additional primary and secondary source material. Two other scholars who provided insightful commentaries were William Fowler of Northeastern University and James C. Bradford at Texas A&M University. Dr. Fowler is truly among the best writers in the field of American naval history. I also wish to acknowledge persons at places in Rhode Island where Abraham Whipple was born and spent most of his life—excluding his absences at sea. The Rhode Island Historical Society in Providence provided me with a considerable array of manuscripts that helped form a historical foundation for this biographical treatise. I am grateful to the members of its very considerate staff, including Kirsten Hammerstrom, Lee Teverow, Dana S. Munroe, Samantha Wilson, Hilliard Beller, J. D. Kay, and Bernard P. Fishman. They, along with Sally Small, my researcher, pointed the way to their holdings of Whipple Papers. Also, in Rhode Island’s capital, the staffs at Brown University’s John Hay and John Carter Brown Libraries and at the state archives were quite oblig- xx Acknowledgments ing to my requests. Bruce Lippincoot of the Newport Historical Society offered me several items from that repository dealing with the economic and social rivalries between Newport and Providence, rivalries which continued after American independence. In Boston, the Massachusetts Historical Society and the New England Historical and Genealogical Society provided me with valuable material. Also in the Bay State, the Essex Institute in Salem yielded useful historical data. In Connecticut, Yale’s Sterling Library provided essential material concerning this Continental naval officer. Its massive series, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, is being edited there, with almost forty volumes of manuscript materials having been published. Since Abraham Whipple had dealings with the eminent Dr. Franklin, many of Franklin’s papers relate to Whipple. The staff of the collections, including the editor, Ellen R. Cohn, and her assistants, including Jonathan Dull and Kate Ohno, graciously supplied relevant documents to me. Ms. Ohno also showed me the microfilm papers of John Paul Jones, which divulged the somewhat “testy” relationship between Whipple and this more celebrated American mariner. Sites in the mid-Atlantic and southern states yield items that tie in with the multitude of events that affected this well-traveled seaman. The staffers who work with Dr. Crawford supplied most gracious help. In this regard, I extend gratitude to Laura Waayers and Ed Finney of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Other locales that provided essential primary and secondary source material include the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the South Carolina Historical Society, and the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress. In the Midwest, the primary source for Abraham Whipple material is the University of Michigan’s William L. Clements Library in Ann Arbor. The library holds manuscript microfilm papers of Abraham Whipple that cover his life from the late 1750s to the late 1780s. My thanks go there for the generous assistance of Dr. John Dann and Janet Bloom. In Ohio, where Whipple lived the final thirty years of his life, the Ohio State Library and Archives and the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus provided both original and secondary source materials. Elizabeth L. Plummer and Teresa Carstensen there were especially helpful. Nonetheless, the picturesque Ohio River town of Marietta has the largest trove of materials in that state. There, Ernie Thode, director of genealogy at the Washington County Public Library, and David Paige, a...

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