Note 185 — Chapter XIII · QUAKERTOWN.

Jonathan Whipple was born in 1794. He never attended school, but it was not from lack of inclination, for he most ardently desired an education. The reader from which his mother taught him his letters he learned so thoroughly that he could repeat it verbatim. In arithmetic he had no instruction further than the fundamental rules, but while he was yet a boy he learned enough of numbers to answer for ordinary occasions. His father set him his first copies in writing, but he improved so rapidly that he soon needed better instruction and got neighboring school-teachers to write copies for him. Ere many years had elapsed, he had no need of copies, since he ranked in penmanship among the first.

Although Mr. Whipple was a hard-working mason, he so much felt the need of more education than he possessed, that, after he had married and settled down in life, he set about informing himself more thoroughly than his previous opportunities had allowed. He so far qualified himself, that he was employed several terms to teach a school of over seventy pupils. In point of discipline and promptness of education his school ranked first in town.

He contributed many articles to various papers, touching on the great topics before the public. The temperance cause received his hearty support, for he was a total abstinence man, at a time when even the most respectable men regularly took their “grog.”

He was an abolitionist of the most radical type long before the names of Garrison and Phillips were known in the land.

As an advocate for universal peace, he was found among the pioneers in the cause. In short, he was a philanthropist in the broadest and truest sense of the word; he labored all his life for the good of his fellow-creatures. He was kind and generous; was never engaged in a law-suit in his life, and spent more time with the sick than any other non-professional man of our acquaintance. In the summer of 1820 the typhoid fever raged in his neighborhood; he spent his whole time, without a thought of reward, among the sufferers.

His blameless and useful life made him respected and beloved wherever he was known.

The fame, however, that he acquired was chiefly due to his remarkable success in teaching the deaf to talk.

When the youngest of his five children was old enough to walk, he noticed that, although the boy seemed active and intelligent, he made no effort to speak. The discovery that his little Enoch was actually deaf, was a trial which seemed greater than he could endure. To think that this (his youngest) son must be forever shut out of the world of sound and doomed to endless silence was unendurable. After many fruitless trials to make the boy hear and repeat what he heard, the father gave it up as useless.

Mr. Whipple had never heard of the schools in Europe where the deaf are taught articulation and lip-reading; but, at length, noticing that Enoch would sometimes attempt to repeat a word, if he was looking directly at the speaker’s mouth, the thought occurred to the father that perhaps every word had a shape, and that by learning the shape of each letter, as moulded by the mouth, the boy might be taught to imitate it. The task was begun. Every moment Mr. Whipple could spare,—for he was a poor man, and besides his own family there were some orphan children depending upon him,—he devoted to teaching his little son. It was astonishing what progress was made. Other members of the family also acted as teachers, and as Enoch grew towards manhood, he was not merely on par with his associates, but acknowledged by all to be a superior youth. He could read, could write a nice hand, and for deciphering poor penmanship there was scarcely his equal for miles around. He could also talk. To such perfection was his instruction carried by his energetic father that this deaf man has done business with strangers, bought goods of merchants, etc., and has gone away without leaving a suspicion of his infirmity.

As has been seen, the efforts of Mr. Whipple did not end with teaching his own son. He made many successful experiments with other deaf mutes, which led to the founding of The Home School for the deaf at Mystic.

After Jonathan Whipple had passed his seventieth year, his faculties remained unimpaired, and he was as indefatigable in his efforts to improve the condition of the afflicted as when his theory was first put in practice. His life was a useful and beautiful one; not a struggle to gain wealth or to win fame; but simply to do good. His declining years were cheered by the knowledge that he had wronged none and bettered many.—Abstract from Life of Jonathan Whipple in “Men of Mark.”