James Davenport Whelpley

Last updated • 11 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

James Davenport Whelpley
Born(1817-01-23)January 23, 1817
New York City, US
DiedApril 15, 1872(1872-04-15) (aged 55)
Boston, Massachusetts, US
Alma mater Yale College (AB)
Occupation(s)Physician, author, editor, metallurgist
Known for

James Davenport Whelpley (1817–1872) was an American physician, author, editor, inventor, and metallurgist.

Contents

Early life and education

James Whelpley was born in New York City on January 23, 1817, the son of Rev. Philip Melanchthon Whelpley (December 22, 1794 – July 17, 1824) and his wife, Abigail Fitch Davenport (November 17, 1791 – June 1864). Philip Whelpley was, from May 1815 until his death, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, then situated on Wall Street in New York City. Abigail Whelpley was a descendant of Rev. John Davenport, the first minister of New Haven colony.

In a lecture given in 1880, William E. Dodge recalled Rev. Whelpley:

I remember when young Philip Melanchthon Whelpley was pastor of the Wall Street Church...He was settled when only about twenty-one, was a most eloquent man, but suffered from dyspepsia; he lived in Greenwich Street back of Trinity Church. Some adventurous man had put up four small houses on White Street, then just opened, near Broadway, and as Mr. Whelpley felt the need of exercise, and the rent was very low, he ventured to hire one of these. [1]

After Philip Whelpley's death in 1824, Abigail Whelpley returned to New Haven, where she came under the protection of her cousin James Hillhouse. He built an elegant neoclassical house for her and her two sons at 33 Hillhouse Avenue, completed in 1827, where they lived until at least 1840. [2]

According to James Whelpley's obituary published by the American Academy of Arts and Science, after his father's death, "he was sent to school at New Haven, where, at an early age, he showed a decided taste for chemical study and experimentation." In New Haven, he prepared for college at the Hopkins Grammar School, [3] graduating alongside his brother, Philip M. Whelpley, Jr., in 1833. [4] James Whelpley entered Yale College that same year, and graduated with an AB degree in 1837.

Whelpley, who minded not having a father, found a mentor in Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864), a family friend, the first professor of chemistry at Yale, and the first to give there a scientific lecture on any subject. In a letter to Silliman's son in 1862, Whelpley wrote:

I wish to be particularly remembered to Professor Silliman...it is difficult for me to express the emotions which affected me when I saw him last summer—emotions of reverence and affection. I felt then that his character had been of more value to me in producing good in my own life than those of any other man. It was my great misfortune in early life to have no father. It was not only a misfortune but a constant cause of regret and sorrow. Mr. Silliman, by the dignity and kindness of his life, impressed me with just views, and by the facilities which he afforded me when young, enabled me to acquire a truly scientific and practical education. I remember too, all the little social benefits and kindnesses which I received in his family, and I remember them with gratitude and a pleasure which is more pure as years advance. [5]

Medical and scientific interests (1837–1846)

After graduating from Yale, Whelpley assisted Henry Darwin Rogers with his Geological Survey of Pennsylvania. The survey was first proposed in 1832 by the Geological Society of Pennsylvania. In 1836, the state legislature authorized an annual appropriation of $6,400 for five years and appointed Rogers to lead the survey in the position of State Geologist. After two years, Whelpley left the survey to study medicine, first at the Berkshire Medical College and then at Yale's Medical School. [5]

Whelpley graduated from the Medical Department of Yale College, in January 1842, having prepared a thesis dissertation, On the Unity of the Organic System, and after successfully passing an interview conducted by the "Committee for the Examination of Candidates for Degrees and Licenses." [6] [7]

After Whelpley received his medical degree, he went to Brooklyn, New York, intending to practice his chosen profession, but on account of ill-health he returned to New Haven where he occupied himself with scientific study and literary pursuits. [5]

American Whig Journal (1847–1852)

Beginning in 1845, Whelpley regularly contributed articles, stories, and poems to the American Whig Review, owned and edited by George H. Colton. In 1847, Whelpley moved to New York to help an ailing Colton edit the journal. In January 1848, after Colton's death, his executors introduced Whelpley in the journal's seventh volume:

"We beg to inform the patrons of this Review, and all interested, that the work will continue to be published as heretofore, at No. 18 Nassau Street, and that the plan for its improvement, devised by the late editor, will be carried out. To this end [we] have engaged the services of James D. Whelpley, Esq.; a gentleman who has been connected with the Review from the beginning, as one of its most valuable contributors, and for a year past, intimately associated with the late lamented editor in conducting it; and in whose abilities, principles, and judgement, we have the utmost confidence. [8]

In the U.S. census, dated June 1, 1850, Whelpley was living in New York with his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law; his occupation "editor."

The journal's publishers issued the final, sixteenth volume in 1852.

Adventures in Central America

In early 1854, Whelpley, by then living in San Francisco, formed an association with his brother-in-law William Vincent Wells (1826–1876) and others, called the Honduras Mining and Trading Company, a venture Whelpley had first contemplated while editing the American Whig Review (according to a memorial essay written in 1873 by the secretary of Yale's class of 1837).

[Whelpley] conceived the idea of establishing a commercial colony in Honduras to develop the resources of that country and bring it into closer relations with the United States. To this end he obtained extensive grants of land and valuable commercial privileges from the Honduras Government. He commenced the building of steamers and barges for the navigation of the Honduras rivers...and secured more than 3,000 emigrants for the proposed colony. [5]

Meanwhile, in May 1855, American mercenary William Walker (1824–1860) led a force of 110 men on a private expedition to Central America with the intention of forcibly establishing a colony based on slave labor in Nicaragua. Walker managed to take control of the country and had himself elected president in July 1856. According to Whelpley's Yale class secretary,

[Whelpley's] arrangements were nearly complete when he heard that [Walker]...had gone to Honduras to take forcible advantage of the colonists' labors and establish a military despotism and slavery over the country. Accompanied by an armed party of fifty men, Dr. Whelpley went to Honduras to protect what he could there, and was detained by force by Walker, for nearly a year, enduring great privation and suffering, and at the same time impressed into service as surgeon and physician, taking care of the sick and wounded. [5]

In a letter to his class secretary, Whelpley described his time in captivity:

During my forced detention I was continually active as a physician and hospital surgeon...We lived as though there was no future for us in this world, in the perpetual society of and view of death in its most revolting and horrible shapes, in the companionship of assassins and thieves, conscious of the injustice of the war into which we had been forced, and studying only by what means to escape...I succeeded with a few others in working my way to the seaport and then stealing in the darkness of night on board a vessel, and then to California, from which I came at once to New York...My brother Philip was shot through the head at the Battle of St. George. [5] [9]

Byron Cole, one of Walker's lieutenants, led (at Walker's request) an exploratory expedition from July 22 to August 23, 1856, from Granada to Chontales. Cole was accompanied by "sixteen volunteers, all reliable and trustworthy men," among them Dr. James Whelpley. In his report, Cole wrote that "a mass of geographical and geological information in regard to this region was collected by Dr. Whelpley, who attended the expedition as physician and secretary." Cole noted that when the group stayed for a few days near Acoyapa, "our physician had an opportunity at this, as at several other haciendas, of rendering some important medical and surgical services, for which a great deal of sincere gratitude was expressed by the relatives of the patients."

After Whelpley's return to New York, Harper's Weekly published numerous accounts of Walker's activities in Central America (many if not all written by Whelpley) beginning on January 3, 1857, and concluding on October 13, 1860, with a report of Walker's capture and execution.

Metallurgy

In January 1848, Whelpley married Anna Maria Wells (1828–1860), of Roxbury, Massachusetts, daughter of the poets Thomas and Anna Maria Wells. As of June 1, 1860, they were living in New York City with their daughter, Annie Vincent Whelpley (1849–1930).

Anna Maria Whelpley died on July 9, 1860, and the following year Dr. Whelpley married a second time, at Dedham, Massachusetts, to Mary Louise Breed (October 11, 1841 – May 19, 1932), the Virginia-born daughter of a Baptist minister. [10] They lived in Boston where they had three children: author James Davenport Whelpley, Jr. (June 24, 1863 – March 18, 1948); artist and aviator Mary Taylor Whelpley (January 11, 1866 – July 29, 1949); and artist and photographer Philip Breed Whelpley (May 1, 1870 – April 3, 1958).

Whelpley & Storer, Boston City Directory, 1867. Whelpley & storer 1867 boston directory.jpg
Whelpley & Storer, Boston City Directory, 1867.

After his second marriage, and as early as 1863, Whelpley formed a partnership with Col. Jacob Jones Storer (1826–1902), to design and manufacturer mining equipment. [11] (Storer, a New Hampshire born son of Adm. George Washington Storer, had entered military service as a major with the 13th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment on September 23, 1862, was promoted to lieutenant colonel on June 1, 1863, and was mustered out in May 1864 owing to disability.) In 1867, The American Journal of Science and Arts described Whelpley & Storer's "General Metallurgical method", noting that:

It is claimed by the designers...that copper can in this way be produced at about one third the cost of the ordinary method. The small consumption of fuel, and the mechanical facilities afforded for handling great masses of material, are such, that the new method will probably be found especially advantageous, in the treatment of low-grade ores, in regions where transportation is difficult, and fuel scarce. [12]

James Whelpley died on April 15, 1872, from the complications of tuberculosis. The following year, his friend and business partner Jacob Storer married Whelpley's widow. Jacob Storer died in Boston on November 11, 1902, and Mary Louise Whelpley Storer died in San Diego, California on March 19, 1932.

Written works (a partial list)

Scientific and historical articles

Short stories

Poems

Writing on metallurgy

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy Dwight IV</span> American historian (1752–1817)

Timothy Dwight was an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He was the eighth president of Yale College (1795–1817).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Silliman</span> Early American chemist and science educator

Benjamin Silliman was an early American chemist and science educator. He was one of the first American professors of science, at Yale College, the first person to use the process of fractional distillation in America, and a founder of the American Journal of Science, the oldest continuously published scientific journal in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Coit Gilman</span> American educator and academic (1831–1908)

Daniel Coit Gilman was an American educator and academic. Gilman was instrumental in founding the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale College, and subsequently served as the second president of the University of California, Berkeley, as the first president of Johns Hopkins University, and as founding president of the Carnegie Institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Dwight Dana</span> American scientist

James Dwight DanaFRS FRSE was an American geologist, mineralogist, volcanologist, and zoologist. He made pioneering studies of mountain-building, volcanic activity, and the origin and structure of continents and oceans around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Davenport (minister)</span> Early English colonist in North America

John Davenport was an English Puritan clergyman and co-founder of the American colony of New Haven.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josiah Whitney</span> American geologist (1819–1896)

Josiah Dwight Whitney was an American geologist, professor of geology at Harvard University, and chief of the California Geological Survey (1860–1874). Through his travels and studies in the principal mining regions of the United States, Whitney became the foremost authority of his day on the economic geology of the U.S. Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous 48 United States, and the Whitney Glacier, the first confirmed glacier in the United States, on Mount Shasta, were both named after him by members of the Survey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheffield Scientific School</span> Former school of Yale University

Sheffield Scientific School was founded in 1847 as a school of Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, for instruction in science and engineering. Originally named the Yale Scientific School, it was renamed in 1861 in honor of Joseph E. Sheffield, a railroad executive. The school was incorporated in 1871. The Sheffield Scientific School helped establish the model for the transition of U.S. higher education from a classical model to one which incorporated both the sciences and the liberal arts. Following World War I, however, its curriculum gradually became completely integrated with Yale College. "The Sheff" ceased to function as a separate entity in 1956.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Davenport College</span> Residential college of Yale University

Davenport College is one of the fourteen residential colleges of Yale University. Its buildings were completed in 1933 mainly in the Georgian style but with a gothic façade along York Street. The college was named for John Davenport, who founded Yale's home city of New Haven, Connecticut. An extensive renovation of the college's buildings occurred during the 2004–2005 academic year as part of Yale's comprehensive building renovation project. Davenport College has an unofficial rivalry with adjoining Pierson College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward John Phelps</span> 19th-century American lawyer and diplomat

Edward John Phelps was a lawyer and diplomat from Vermont. He is notable for his service as Envoy to Court of St. James's from 1885 to 1889. In addition, Phelps was a founder of the American Bar Association, and served as its president from 1880 to 1881.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Pitkin Norton</span> American biochemist (1822–1852)

John Pitkin Norton was an educator, agricultural chemist, and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Williams Wright</span> American physicist (1836–1915)

Arthur Williams Wright was an American physicist. Wright spent most of his scientific career at Yale University, where he received the first science Ph.D. awarded outside of Europe. His research, which ranged from electricity to astronomy, produced the first X-ray image and experimented with Röntgen rays. He also proved instrumental in securing funding for the first dedicated physics laboratory building in the United States, the Sloane Physical Laboratory.

<i>The American Review: A Whig Journal</i>

The American Review, alternatively known as The American Review: A Whig Journal and The American Whig Review, was a New York City-based monthly periodical that published from 1844 to 1852. Published by Wiley and Putnam, it was edited by George H. Colton, and after his death, beginning with Volume 7, by James Davenport Whelpley. As of Volume 10, July 1849, the proprietors of the journal were Whelpley and John Priestly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1849 United States Senate election in New York</span> U.S. Senate election in New York

The 1849 United States Senate election in New York was held on February 6, 1849, by the New York State Legislature to elect a U.S. Senator to represent the State of New York in the United States Senate.

Anna Maria Wells was a 19th-century poet and a writer of children’s literature. The poet and editor Sarah Josepha Hale wrote that Wells, as a child, had a "passionate love of reading and music," and began to write verses when very young. In 1830, Wells published Poems and Juvenile Sketches, a compilation of her early work, after which she contributed occasionally to various periodicals. Hale opined that "the predominant characteristics of [Wells'] poetry were tenderness of feeling, and simplicity and perspicuity of language." Wells' contemporaries, in addition to Sarah Hale, were Caroline Howard Gilman, Hannah Flagg Gould, Eliza Leslie, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, and Lydia Huntley Sigourney

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin D. Silliman</span> American politician

Benjamin Douglas Silliman was an American lawyer and politician from New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Renouf (chemist)</span> Professor of chemistry

Edward Renouf was an American chemist and chemistry professor, known for having helped found the chemistry department and research laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, and for his authorship of chemistry textbooks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Renouf-Whelpley</span> American painter, singer and composer

Annie Renouf-Whelpley (1849–1930) was an expatriate American artist, singer and composer.

William Vincent Wells (1826–1876) was an American author and journalist, best known for his three volume biography of his ancestor Samuel Adams, the 4th Governor of the state of Massachusetts.

George Hooker Colton was an American newspaper editor who founded The American Review: A Whig Journal in 1844. Colton served as the American Whig Review's editor from 1844 until his death in 1847, publishing from New York City. After Colton's death, James Davenport Whelpley took over as chief editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Dwight Yale</span> Senator from Connecticut

Charles Dwight Yale (1810-1890), of Wallingford, Connecticut, was a Democratic Senator and businessman, co-proprietor of Simpson, Hall, Miller & Co.. During the Reconstruction era, he played a leading role in mediating conflicts between Virginia and the Union States.

References

  1. William Earl Dodge, "A Great Merchant's Recollections of Old New York, 1818–1880," in Valentine's Manual of Old New York, No. 5, New Series (New York: 1921), p.157.
  2. "United States Census, 1840," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHBH-JDR  : March 2, 2021), Abagail F Whelpley, New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut, United States; citing p. 25, NARA microfilm publication , (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll ; FHL microfilm .
  3. The school was founded in the 17th century by Whelpley's ancestor Rev. John Davenport.
  4. Catalogue of the Trustees, Rectors, Instructors and Alumni of the Hopkins Grammar School (New Haven: 1902).
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Record of the Class of 1837 in Yale College. New Haven, CT. 1873. pp. 110–119. Retrieved February 8, 2022.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. James Davenport Whelpley, "On the Unity of the Organic System" (1842), Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library, https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ymtdl/3581
  7. "Medical Intelligence: Medical Institution of Yale College," in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, February 2, 1842.
  8. The American Review, January 1848.
  9. The Battle of San Jorge took place on several days between January 29 and March 16, 1857.
  10. "Massachusetts Marriages, 1841–1915," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N4QM-YNP  : March 10, 2021), Abigail F Davenport Whelpley in entry for James D Whelpley and Maria Louisa Breed, September 19, 1861; citing Dedham, Dedham, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States, State Archives, Boston; FHL microfilm 1,433,019.
  11. Patent No. 41,250, Furnace for the Improvement in Burning, Roasting and Smelting Ores, patented January 12, 1864.
  12. T. Sterry Hunt, "On the General Metallurgical method of Messrs. Whelpley and Storer," in The American Journal and Science and Arts, Second Series, Vol 43, No 129, May 1867.