The William Whipple family lived in northern Rhode Island for the first four generations. His two children married into the prominent Sprague family whose lines produced two Rhode Island governors. William Whipple Junior married Elizabeth Sprague whose great grandfather was Richard Warren, a signatory to the Mayflower Compact. William junior's son Eleazer married Anna Brown, whose ancestor was the Reverend Roger Williams, putative founder of the Baptisit denomination in the United States. Eleazer and Anna's youngest son Jesse, an important manufacturer of lime products, moved to the state of Indiana in the early 1800s to further his business enterprises. Jesse's wife was a member of the Adam's line of descent remembered for producing two American presidents.
The lineage of Jabez Whipple, eldest of this family, is carried through in this book. Biographies of his 11 children are offered, with special emphases given to social histories of Oscar F. and William T. Whipple and their descendants to the present day.