Dinah Whipple

Dinah Chase Whipple (c. 1760 to 13 February 1846) was an emancipated slave and a leader in the free Black community of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who created New Hampshire's first school for Black children. Born into slavery and enslaved by Reverend Chase of New Castle, she could read and write, which was uncommon among women in the area at the time. She was freed on 22 February 1781, moved to Portsmouth and married Prince Whipple, a former soldier in the Revolutionary War, and they had seven children. Around 1806 she opened the Ladies Charitable African School, likely in the family's house on High Street; the kind of school it was is unclear, and it operated until 1832. She was eulogized in the Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics, uncommon for a Black person at the time, and the University of New Hampshire's Dinah Whipple STEAM Academy is named in her honor.