{{short description|American politician (1824–1894)}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Benjamin Whittemore | image = BenjaminFWhittemore (3x4a).jpg | state = South Carolina | district = {{ushr|SC|1|1st}} | term_start = July 18, 1868 | term_end = February 24, 1870 | predecessor = John McQueen (1860) | successor = Joseph Rainey | state_senate1 = South Carolina | district1 = Darlington County | term_start1 = November 22, 1870 | term_end1 = June 9, 1877 | predecessor1 = John Lunney | successor1 = William Coker | birth_name = {{nowrap|Benjamin Franklin Whittemore}} | birth_date = {{birth date|1824|5|18}} | birth_place = Malden, Massachusetts, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1894|1|25|1824|5|18}} | death_place = Montvale, Massachusetts, U.S. | party = Republican | education = Amherst College | branch = United States Army (Union Army) | service_years = 1861–1865 | unit = Army Chaplain Corps | battles = American Civil War }} '''Benjamin Franklin Whittemore''' (May 18, 1824 – January 25, 1894) was an American minister, politician, and publisher. After his theological studies, he was a minister and then a chaplain for Massachusetts regiments during the Civil War. Stationed in South Carolina at the war's end, he accepted the position of superintendent of education for the Freedmen's Bureau. A Republican, he was elected a U.S. representative from South Carolina. He was censured 1870 for selling appointments to the United States Naval Academy and other military academies. He spent his later years in Massachusetts, where he was a publisher.
==Early life and education== Born in Malden, Massachusetts, Whittemore was the son of Susan Floyd and John Whittemore,<ref>{{citation|title=Benjamin Franklin Whittemore | work=Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911 |publisher=New England Historic Genealogical Society | location=Boston, Massachusetts.}} Benjamin Franklin Whittemore, Born about 1825 in Malden, Massachusetts. Died at age 69 on January 25, 1894 in Woburn, Massachusetts. The son of Susan Floyd and John Whittemore.</ref> who were married on June 22, 1823. They were both from Malden.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Malden (Mass.) |last2=Corey |first2=Deloraine P. (Deloraine Pendre) |date=1903 |title=Births, marriages and deaths in the town of Malden, Massachusetts, 1649-1850 |url=https://archive.org/details/birthsmarriagesd1649mald |access-date=2021-04-01 |publisher=Cambridge, Mass. : Printed at the University press for the city of Malden| page=497}}</ref> He attended the public schools of Worcester and studied at Amherst College.<ref name="CongBio">{{CongBio|W000427}} Retrieved on 2008-11-04.</ref> Whittemore worked in mercantile establishments during the period in which he studied theology.<ref name="CongBio" />
==Minister and chaplain== In 1859, he became a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church of the New England Conference.<ref name="CongBio" /> During the Civil War, Whittemore served as chaplain of the 53rd Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, and later with the 30th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, Veteran Volunteers.<ref name="CongBio" />
==Freedmen's Bureau== When the war ended, he was stationed in the Darlington district in South Carolina, where he decided to stay.<ref name="Letter">{{Cite web |title=Letter to Governor Chamberlain regarding the assassination of Alfred Rush, a state representative, May 1876 |url=https://digital.scetv.org/teachingAmerhistory/documents/RushLetter.html |access-date=2021-04-01 |website=Teaching American History in South Carolina |archive-date=2021-06-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210611125855/https://digital.scetv.org/teachingAmerhistory/documents/RushLetter.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> From 1865 to 1867, he held the position of superintendent of education for the Freedmen's Bureau. He established around 60 schools and churches, and met with freedmen and others in the community to develop educational programs.<ref name="Letter" /> He founded the ''New Era'', a weekly newspaper, in Darlington 1865.<ref name="CongBio" /><ref name="LOC">{{Cite web |title=The New Era (Darlington, S.C.) 1865-1866 |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84026895/ |access-date=2021-04-01 |website=Library of Congress}}</ref> He was editor in 1865, and James H. Norwood was the editor the following year. The paper was "devoted to the restoration, reconstruction, and union of the States".<ref name="LOC" /> He also served on the Board of Regents of the Normal School from 1874 to 1877, located on the University of South Carolina campus.
==Career and resignation== He served as a delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1867 and was elected president of the Republican State executive board in 1867.<ref name="CongBio" /> He was elected to the South Carolina Senate in 1868 <ref name="CongBio" /> but resigned before the session to take a seat in Congress.<ref name="DCRV" /> He served as a delegate to the 1868 Republican National Convention. Upon the readmission of South Carolina to the Union, Whittemore was elected as a Republican to the Fortieth and Forty-first Congresses and served from July 18, 1868, to February 24, 1870, when he resigned<ref name="CongBio" /> under the eminent threat of expulsion from the House.<ref name="Precedent">{{Cite news |date=1967-04-18 |title=Precedent For Keeping Powell Out |pages=14 |work=Rocky Mount Telegram |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74846930/precedent-for-keeping-powell-out/ |access-date=2021-04-01}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=1870-06-27 |title=The Party of Misrule Condemned By Their Own Action |pages=2 |work=The Charleston Daily Courier |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74873230/the-party-of-misrule-condemned-by-their/ |access-date=2021-04-01}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | publisher = scholarship.law.duke.edu | date = | title = VOLUME 58 NOVEMBER 2008 NUMBER 2, LEAVING THE HOUSE: THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS OF RESIGNATION FROM THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ABSTRACT, page 222 | author = Duke Law Journal, JOSH CHAFETZ | url = https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1377&context=dlj}}</ref>
On February 24, 1870, the House of Representatives censured him for selling an appointment to the United States Naval Academy,<ref name="CongBio" /> United States Military Academy at West Point,<ref>{{Cite news |date=1988-08-07 |title=Joseph Rainey was first black to serve in U.S. Congress |pages=17, 5th column |work=The Index-Journal |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74874117/joseph-rainey-was-first-black-to-serve/ |access-date=2021-04-01}}</ref> and other military academies for up to $2,000 each appointment.<ref name="Precedent" /> He presented credentials of a second election to the same Congress on June 18, 1870, but the House declined to allow him to take his seat.<ref name="CongBio" /> Some of his constituents claimed they had a right to vote in whoever they wanted, as long as they "met the constitutional qualifications of citizenship, age, and residence." In response, Representative John A. Logan from Illinois stated that the House does have the right to reject a man of his character. "He is not merely a representative of the constituents who elect him, but his vote in this house is for the whole nation. If Congress shall not have the power to exclude a man of that kind, then the rights of the people of the whole country may be destroyed."<ref name="Precedent" />
Whittemore was elected to the South Carolina Senate on November 22, 1870. He served until 1877 when he resigned.<ref name="CongBio" /><ref name="DCRV">{{Cite web |title=Senator Benjamin F. Whittemore | work=Reconstruction 1865–1877 |url=http://www.culturalrealismvision.com/Reconstruction%201865-1877%20Series%20Senator%20Benjamin%20F.%20Whittemore.htm |publisher=Darlington Cultural Realism Vision| access-date=2021-04-01}}</ref>
===Reconstruction era violence=== After the assassinations of S. G. W. Dill (d. June 4, 1868) and B. F. Randolph (d. October 16, 1868), the Ku Klux Klan issued a letter that was printed in a newspaper warning Whittemore that he could meet the same fate as Dill, Randolph, and others.<ref name="DCRV" /> During the latter part of the Reconstruction era (1870 to 1877), there was increasing violence by Red Shirts, paramilitary insurgents who worked to suppress black voting.<ref name="DCRV" /> Democrats then regained power in the state legislature and began to pass laws to restrict voter registration and reduce the civil rights of freedmen.<ref name="DCRV" /> In 1876, South Carolina representative Alfred Rush, an African American freedman, was assassinated near his home in Darlington County. Whittemore wrote a letter to Governor Daniel Henry Chamberlain expressing concern. He asked for a reward and investigation. The letter was signed by 17 more people, including the local sheriff, two judges, and officials. A reward was offered, and an investigation was completed, but no one was found guilty.<ref name="Letter" />
==Later years== Whittemore returned to Massachusetts, settling in Woburn where he was a publisher.<ref name="CongBio" />
==Personal life== Whittemore married Mandanna Dora (M. Dora) Stone, the daughter of George and Betsey Stone, on August 22, 1854, in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.<ref name="DCRV" /><ref name="Marriage">{{citation|title=B. Franklin Whittemore marriage to Mandanna Dora Stone| work=Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911 | publisher=New England Historic Genealogical Society |location=Boston, Massachusetts }}</ref> Mandanna taught at the Fitchburg High School.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Committee |first=Fitchburg (Mass ) School |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WSswAQAAMAAJ&q=Mandanna |title=Report of the School Committee of Fitchburg ... |date=1847 |publisher=W.J. Merriam, printer |pages=16 |language=en}}</ref> They had two children.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Whittemore, Benjamin Franklin |work= House Divided |url=http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/47377 |access-date=2021-04-01 |publisher=The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College}}</ref>
By 1860, Rev. B.F. Whittemore was a member of a masonic lodge in Connecticut.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hyneman |first=Leon |date=1860 |title=The universal masonic record and directory |url=http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AHK6782.0001.001 |access-date=2021-04-01 |via=University of Michigan Digital Records}}</ref> He was initiated at the Hiram Lodge in Virginia in 1865 and transferred to the Mount Horeb Lodge in Woburn, Massachusetts on January 7, 1880.<ref>{{citation|title=Benjamin Franklin Whittemore|work= Massachusetts Grand Lodge of Masons Membership Cards 1733–1990 (The Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Massachusetts)|publisher=New England Historic Genealogical Society | location= Boston, Massachusetts. }} Benjamin Franklin Whittemore, born May 18, 1824 in Malden, died January 25, 1894. Last lived in Woburn. Hiram Lodge. He was a publisher.</ref>
His wife M. Dora Stone Whittemmore died in Woburn on June 7, 1872, at the age of 65.<ref>{{citation| title= M Dora Stone Whittemore | work=Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911 |publisher=New England Historic Genealogical Society | location= Boston, Massachusetts |quote= M Dora Stone Whittemore, Female, 65, born in Washington, New Hampshire, died June 7, 1892 in Woburn, Massachusetts, she was the wife of B.F. Whittemore and daughter of Elizabeth and George Stone}}</ref> He died in Montvale, on January 25, 1894. He was interred in the Salem Street Cemetery in Woburn,<ref name="CongBio" /> as was his wife Mandanna (also Mandana) Dora Stone.<ref name="DCRV" /><ref name="Marriage" />
==See also== {{Commons category|Benjamin Franklin Whittemore}} {{Portal|Biography|American Civil War}} *List of United States representatives expelled, censured, or reprimanded
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * Shepard, Christopher. "The Carpetbagging Congressman: The Corruption Case of Benjamin Whittemore." ''Carologue''. 32 no. 2 (Fall 2016): 18-23.
{{s-start}} {{s-par|us-hs}} |- {{s-vac|last=John McQueen<br>1860}} {{s-ttl|title=Member of the U.S. House of Representatives<br>from South Carolina's 1st congressional district|years=1868–1870}} {{s-aft|after=Joseph Rainey}} {{s-end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Whittemore, Benjamin Franklin}} Category:1824 births Category:1894 deaths Category:19th-century American clergy Category:American theologians Category:Censured or reprimanded United States representatives Category:Massachusetts Republicans Category:People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War Category:Political scandals in the United States Category:Republican Party United States representatives from South Carolina Category:South Carolina politicians convicted of crimes Category:South Carolina state senators Category:Union army chaplains Category:19th-century United States representatives Category:19th-century members of the South Carolina General Assembly