Cuffee Whipple to please to let me have two Dollares for me to get a hoggs head of flour June 3rd 2 $ [signed] Dinah Whipple

[Portsmouth, N. H.], n.d.. Very Good. Small unevenly oblong document torn from a larger sheet. Approx. 19 x 7 cm. Incomplete notation on back: "To Cuffee Whipp." Text clearly readable. Dinah Chase, an African American, was born circa 1760 enslaved by Peter Chase, a Congregational minister in New Hampshire. After Dinah, who could read and write, was freed by her owner in 1781, she moved to nearby Portsmouth, New Hampshire where she married Prince Whipple. Prince, a formerly enslaved African American, had come to America as a child, and is generally regarded as having been accompanied by Cuffee, a younger brother or cousin. Prince served honorably in the Revolutionary War with his enslaver William Whipple, who later rose to the rank of General and who promised to free Prince after his service (and did so). Prince died in 1796. Cuffee had been enslaved by aother Whipple (Joseph) and was also freed after the revolution. He is decribed as a talented musician. Dinah opened a school a decade or so later after the death of Prince. The school known as the Ladies Charitable African School may have been in Dinah's home which was owned by the Whipples and was at one point occupied by Prince and Dinah and Cuffee and his wife Rebecca. It seems clear tha Dinah was not prosperous, especially after the death of Prince. Earnings, if any, from the school would have been meager. This document which probably dates sometime after the death of Prince, suggests that Dinah asked Cuffee for help from time to time.