Beautifully engraved certificate from the J.R. Whipple Corporation issued in 1926. This historic document was printed by George H. Ellis Company and has an ornate border around it with the company's name on top. This item is hand signed by the Company's President and Treasurer and is over 79 years old. J. Reed Whipple owned and operated hotels in Boston at the turn of the twentieth century. Born in 1842, he served in the Civil War, representing the state of New Hampshire. Following the war, Joseph worked for a time as a grocer in Roxbury, Massachusetts, then went to Boston's Parker House, where he learned the hotel business by purchasing the meats for the hotel. He eventually became the hotel's manager. He soon purchased the Young's Hotel and the Hotel Touraine, and on April 12, 1906, he formed the J. R. Whipple Company to take over the title to his hotel properties. Joseph died June 15, 1912. On January 20, 1920, the Northeastern Hotel Corporation was formed. It immediately changed its name to the J. R. Whipple Corporation, and acquired the Hotels Young, Touraine and the Parker House. On October 2, 1925, the Trustees of the Parker Estate conveyed the old Parker House to the J.R. Whipple Corporation, which began in November of that year to tear down the old hotel built by Harvey Parker and replaced it with a more beautiful building, which opened May 12, 1937. The Whipple Free Library was established by J.R. Whipple.