William Castlebury Shippen (21 December 1829 – 9 or 11 August 1911) was an American politician and Methodist minister.
A native of Ohio born on 21 December 1829, Shippen was a founding member of the Methodist Episcopal Church's Upper Iowa Conference in 1852. He served on the Iowa Senate between 1862 and 1868, as a Republican legislator for District 13, which included his home of Monroe County at the time.[1] He moved to Helena, Montana in 1873,[1] and became known there for chopping down the local hanging tree in 1875.[2][3] Shippen subsequently moved to Butte for one year, and then to Oregon, where he died in 1911.[1]