Colonel Thomas White

Lawyer and surveyor Thomas White was born in London and educated at St. Albans grammar school just outside London, England. In 1720 he left England for the colonies, living first in Maryland. Here he was commissioned a colonel in the Maryland militia and appointed Deputy Surveyor of Baltimore County before moving to Philadelphia around 1745.

In Philadelphia White was a founder of the Academy and College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania). In 1752 he was named a Justice of the Peace in Philadelphia county.

Thomas White and his wife Esther Hewlings were the parents of William White (1748-1836), D.D., first Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania. Thomas White died at his farm in Maryland in 1779.

http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1700s/white_thos.html

Thomas White, father of Bishop Wilham White, was born in London, 1704, and came of an ancient English family of noble Hneage, a younger son of William White, of London, by his wife, Elizabeth Leigh, portraits of both of whom by Sir George Kneller being in the possession of William White, Esq., of Philadelphia. At the age of sixteen years, Thomas White was indentured to William Stokes, then going out in the retinue of Charles Calvert, brother of Lord Baltimore, to be clerk of Baltimore county, in Lord Baltimore's Province of Maryland; his father paying one hundred guineas to Stokes, to teach and train his son for the practice of law. Arriving in Baltimore, he became a deputy to Mr. Stokes as clerk of Baltimore county, then including also the present Harford county, and later suc- ceeded him as clerk and also filled the position of Deputy Surveyor of the county, fie became a successful practitioner of law, laid up considerable money, and acquired land in Baltimore and Harford counties. About 1730, he married Sophia, daughter of John Hall, of Cranberry Hall, Baltimore county, large landed proprietor, who had died prior to his daughter's marriage, devising her a tract of land on Bush River which he named "Sophia's Dairy," where they took up their residence. Thomas White was an intimate friend of Samuel Ogle, Deputy Gov- ernor of Maryland, and through his influence filled many lucrative and honorable positions in the government. He was successively Major and Colonel of the mili- tary establishment of the county of Baltimore, as well as County Clerk and Deputy Surveyor. He was qualified as vestryman of the parish of Spesutiae, May 29, 1731, and was successively re-elected until his removal from Maryland to Phila- delphia 1745. His wife, Sophia, died June, 1742, and. May 7, 1745, he married (second), at Christ Church, Philadelphia, Esther, widow of John Newman, and daughter of Abraham Hewlings, of Burlington county. New Jersey, and took up his residence in Philadelphia, still retaining his landed property and interests in Mary- land and making periodical visits there to look after its maintenance and develop- ment; he died there on one of these business trips, September 29, 1779. Col. White at once assumed a prominent position in Philadelphia. He became one of the tru.stees of the College of Philadelphia, filled that position until his death, and was commissioned Justice of the Peace, May 25, 1752. http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/john-woolf-jordan/colonial-fa...

Info added per DAR's "Lineage Book of the Charter Members" by Mary S Lockwood published in 1895 states he was "an officer in the Revolutionary Army"