Sen. Stephen Mallory White

Stephen Mallory White was an American politician and U.S. Senator from California.

Born in San Francisco, Stephen White attended Santa Clara College and read law in the office of Charles Bruce Younger Sr. in Santa Cruz, California and was admitted to the bar in 1874. He came to Los Angeles to practice and served as the Los Angeles County District Attorney from 1882 to 1884. Before becoming district attorney in 1882, White was a charter member of the first Los Angeles County Bar Association. He was also a member of the California State Senate from 1887 to 1891, where he served as president pro tempore both sessions, and as Acting Lieutenant Governor (1887-1891), and later represented California for one term in the United States Senate from 1893 to 1899. He was California's first U.S. Senator to be born in the state.

He married Hortense Sacriste, a native of North Carolina. Her father, a native of France, descendant from an aristocratic family, immigrated to the United States, with his parents when only three years of age. He was educated at Wilmington, Delaware. Her mother was a native of Ireland, and came to the United States when five years of age. She was also educated at Wilmington. Her death occurred in March, 1895. When Sacriste was fourteen years of age her parents moved to Los Angeles, California. Here she attended school, afterwards graduating from Notre Dame, Philadelphia. Her marriage to Stephen M. White occurred at Sacramento in 1885. They had 4 children — William, Estelle, Hortense, and Gerald Griffin, who was named for Senator White's paternal great-uncle, the noted Irish poet and novelist.

He undertook and won the Free Harbor Fight, a seven-year struggle to secure a deep-water harbor at San Pedro–forerunner to today’s Port of Los Angeles. He is also remembered as a criminal defense attorney. When he died in 1901 he was acclaimed in San Francisco and Los Angeles as the state’s “most brilliant genius,” as “perhaps the most eminent of the State’s native sons.” He was the first past-president of Native Sons of the Golden West, Ramona Parlor No. 109.

Stephen Mallory White, a Senator from California; born in San Francisco, Calif., January 19, 1853; moved with his parents to Santa Cruz County, Calif.; attended private and common schools and St. Ignatius College in San Francisco; graduated from Santa Clara College, Santa Clara, Calif., in 1871; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1874 and commenced practice in Los Angeles, Calif.; district attorney of Los Angeles County 1883-1884; member, State senate 1887-1891, serving as president pro tempore both sessions; was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1890; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1893, to March 3, 1899; did not seek reelection; chairman, Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of Arid Lands (Fifty-third through Fifty-fifth Congresses); died in Los Angeles, Calif., February 21, 1901; interment in Calvary Cemetery.

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