COL. THOMAS WHITE.
Born in London in 1704, of good parentage Thomas White lost his father at the age of four years. He attended a grammar school at St Albans, near Louden, but in 1720, at the age of sixteen, he sailed for Maryland. It is said that he was of the retinue of Charles Calvert, who came out in that year to become governor of the province.
He was apprenticed to a Mr. Stokes to be taught for the profession of law, and the usual fee of one hundred guineas was paid for him. Young White accordingly became a lawyer, but was soon appointed deputy surveyor general for Baltimore county, then comprising also Harford. This was an office of great importance in those times, a position Washington held in his early days in Virginia.
Colonel White became the authority on titles in his county and his certificate was regarded as law. He married Sophia, daughter of Capt. John Hall, of Cranberry. The latter was born in 1658 and in the year 1694 purchased certain tracts of land from Michael Judd, Edward Boothby and others, making a tract of 1,539 acres, which he that year had laid out and surveyed and which be called "Cranberry," being mainly on Bush River.
Capt. John Hall's wife was Martha Gouldsmith, nee Beadle, whom he married July 18, 1693, and who died in 1730. They had seven children. Captain Hall died in August, 1737, and by his will he devised to his children large tracts of land, among which were six hundred acres on Deer Creek ; Taylor's Good Hope, four hundred acres ; Timber Nest, four hundred and seventy acres ; Cranberry, lying west of Mill run, and Jericho, one thousand acres ; Harman's Swantown, two hundred acres ; The Enlargement and Old Quarter, seven hundred acres ; New Quarter, six hundred acres.
To his daughter Sophia, wife of Col. Thomas White, he devised a tract of land called Sophia's Dairy, which is what is now known as the Dairy Farm; part of Hall's Plains and Simmon's Neglect. Colonel White, therefore, through bis wife, was the proprietor of large tracts of land, which he added to by the purchase and patent of others, among which were the following tracts : Ah Ah Indeed, Ah Ah the Cow Pasture, Edinburgh, Abbott's Forest, Constantinople, Antrim, Kilkenny, Londonderry, Eaton's Addition, Eaton's Second Addition, Gay's Favor, Hathaway's Hazard, Chance, Rumney Royal, Hammond's Hope, Paradise, Leigh of Leighton, Royal Exchange, Simmond's Neglect, Neighbor's Affinity, Attawa/s Trust, Constant Friendship, Harrison's Resolution, etc., etc. These tracts were all large. Ah Ah Indeed, for instance, contained eight hundred and twenty-five acres. In 1777 Colonel White's taxable real estate in Harford county alone, comprised seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-two and one-half acres. The tracts called Ah Ah, just west of Abingdon, have a ghost story connected with them, and children and the colored population to this day have a dread of Ha Ha branch, which crosses the Philadelphia road between Abingdon and Van Bibber. This neighborhood is said to be the haunt of a spectre which at times gives utterances to a blood-curdling "ha ha." The fear of this ghost is as great in this generation as it was two hundred years ago.
By order of the justices of Baltimore county, in 1728, Colonel White made a survey and plat of Bynum's run from its mouth to its spring bead, in order to find the direct course, and from thence to run and blaze that direct course.
Patents to Colonel White :
1734, Solomon's Song, fifty acres, on east side of Bush river.
1736, St. Martin's Ludgate, two hundred and eighty acres. His London birthplace is here evidenced as two of the most prominent points in London are Ludgate Hill and the Church of St. Martin's, in the Fields.
1738, The Royal Exchange, four hundred and eighty acres, on Swan creek.
1746, Montreal, two thousand seven hundred and twenty-five acres.
1747, Ah Ha at a Venture, or Hathaway's Hazard, one hundred and eighty-three acres.
Colonel White and Sophia, his wife, had three children. Sophia, born May 8, 1731, being the only one of the three who married and left descendants. She married her cousin, Aquila Hall, she and her husband each being grandchildren of Capt. John Hall, of Cranberry.
Colonel White's residence was on the Dairy Farm, between the present large brick house and the river, and the remains of this house can yet be found. Aquila Hall built the present Dairy Farm house in 1768. This is one of the largest in the county, even now, and while without ornamentation, is a handsome and imposing structure with a very large hall.
Colonel White was a vestryman of Spesutia Church. He has a large number of descendants now living in Harford, many of them occupying land acquired by him.
In 1745 be removed to Philadelphia, and in May, 1747, married the second time, the name of this wife being Esther Newman. William White, Bishop of Pennsylvania and the first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, was the son of the second marriage. There was a daughter also of this marriage, Mary, who became the wife of Robert Morris, of Philadelphia, the great financier, signer of the Declaration of Independence and United States Senator from Pennsylvania.
Colonel White was a vestryman of Spesutia Church, tained [sic] his interests in Harford and died at the Dairy,
September 29, 1779, where he was buried. His remains, together with those of Sophia, his wife, were removed in 1877 to Spesutia Church, where they were reinterred in the presence of about sixty of Colonel White's decendants.
