Thomas White Biography Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Chris Hinkle (hinklechris@hotmail.com) USGENWEB NOTICE: Printing this file by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. ____________________________________________________________ Member of the Boston Tea Party Everyone knows the story of the Boston Tea Party from the children in the first grade of the public school on up to the collage Professor, how England was determined to make her American Colonies pay taxes without being represented in the making of the laws that laid out those taxes, and the laws that appropriated the money collected from those taxes; how she taxed one article after another, how the Colonist protested, and how the Revolutionary War finally began, based upon the principles that taxation with representation was tyranny. One of the articles taxed was tea. When the ship-load of tea came to Boston, the citizens refused to let the captain of the ship unload his cargo, and finally a number of them, disguised as Indians, threw the entire cargo in the water. That happened December 16, 1775, and has been known ever since as the Boston Tea Party. Among Those Present Everyone knows that story. But a few of us know anything about the men who took part in it. D.G. Jubold, who has always been interested in Pennsylvania history, unearthed the story of at least one of those members of that party. It was St. Andrew's Lodge of the Free Masons who disguised themselfs as Indians and preformed the patriotic duty of steeping King George's tea in salt water, and one of the members of that lodge, Thomas White by name, after serving in the war which he helped to start, honered Penneylvania by coming to this State to live here the reat of his life. Thomas White was born in Kilkenny, Ireland, March 19, 1739. He was a tailor by trade. He came to Philadelphia about 1771. There he married Elizabeth Jones, and later went to Boston. Since he was a member of the Masonic Order, he quite likely joined St. Andrew's Lodge shortly after he arrived in the town of Boston, and was active in all protest againist the tyranny of the Crown. He, at any rate, joined them in their most effective protest, that of the Boston Tea Party, and was after known as one of the participants of that social function. Fighting In The Revolution The next we hear of him, he is in the war he helped to start. His stay in Boston could not have been very long, for in the Revolutionary War his record is that of a soldier of the Continental Army in the Second Pennsylvania Regiment. He served from 1771 to 1781, part of that time as a member of Capt. John McTeer's Company of Cumberland County Militia. He also served as a member of Capt. John Horrell's Volunteer Company from Cumberland county againist the Indians in August, 1782. He lived then in what is now part of Perry County, at one time part of Cumberland. After the war, he and his family migrated to the West. They settled in what is now part of Huntingdon county, on a tract of land which he cleared and developed a farm. Their home was near the present town of Robertsdale. They had a very large family, twenty-one children, out of them, three sons who served in the War of 1812, and one of them, Ezekiel, was killed in the Battle of Lundy's Lane. Monument At Grave Mr. White died in his frontier home, September 13, 1820, and was buried in a cemetary which is known as "The Evans Cemetary". His desendants and members of patriots socioties created a monument to his memory there, which was unveiled July 4, 1889. The inscription on the monument reads: In Memory of Thomas White of the Boston Tea Party December 16,1773 and a Revolutionary Soldier and Patriot for American Independence Was a F. and A.M. Was born in Ireland, March 19, 1739 Died Sept. 13, 1820 On the other side of the monument is the inscription in honor of Mrs. White. Elizabeth Jones, wife of Thomas White Born June 19, 1754 Died Feb. 2, 1844 She was the mother of 21 Children 3 of Whom fought in the War of 1812-14