Lewis County, West Virginia Biography of LUKE WHITE This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 478 Lewis LUKE WHITE has been a resident of Lewis County, West Virginia, seventy years, took up the serious tasks and re- sponsibilities of life here on a modest scale, and successive years and labors have brought him an ample prosperity in the form of lands, livestock and other property, and he has stood equally high in the esteem of his friends and neighbors. Mr. White is a former president of the County Court of Lewis County. He was born October 18, 1848, in the City of Providence, Rhode Island, son of James and Mary (Brodrick) White. His parents were natives of County Roscommon, Ireland, but were married in the United States, then settled on a Rhode Island farm. In 1850, when Luke was two years old, the family came to Lewis County, West Virginia, and the parents spent the rest of their lives on a farm here. They were devont Catholics, and the father began voting as a democrat but later became a republican. Two of their children are still living, Luke and Maria, the latter the wife of John Collins, a resident of Weston. Luke White grew up on the farm and had only the com- mon schools in his neighborhood from which to derive his education. When he was twenty-one years of age he started out for himself, buying a tract of land covered with heavy timber, and his task was clearing away the woods and putting the ground acre by acre under culti- vation. That process has continued through all his active years until he now owns eight hundred acres, some of the best farming land in the county, and a large part of it under cultivation. In 1874 Mr. White married Catherine Murry. Of their children James is deceased and all the others are still living, named Mary, Ella, John, Luke, Nicholas, D. J., Kathryn, Walter, Leo and Martin D. The family are members of the Catholic Church and Mr. White is a repub- lican. He was a member of the County Court six years, and during that term was president of the court. Outside of his farming interests he is a stockholder in the Fair Association, the People's Telephone Company, in the Wes- ton Independent, a republican paper, and in the Conserva- tive Life Insurance Company.