Background
Henry White was born in Maryland, the son of a British colonel who emigrated to America in 1712.
Henry White was born in Maryland, the son of a British colonel who emigrated to America in 1712.
He was educated in England.
He became a merchant in New York City. His position was strengthened by his marriage with Eva Van Cortlandt. By 1769 he removed to one of the largest mercantile establishments in the city. By the time of the Revolution he had extensive holdings in New York City, on Lake Champlain, and south of the Susquehanna. He was appointed to the Council in 1769 and served until the Revolution. He was also a governor of King's College (Columbia University), a founder of the Marine Society of New York, organized mainly for charitable purposes, and one of the incorporators and governors of the New York Hospital. He joined with the other New York merchants in their objection to the Stamp and Townshend acts and was a member of a committee in 1766 to recommend the erection of a statue to Pitt. He was one of the founders and president, 1772-73, of the Chamber of Commerce, organized in 1768 partially to combat the Townshend acts. After the repeal of the Townshend acts, however, he took no further part in the revolutionary movement. He was one of the three merchants in New York City to whom the East India Company tea was consigned in 1773, but, except to appeal to Governor Tryon for protection for the cargoes, he took no action to make him obnoxious to the radicals who prevented landing the tea. When Tryon went to England in 1774, he made White his agent and attorney, but this fact did not bring White under any direct suspicion from the increasingly powerful radicals. However, a letter of June 1775 from Gov. Josiah Martin of North Carolina, ordering a royal standard and certain other supplies, conceivably for military purposes, was intercepted, but to a committee of the Provincial Congress White explained that he had not sent the standard "lest it might be disagreeable to the people of this place, " and that he knew nothing of Martin's actions or plans. The Congress announced itself satisfied. At the end of 1775 he went to England and returned when the British occupied New York City in 1776. By the Act of Attainder of 1779, his property was to be confiscated, and he himself was to be executed if found within the state. When the British evacuated New York, he went with his family to live in London. His land in interior New York was sold in small holdings, but the bulk of his city property was, with the exception of one house retained by the state as a residence for the governor, bought in by his son, Henry White, Jr. The terms of his will, drawn in London, May 19, 1786, seem to evidence that he was still a very wealthy man at the time of his death. A copy of a portrait by Copley hangs in the Chamber of Commerce in New York City.
On May 13, 1761 he married Eva Van Cortlandt.