William Nathaniel White was born on November 28, 1819 in Longridge, Connecticut, a descendant of Thomas White, an early settler of Weymouth Massachussets His parents, Anson and Anna (Fitch) White, soon after his birth moved to Walton N. Y. , where he grew up on a farm. He early became interested in pomology and horticulture, and was much concerned with the family orchards and garden.
After attending the local school, the Gilbertsville Academy and Collegiate Institute, and the Delaware Literary Institute, he entered Hamilton College as a junior and was graduated in 1847.
For the sake of his health, which had never been good, he set out for the South, expecting to find a position as a teacher there. After numerous unsuccessful efforts to find employment in Georgia, he settled at Terminus (later Atlanta), where he secured thirty pupils. He aided in organizing the city government there and in securing a charter. In January 1848 he was induced to move to Athens, Ga. , to manage a bookstore owned by W. C. Richards, editor of the Southern Literary Gazette. He bought the establishment a year later and continued to run it until his death. To his deep interest in pomology, horticulture, and the wider field of rural economy he now gave full rein, and soon he came to be a recognized authority in these subjects. He early began to write for the Atlanta Luminary, later contributing articles to the Horticulturalist, the Southern Cultivator, the Gardener's Monthly, and the Southern Field and Fireside. He became assistant editor of the Cultivator in 1862, and in June 1863 bought a half interest in the enterprise and assumed complete editorial charge. In the midst of the Civil War he announced that, although every other farm paper in the Confederacy had ceased, this publication should continue as long as he had "a country to publish it in". As if to defy Sherman's destructions, in November 1864 he changed the Cultivator from a monthly to a weekly. In January 1865 he became sole owner and moved it from Augusta to Athens. With the coming of peace, he soon began to reap considerable profits from his publishing enterprise, but just as his future seemed assured he was stricken with typhoid fever and died. He completely identified himself with the South in all his interests and sympathies. In the Civil War he joined the 9th Regiment, Georgia State Guards, but was soon furloughed on account of ill-health, and on Feburary 11, 1864, he was exempted from further service. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
He made various reports on agricultural subjects to the United States Patent Office and sent weather observations to the United States Observatory and Hydrographical Office. His greatest renown, however, grew first out of his book, Gardening for the South (1856), which immediately became the standard work on that subject, and secondly from his connection with the Southern Cultivator.
He was of a swarthy complexion, with black hair and dark eyes. He was an extremely industrious worker, unassuming, yet sociable.
White married on August 28, 1848, at Walton, N. Y. , Rebecca Benedict, his boyhood sweetheart. Nine children were born to them, six of whom died in infancy.
