The White Family - Part 2

(The following was written by Dexter White, and is reprinted from “Reflections II”, a collection of local stories available at the Grove City Welcome Center and Museum. Any opinions made in the article are from the author.)Dexter G. White married Laura Jane Clark in Grove City in 1876. Laura was the daughter of Henry Clark of Grove City. The Clark family had lived in Jackson and Pleasant townships as well as Darby Township just south of Harrisburg since before 1800. Henry Clark's wife was Emily Miller, daughter of Henry and Catherine Miller of Harrisburg. The Millers had come to this country from Germany about 1830, and Henry had gone by the name of Heinrich Mueller in the old country.My paternal grandfather, Dexter Gantz white, after being born in 1851 and married in 1876 in Grove City, the 1880 census shows him as a living in Jacktown, where he was running a general store. Soon after 1880, he moved to Union County, Illinois, and that is where my father was born. About 1890, Dexter G. moved to Wayne County, Illinois, and then in the mid 1890s came back to Ohio, and lived in a house by the railroad tracks south of Pleasant Corners, at the time of the 1900 census. His wife had died in 1889, and is buried at Concord, as are a lot of the people named in this report. His wife had a sister then was Mrs. Shane Walton. She also died young. Shortly after the 1900 census Dexter G. White sold out in Ohio, packed up the kids and hit the Oregon Trail, never to return to Ohio. He died in Oregon in 1983. Three of his children did return to Ohio within a few years. First was Della White--she married John Mulvaney, and returned. They were the parents of Elvin Mo Mulvaney and Wayne Mulvaney. Second was Charles D. White, he came back prior to 1913, and married Myrtle Ruth Francis. Third was Mary Edith White, she came back and married Jack Davis, he ran the Davis General Store in Harrisburg, and had one daughter, Harriet. Harriet married Bob Greuser.William Paxton White, the father of Dexter G. White had been born in Virginia in 1824, and migrated to Ohio in the 1840s. He was the son of William Wellington White and wife, Rachel Paxton, both born in New Jersey, and moved to Virginia while still quite young. William W. White had been born in New Jersey in 1784, and was the son of the second Alexander White and wife, Mary Beavers Clifford. Mary was the daughter of Colonel Joseph Beavers of New Jersey and had been married before.It was this Alexander White that had been a captain in the Revolutionary War, and had paid his men from his own funds, with the promise from the Continental Congress that they would repay him after the war (220 years later, they still have not repaid). He was the son of the first Alexander white, (born MA 1709) and wife Mary McMurtrie, (born MA 1711). The IGI file indicates that Alexander I was the son of Jonathon White (born MA 1653) and his second wife, Margaret Elizabeth Alexander (born MA 1670). Jonathon White was the son of Peregrine White (born on the Mayflower in Cape Cod Bay in November 1620). Peregrine was the son of William White, the pilgrim, signer of the Mayflower Compact.(The continuation of this story in the next blog entry).