APPENDIX. 527 



Brown, Thomas White* (afterwards of Indiana, Pa.), and Thomas 

 S. Smith. He was admitted to practice as a member of the bar in 

 1820. He inherited from his family a taste for letters, and was early 

 distinguished for the extent and variety of his acquirements. His first 

 appearance as an author was in the columns of the Union, where he 

 published a series of letters, moral and literary, under the title of the 

 "Plagiary." About the close of the year 1822 he purchased the neAvs- 

 paper establishment, the Am-ora (which long before this date had lost 

 its violent political caste), from Mr. Duane, and assumed the arduous 



* Upon tlie death of Judge Thomas White, which occurred in iSSo, the following 

 notice appeared in a Philadelphia paper: 



A citizen of Philadelphia, through your journal, desires to offer a memorial tribute 

 to the late Judge Thomas White, of Indiana county, Pennsylvania, who departed this 

 life at his residence on the 23d inst. The deceased was a worthy descendant of a 

 highly aristocratic family in Dublin, and born about 1799, in Sussex, England, where 

 his father was barrack-master in the British army. At a very early age he was brought 

 to our city, where he was raised and educated. Under the friendly auspices of the 

 late John Vaughan, Esq., he was entered as a student of law in the office of the 

 venerable William Rawle, where he graduated with his fellow-student, Richard Penn 

 Smith, in 1820, with flattering encomiums, and was admitted to practice. He soon 

 after settled in Indiana county, this State, in which circuit he rapidly rose to profes- 

 sional honors and wealth. Thus distinguished, he sought not political station, because 

 it was uncongenial to his nature. Imbued with literary taste, he was at home in his 

 well-selected library, and while he cultivated literature he also devoted his energies to 

 agriculture and to the breeding of blooded stock animals — thus blending the elegant 

 pursuit of letters and judicial learning with the useful science of modern farming. 

 Nothing more honorable can be said of Tiiomas White. 



To delineate a character so amiable and pure as that of the deceased, wherein 

 eminent integrity was combined with all the domestic virtues of the husband, father, 

 brother and friend, may prove a task more difficult than the writer of this may wiih 

 propriety undertake, or truth unadorned can draw. The simplicity of his manners was 

 proverbial. He was guided by the fixed principles of religion and good morals. On 

 the election of Governor Ritncr, in 1834, he received the appointment of President 

 Judge for his district. 



Governor Curtin — in view of his conservative but loyal predilections, and to avert, 

 if possible, an ultimate appeal to arms to sustain the Union cause — appointed Judge 

 White one of the cominissioners to the Peace Convention that assembled at Washing- 

 ton before the rebellious die was cast. Alas! his eloquent appeals were fruitless. 



Domestic affliction during the latter part of Judge White's life did its work to en- 

 feeble his constitution. The sudden loss of an only daughter in the first liloom of 

 womanhood — the death of his eldest son, Colonel Richard White — the long captivity 

 of his son, Brigadier-General Harry White — with the additional loss of a very prom- 

 ising favorite grandson — so sapped his health and mind that he yielded at length his 

 harassed spirit to that Supernal Power that gave it sixty-seven years ago. His body is 

 buried in peace with his offspring — but his memory will live in the hearts of his widow 

 and his family. 



