Life Incidents.
ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE.
I was born in Palmyra, Somerset County, Maine, August 4th, 1821. Bloomfield, Me., which now forms a part of Skowhegan, was the birthplace of my father, Deacon John White. At the age of twenty-one he commenced life in the new township of Palmyra. At that time there were but twenty acres of trees felled on his land. The old farm is situated on the west side of a body of water which is called, as seen upon the large map of Somerset County, White’s Pond. On this farm he lived and labored fifty-one years. He has since spent one year and a half in Ohio, and seven years at Battle Creek, Michigan, where he now resides.
My father descended from one of the Pilgrims who came to America in the ship May Flower, and landed upon Plymouth Rock, December, 1620. On board that ship was the father of Perigrine White, who wore a pair of silver knee-buckles, such as may be seen in the picture of the venerable signers of the Declaration of Independence.
The knee-buckles worn by this man were afterward given to his son, Perigrine White, who was born on the passage to this country, with the request that they should be handed down in this line of the White family to the eldest son of each successive generation, whose name should be called John. My father had those buckles thirty years. They were as familiar to me in my boyhood days as the buttons upon my coat. He gave them to my brother John, who has passed them down to his son John, a young man of eighteen years.
My father possessed from his youth great physical strength, and activity of body and mind. With his own hands he cleared the heavy timber from his land. This revealed stones in the soil, which his own hands removed and placed into stone fence, to prepare the way for the plow. He toiled on for more than half a century, till the rock-bound soil was literally worn out, and much of the old farm lost its power to produce crops. At the age of seventy-four he left it and sought rest in the more congenial climate of the West.
His religious experience, of more than sixty years, has been marked with firmness and zeal, and yet with freedom from that bigotry which prevents investigation and advancement, and shuts out love for all who seek to worship God in spirit and in truth.
At the age of twenty-one he was sprinkled, and joined the Congregational church, but never felt satisfied that in being sprinkled he had received Christian baptism. Several years later, a Baptist minister came into that new part of the State and taught immersion. My father was immersed and became a Baptist deacon. Still later he embraced the views held by the Christian denomination, which were more liberal and scriptural than those of the Calvinistic Baptists of those days, and communed with that people. The Baptists called a special meeting. The minister and many of the church members were present. The minister invited several to open the meeting with prayer, but each in his turn wished to be excused. He waited. Finally, my father opened the meeting. They then excluded him for communing with the Christians. The minister made an effort to have some one close the meeting. No one moved. My father closed their meeting with prayer, and left them with feelings of love and tenderness. He soon joined the Christian church, and served them as deacon nearly forty years. During this entire period he was present at every conference meeting held by the church, excepting one, which, according to their custom, was held on Saturday afternoon of every fourth week.
As early as 1842 my father read with deep interest the lectures of William Miller upon the second coming of Christ. He has ever since that time cherished faith in the leading points of the advent doctrine. In 1860, with my good mother, he embraced the Sabbath, and dwells upon the evidences of the Bible Sabbath with clearness and much pleasure.