Truman P. White

Who was Truman P. White?

Truman Pennock White was born in Markham Township in 1825, the son of Ira White, a well-known farmer and miller. He was named after his father's best friend, Truman Pennock. After attending the public school as a boy he spent a year in an academy at Rochester, N.Y. About the year 1843 his father bought the S 1/2 of Lot 32, Con. 5, and the S 1/4 of Lot 32, Con. 4, in Majorville located in Pickering, Ontario where he finally settled. Later purchases of parts of Lots 31 and 32 in these concessions brought the area owned up to about 400 acres. It was mostly bush, but on Lot 32, Con. 5, just east of the old White homestead, there was a sawmill which had been built by John Major in the twenties and was operated by a Mr. Grey. Mr. White continued the sawmill and about the year 1850 built a large frame grist mill. Afterward he added a cooperage, planing mills, sash and door factory, and in 1865 a large brick woolen factory. Mr. White served over twenty years in the council and was reeve for sixteen years. He was warden of the county in 1861. All his involvement in the town resulted in it being renamed Whitevale in his honour. In 1882 he went to Manitoba and took up land and built a grist mill at Pilot Mound. During the next ten years he spent most of his time in the west. Then from 1891 till the death of his wife in 1898 he returned to live in Whitevale. He went out west one final time in 1898 and lived at Pilot Mound till his death in 1900 in his 75th year.