|
White County Indiana was formed in
1834 and is named for
Colonel Isaac White, one of 13 United States Counties named in honor
of fallen heroes at the historic Battle of
Tippecanoe.
Isaac White was born around 1776 in Prince William County,
Virginia to a family of refined English origin, shortly after the Revolutionary
War began. When he was 23 years old, Isaac and his brother,
Thomas, left home,
unhappy with their mother's second marriage. They traveled to Vincennes where
Isaac met and married Sallie Leech, daughter of
Judge George Leech. Their union
produced three children,
George Washington Leech White, Harriet Grandson White
and Juliet Greenville White.
He was an American frontiersman who was in charge of the salt works in Equality,
Illinois. Isaac White was also a Colonel in the Illinois Militia. He was a close friend to
Governor William
Henry Harrison
of the Indiana
Territory, and to Joseph
Hamilton Daviess, a U.S.
District Attorney for Kentucky.
Like Daviess, White answered Governor
William Harrison's call for volunteers in 1811 to march on Tecumseh's
village at Prophetstown. Governor Harrison declined the
offer of Illinois troops. Colonel White therefore enlisted as a private in the
Indiana dragoons,
which had been placed under the command of Joseph Daviess for
Indiana service. At Fort
Vincennes the two exchanged swords.
Both White and Daviess were killed on Nov. 7,
1811 and buried in a common grave at the Battle of Tippecanoe,
just a few miles south of what is now the city of Monticello.
White's name is the last inscribed on the tablet honoring that war's dead. A rare historical attraction in White County is
the Anson Wolcott House, located on U.S. 24 about 20 miles west of Monticello in
downtown Wolcott. Wolcott House is one of two homes in the county listed in the
National Register of Historic Places. Historic
Marker
|
