Biography of James Garfield White - Mercer Co. WV


The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
pg. 547


JAMES GARFIELD WHITE, of Princeton, judicial center of
Mercer County, is a successful contractor in. railroad con-
struction and is a progressive member of the County Court.
He was born at Oakvale, this county, June 7, 1880, and is
a son of James A. and Derinzia H. (McKinzie) White, both
likewise natives of Mercer County, where the former was
born at Oakvale and the latter at Ingleside. The father
was shot and killed in 1899, while making an arrest in his
official capacity as sheriff of his native county, and he was
forty-five years of age at the time of his death. His widow
passed away in 1907, at the age of forty-five years. James
A. White was elected sheriff of Mercer County in 1888, and
was the first republican to be elected to this office, of which
he continued the incumbent four years. Thereafter he was
for two years representative of Mercer County in the House
of Delegates of the West Virginia Legislature, and in
1891 he was again elected county sheriff, in which position
he served until his tragic death. His father, James A.
White, Sr., was a loyal soldier of the Union in the Civil
war. Both the White and McKinzie families were estab-
lished in Mercer County in the pioneer days, and John A.
McKinzie, maternal grandfather of the subject of this re-
view, was a prominent and influential citizen of this county.

James Garfield White, a member of a fine family of thir-
teen children, attended the public schools and the Con-
cord Normal School at Athens, and thereafter he was ac-
tively identified with farm enterprise until he turned his
attention to lumber manufacturing as operator of a saw
mill at Oakvale.  Later he became associated with the
Gibson-Tolliver Company in heavy construction work on the
Norfolk & Western Railroad at Narrows, Virginia. Later
he became junior member of the firm of Lipscomb & White,
which built six miles of the Virginian Railroad, from
Matoaka to Clark's Gap. Since that time he has held many
heavy contracts for construction work for the Virginian
Railroad, the Norfolk & Western Railroad, and the Louis-
ville & Nashville Railroad, in West Virginia, Kentucky,
Tennessee, South Carolina and other states. He is now
senior member of the contracting firm of White & Wood,
in which his coadjutor is L. S. Wood of Gaffney, South Car-
olina. Mr. White was elected a member of the County
Court in 1918, and his broad experience in heavy construc-
tion work made him specially eligible for this office, in which
lie became authoritatively concerned in carrying forward
the construction of modern highways and other good roads
in his home county.

Mr. White is a stalwart in the ranks of the republican
party, his Masonic affiliations are with the Blue Lodge at
Narrows, Virginia, the Chapter of Royal Arch Masons at
Athens, West Virginia, the Commandery of Knights Tem-
plars at Bluefleld, Mercer County, and the Temple of the
Mystic Shrine at Charleston. His wife is an active mem-
ber of the Missionary Baptist Church.

January 1, 1918, recorded the marriage of Mr. White and
Miss Myrtle Spangler, daughter of L. P. Spangler, of Glen
Lyn, Virginia, and the two children of this union are
Lawrence and Flora M.


Submitted by Valerie Crook <vfcrook@earthlink.net> 

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