GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON THE WHITE FAMILY. The ancestor of
the first Anthony White was sent to Virginia by Raleigh in 1587, as
Governor of his colony. Returning the next year with supplies, he was
defeated by Spanish vessels and obliged to return to England. In 1590 he
found the colony of Roanoke deserted. Leonard (probably his son),
emigrated to Virginia in 1620. Governor White’s daughter was Virginia
Dare, the first white child born in the New World. One of his brothers,
Sir John White, also went to Bermuda, probably in 1609, with Sir George
Somers. It was the “terrible tempest” and shipwreck which dispersed this
company which in 1611 suggested to Shakespeare the play of “The
Tempest.” Sir John White married a descendant of Sir Owen Tudor, the
ancestor of Henry VIII. Joanna White, sister of Anthony Walton, born
Nov. 14, 1744, d. s. p. June 26, 1834; third wife of Col. John Bayard
(born Cecil Co., Md., Aug. 11, 1738). He was a member of the Council of
Safety, Speaker of the House of Representatives, in 1785 a member of the
Old Congress in New York. In 1789 he removed from Philadelphia to New
Brunswick; was Mayor there and Judge of the Common Pleas.
He died Jan. 7, 1807, a patriot of spotless life, public and private. He
was the great-great uncle of the late Senator Bayard.
Euphemia White, second sister of Anthony, born Dec. 10, 1746, d. s. p.
Jan. 29, 1832; married Hon. William Paterson (born 1745; grad. N. J.
Coll. 1763. Att’y Gen’l of N. J. in 1775; in 1793 nominated by
Washington Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court; in 1794
Governor of N. J.; died Sept. 9, 1806).
The Staats family was originally from Albany. Dr. Abraham Staes, who
came to New Netherlands in 1642, was the ancestor of the Staats of
to-day, the name having been changed soon afterwards to its present
form. Dr. Samuel Staats, son of Major Abraham Staats of Albany, studied
medicine in Holland. When New York was surrendered to the English, he
returned to Holland, and remained until William III. became King of
England, when he returned to New York, and died there in 1715.
Being appointed by the King to a Government post in Java, he married
there a native princess, by whom he had six daughters, all of whom
married. In May, 1709, he again married—Catharine Hawarden, of New York.
Of the nine children which he had in 1703, the first five were probably
born in Java or Holland. The Princess’ six daughters were: Sarah,
married Isaac Gouverneur in 1704. Their daughter Sarah became the second
wife of Colonel Lewis Morris, of Morrisania. The second daughter married
in 1716, Andrew Coejman, of Coejman’s Manor near Albany, N. Y. The
third, Catalina, was baptized, N. Y., June 16, 1689. The fourth, Anna
Elizabeth, baptized Dec. 21, 1690, married Captain Johannes Schuyler.
The fifth, Joanna, baptized Jan. 31, 1694, married in 1716, Col. Anthony
White, of Bermuda. Her second husband was Admiral Norton Kelsall, R. N.
The sixth, Tryntje, baptized April 5, 1697, was first wife of Col. Lewis
Morris. His second wife was thus Tryntje’s own niece. Two sons were born
of these two marriages—General Lewis Morris, the “Signer,” and
Gouverneur Morris, who were half-brothers. Another brother, General
Staats Morris, married in London, Catherine, Dowager-Duchess of Gordon.
Their grandfather, Lewis Morris, was the first Royal Governor of New
Jersey (1738). He married in 1691, a daughter of James Graham,
Attorney-General of New York. The mother of Margaret Ellis was ——
Vanderhorst, sister of Elias Vanderhorst, American Consul at Bristol,
England, in 1780, who is mentioned in “Thaddeus of Warsaw.” The family
is represented in the United States by the descendants of Major Arnoldus
Vanderhorst of Charleston.
A. S. GRAHAM,
ANNA M. W. WOODHULL.