A few months ago, we brought you the story of one of the owners of 330 T Street, NW, in LeDroit Park, the prominent African-American lawyer Fountain Peyton. You can read it here. Today, we'll focus on the original owner, Charles A. White, who had the house built in 1880. White listed
builder Fred W. Pilling as responsible for its construction, but neglected to
list an architect responsible for its design.
The estimated cost of construction was $5,000, about twice that of the
typical townhouse being built in Washington, DC at the time. William Pilling was the builder.
Dr. Charles Asbiathar
White and his family moved into 330 T Street upon its completion, likely in
late 1880 or early 1881. He would
continue to own and reside at the residence for the next twenty-eight years,
until 1908.
Their two
youngest children, Marian and Leonard, then ages 33 and 27 respectively, were
single and living at the house. Marian
indicated that she was employed as a school teacher, and Leonard revealed that
he worked as a dentist. White owned the
house free and clear of a mortgage.
White authored a total of 236 books
during his long career in geology, paleontology, and biology. In July of 1911, the National Academy of
Sciences journal contained a biographical memoir of Charles A. White (below) written by
William H. Dall utilizing notes that White wrote himself. It nicely summarized both his personal life
and his long professional career.[2] It read:
Abiathar White, son of Cornelius
White, junior, married
Nancy, daughter of Daniel Corey, of Dighton.
Their second son, born at Dighton January
26, 1826, was named Charles Abiathar and is the subject
of this memoir. In 1838, the family removed to
settle at the site of Burlington, in the Iowa Territory.
There, subject to the hard complications of pioneer life and with small
and irregular opportunities for education, the boy grew to manhood. Doubtless the bias toward the study of nature was inborn, but the life in a new country full of birds
and animals
differing from those to which he had been accustomed in earlier years in Massachusetts must have been full of interest to the youth entering on his teens. The richness of the rocks of the region
in well-preserved and attractive fossils
may well have been a stimulus toward
the career on which he
finally entered.
On attaining his majority in 1847, he
revisited the east and the following
year was married to a schoolmate
of his childhood, Charlotte R. Pilkington, daughter of James
Pilkington, of Dighton. This union proved
ideal, and nearly fifty-four years of happy married life was granted them before the death of the beloved wife and mother, July 16, 1902.
His eastern travel and experiences, meeting
with the scientific men of the clay, greatly stimulated h is inherent
love of nature. He returned with his young wife to Burlington in 1849, and then began a systematic study of the natural history of the region in which he lived.
In those clays, when a purely
scientific career was almost unknown in America and reserved for those whose financial situation rendered
them more or less independent, the in evitable resource of the average student was found in the study and practice
of medicine.
He began his studies
a few years after his return to Iowa, entering, as was then the practice, the office of S.S. Ransom, M. D., a leading
practitioner, as a medical
student. Having been known to his preceptor
since boyhood, he received cordial aid and encouragement in his studies. These
were followed by one full course of lectures in the Medical
School of Michigan
University and a period of study in the Rush Medical College of Chicago, which
is now the medical department of the University of Chicago. After he received the degree of doctor of medicine. His studies in geology and on the fossils of Iowa became known to Prof. James Hall,
of Albany, state geologist of New York, who induced him to accept an invitation as his assistant, which Dr. White held during 1862 and 1863. As with most of the assistants and pupil s of this masterful and eager
paleontologist, friction developed in
the course of time, and in 1864 Dr. White returned to Iowa and entered upon the
practice of medicine at Iowa City.
The desirability of a geological survey
of the state had become evident to progressive citizens
of Iowa, and in 1866, such a survey was established by the legislature. Dr. White received the appointment of state geologist
and entered upon his
duties in this capacity in April 1866.
The survey continued for four years, issuing two volumes of reports on
the economic and structural geology, but came to an end by the failure of the
legislature to appropriate funds for its support, in 1870.
In 1866 he received the honorary degree of master of arts from Iowa College, and in 1867 was appointed
to the professorship of natural history in Iowa State University, giving part of his time to the university du ring the continuance of the state survey, and afterward taking up the whole duty
of the professorship. In 1873, he accepted a call to a similar
professorship in Bowdoin
College and removed with his family to
Brunswick, Maine.
In addition
to his college duties, at the request of Lieut. G. M. Wheeler, U. S. A., in charge of the government surveys west of the moth meridian,
he undertook, in 1874, the publication
of the paleontology of that survey.
The activities
of the various governmental surveys
of that period, more or less in a rivalry with each other as to the production
of scientific results, afforded greater opportunities for research work in
those lines than ever before. An opening presenting itself for such work, far
more congenial to him than teaching, led Dr. White to resign his professorship
and join the U.S. Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, directed by
Major J.W. Powell, in 1875. The
following year, he was appointed by Dr. F.V. Hayden, directing the U.S.
Geological Survey of the Territories, to complete and edit unfinished
paleontological work left at the death of E.B. Meck, in 1876. He remained with the Hayden Survey until it was suspended in 1879. At this
time he was appointed one of the salaried curators of the U. S. National
Museum, in general charge of the paleontological collection.
In 1882 the geological work of the government was reorganized
as
the
United
States
Geological
Survey,
under
Clarence King as director, and Dr. White was engaged as geologist by the survey, continuing in
its service
until his resignation in 1892.
During 1882, he was detailed
as chief of a commission on artesian
wells in the Great Plains, organized by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. After his return to his
regular duties, he was requested by the director of the National Museum of Brazil to prepare
a report on collections of Mesozoic
fossils, which had been made by members
of the Brazilian Geological
Survey. The report was published in the
Archives of the Museum at Rio, in both Portuguese and English, in 1887.
Dr. T.W. Stanton, in a
review of Dr. White’s work and his services to the U.S. National Museum,
prepared for the Annual Report, has the following remarks:
Du ring all the years of Dr. White's
service
with
the
various
government surveys his office work was done in the National
Museum,
where he was actively connected with the ca re and preservation of the collection
of invertebrate
fossils to which his field
work so largely contributed. He
came to the institution at a critical
period in the history of its paleontological collections. Professor F. B. Meek, who had long
had charge of them, had recently died and new material
was
rapidly
coming
in from the various surveys and .exploring expeditions in the western territories. Dr. White immediately took np the work of properly caring
for the collections, at first unofficially
and afterward as curator. His intimate acquaintance
with Professor Meek and his work, his knowledge of the subject and his
systematic, painstaking habits enabled him to render invaluable service at that
time. Scattered types were recognized,
cataloged, and fully labeled; those that had not been illustrated were figured,
and the records and collections of the whole department were systemized. After retiring from the active duties of a curatorship,
he continued his connection with the National Museum as associate in
paleontology.
He was one of the founders of the
Geological Society of America. The
State University of Iowa conferred
in
1893 the degree of doctor of laws, honoris
causa. He was president of the Biological Society of Washington during the years 1883 and 1884. He joined the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in 1868, later becoming a fellow, and was elected
vice-president for the section of geology in 1888. In 1889, he was elected a foreign member of
the Geological Society of London.
After Dr. White's
retirement from active
service, he employed
his time partly in
botanical studies and to
some extent in popular and reminiscent contributions to periodicals. He prepared biographical memoirs
of deceased friends,
three of whom, Meek, Engelmann, and Newberry, were members of the Academy,
and in similar ways utilized
the time of waiting, which comes to most men who pass three score and ten. Up to a short time before the end, he was remarkably alert, active, and interested in the progress
of his favorite branches of
science.
He died June 29, 1910,
in Washington, D. C., and his remains are interred at Rock Creek Cemetery. Of eight children,
four sons and two daughters survive
him.
The character of Dr. White's li f e work can best
be
under stood through
an examination of the
accompanying
bibliography, in which, however,
no attempt has been made to include fugitive papers in the daily or weekly press or other similar matter not
of scientific importance.
In general, he was engaged in pioneer descriptive work in paleontology and geology, which he
did with care, precision, and clearness. In his later works, the attempt to treat
his
data philosophically is very evident. The mass of his publications is very considerable. Among those especially
use fill lo later students are his summaries of American non-marine fossils and of American fossil
Ostreidae. He traveled extensively abroad and made the acquaintance of many foreign
paleontologists, with whom he maintained
friendly relations. Much
of his correspondence and other papers
and
articles
of
interest arc deposited in the State
Historical
Department of
Iowa at Des
Moines; as, though from 1876 a resident
of the
ci t y of Washington, he preserved
a sturdy pride in the state in which the formative period of his life was passed.
[End]
Interestingly, Abiathar Peak in
Yellowstone National Park was named in Dr. White’s honor in 1885 by members of
the Arnold Hague Geological Survey. A
very brief mention in a real estate report in the Washington Post July 14, 1908
edition revealed that White sold the house “to a person that will occupy it as
a home.”
[1]
The house was apparently still under construction when the 1880 census was
taken, and the 1890 census was nearly completely destroyed by a fire in the
Commerce Building in 1921.
[2]
“Biographical Memoir of Charles Abiathar White” by William H. Dall, National
Academy of Sciences, Vol. VII, July 1911.
Copyright Paul K. Williams
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