Robert White (Virginia physician)

Robert White (1688 – 1752) was an early American physician, military officer, pioneer, and planter in the Colony of Virginia. White served as a surgeon in the Royal Navy prior to his arrival in the Thirteen Colonies. White was the progenitor of the White political family of Virginia and West Virginia. He was the father of Alexander White, United States House Representative and a member of the House of Burgesses and Virginia House of Delegates.

Early life and education
Robert White was born in Scotland in 1688. He was the son of John White, a physician practicing in Paisley, Renfrewshire who died in 1742. White was of both Scottish and English origins, descending from Covenanters, a Scottish Presbyterian movement during the 17th century. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh and graduated with an M.D. degree from the institution.

Royal Navy service
Following the completion of his education, White served as a surgeon      with the rank of captain  in the Royal Navy of the Kingdom of Great Britain. While it is not for certain why White left his commission in the Royal Navy, White family tradition held that White resigned from the Royal Navy after he engaged in a duel with another officer.

Arrival in America
White was the first member of his family to travel to and reside in America. Between 1720 and 1730,   White arrived in the British Colonies where he visited his relative William Hoge (an ancestor of United States House of Representatives member John Blair Hoge) residing in Delaware Colony. White fell in love with Hoge's eldest daughter Margaret and he married her in Delaware Colony. White's marriage to Margaret is likely the cause of his resignation from the Royal Navy. He and Margaret, along with her father William Hoge, relocated near York, Pennsylvania where White erected a residence he named "White Hall" after his family's ancestral home in Scotland.

Settlement in Virginia
From York, White relocated between 1732 and 1735 as a "pioneer settler" to a stream along Great North Mountain near Winchester in Orange County, Virginia (later included as part of Frederick County following its 1738 creation), where White established a plantation he also named "White Hall,"      During this move to Virginia, White was accompanied by his elderly father-in-law William Hoge,  who settled three miles south of Winchester on Opequon Creek. White was one of the earlier pioneer settlers of Frederick County. White and Hoge, along with other families, established the Opequon Meeting House, the oldest Presbyterian congregation formed west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

White "staked out" his farm between 1732 or 1735 consisting of 375 acres along Hogue Creek south of the present-day unincorporated community of Hayfield, Virginia along U.S. Route 50. White constructed the residence at his "White Hall" farm around 1732, and it served as White's primary residence.

White was one of two physicians practicing in Frederick County along with Daniel Hart (died about 1748). White practiced from his residence near Great North Mountain, and one of his more notable patients was Colonel James Wood, founder of Winchester, Virginia. White's son Alexander married Wood's daughter, Elizabeth Wood. White was part a larger wave of Scottish physicians that settled in Virginia prior to the American Revolutionary War.

Later life and death
White died in 1752 at the age of 64    and was interred in the eastern corner of the Old Opequon Cemetery at the Opequon Presbyterian Church in Kernstown, three miles south of Winchester. By 1855, White's burial site was located at a tree in the eastern corner of the cemetery and by 1891, a tree still marked his gravesite in the churchyard. White was survived by his three sons, Robert, Alexander, and John, and his wife. His son, Robert White, inherited the "home farm" following White's death.

Marriage and children
White married Margaret Hoge, the eldest daughter of White's relative William Hoge   and his wife, Barbara Hume. White and his wife Margaret had three sons and at least two daughters:


 * John White (born about 1721)
 * Alexander White (1738 – September 19, 1804), married Elizabeth Wood
 * Hannah White, married Anthony Dunlevy around 1746
 * Robert White
 * Barbara White, married Isaac Julian