Francis Menefee White
August 11, 1811 - March 22, 1897

Francis Menefee White, settler, soldier, and public official, was born at Pulaski, Tennessee, on August 11, 1811, son of Jesse and Mary (Menefee) White. The family moved to Tuscumbia, Alabama, and then to Jackson County, Texas, in 1830. On February 26, 1835, White married Rosanna K. McNutt. On October 1, 1835, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Texas army and later participated in the siege of Bexar, the Grass Fight, and several other minor skirmishes while serving under Rawson Alley and George Sutherland. Voters in the Matagorda district elected White as their representative to the Consultation in San Felipe, but, occupied with his military duties around Bexar, he was unable to attend. White later left the army to care for his pregnant wife; apparently Rosanna's pregnancy was too far advanced for her to join in the Runaway Scrape; she and White remained in the Brazos bottoms. White and a young man slave delivered the baby, who soon died. The Whites had three more children. After independence, White was named commissioner of Jackson County in 1837 and was elected justice of the peace in 1838, 1839, and 1840. White attended the Convention of 1845 and as a member of the House represented Jackson County in the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth legislatures. He was a member of the Board of Land Commissioners and also served as chairman of the House Committee on Public Lands. On September 14, 1845, after Rosanna's death, White married Margarette Sealy; they had eight children. In 1857 he won the post of commissioner of the General Land Office, which he held until 1862. Provisional Governor Andrew J. Hamilton recalled White to oversee the Land Office during the early stages of Reconstruction, and he served until 1866, at which time he left public life. White returned to his Jackson County home and spent his remaining days farming and practicing law. He died on March 22, 1897, and was buried in the Wells family cemetery ten miles southeast of Edna.
 

Francis M. White

Democratic candidate for Commissioner of the General Land office is perhaps not as well known as his colleagues, and we will thus early introduce him to our readers, having known him for twenty years. He is a native of Tennessee, and migrated from Tuscumbia. Alabama, to Jackson county, Texas, his present home, in 1830, together with his father, Gen. Jesse White, his uncle Major Ben. J. White, George and John Southerlaud [Sutherland], the Heards and the brothers Menefee and other kindred, who constituted what was long known as the Alabama settlement on the Navidad—a set of men who always furnished for struggling Texas a full quota of brave and gallant soldiers, one of whom led a company (to which Frank White belonged) in storming .San Antonio; another fell with the Alamo; another survived seven wounds received in battle; another signed the Declaration of Independence; one fought in the van at Goliad • another commanded a company at San Jacinto—in every struggle and every field they were represented, and Frank White never shrank from a soldier's duty.

In 1835 Mr. White was elected to the consultation, but being in the army at San Antonio, did not take his seat as a member. Being left behind in the retreat of 1836, with his young wife and a negro boy, his first child was born in the Brazos bottom, with no other person to welcome its advent to a wilderness, houseless home.

On the organization of Jackson county in 1837, Mr. White was elected a member of the Board of Land Commissioners and for several years continued in that position, thus early acquiring an intimate knowledge of our land laws, which he has kept up to the present time, mentally growing with their growth. In 1845 he was elected to the State convention which framed our Constitution and has since been an active, working member of all but one session of the Legislature, and generally from his known intimacy with our land system, has been chairman of the House committee on Public Lands He is one of those men who in legislation stands high for integrity, energy and judgement among their associates, without making a noise or becoming widely known among the people, for the simple reason that he works much, speaks little, and whenever the session closes, he is found quietly at home, holding the plow handles, till the people again demand his services at Austin. This is a true picture of Frank White—a clear-headed, honest, unambitious, upright man, who, with a well-stored mind, believes that a public servant should devote his time and talent to his public duties, and when they cease, he should go home and work for himself and family. No temptation could seduce him into intentional wrong, and no man among us would more faithfully, impartially and satisfactorily discharge the duties of Commissioner of the General Land Office.—Civilian.

 The Weekly Telegraph, Houston, Texas, Wednesday, May 27, 1857