William H. White

William Henry White (May 28, 1842 – April 29, 1914) was a justice of the Washington Supreme Court between 1900 and 1902.

Early life, education, and military service Born in Wellsburg, Virginia (later West Virginia), He received his early instruction in the private schools of the state; he then entered the Vermillion Institute at Hayesville, Ashland County, Ohio, and was there engaged in his studies when the Civil War broke out.

In May 1862, he gave up his studies and enlisted at Ashland in the 102nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War. After three months in the field he was promoted to First or Orderly Sergeant of his Company. He was seriously wounded at Athens, Alabama, in a fight with General Forrest's Cavalry in the fall of 1864; and was, on account of his wounds, mustered out of service at Huntsville, Alabama, in May, 1865, after the capture of Jefferson Davis.

Postwar career Returning from the war, White taught school one year in Ohio. He then returned to his home in Wellsburg and read law in the office of Hon. Joseph H. Pendleton, an eminent lawyer, and gained admission to the bar before the Court of Appeals of West Virginia in 1868. In early life and until the close of the war he was a Republican, and he assisted in the organization of that party in Virginia. Not favoring its Reconstruction policy, nor the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, nor the test-oath legislation enacted by West Virginia at the close of the war, he joined the Democratic party. He was elected recorder and probate judge of Brooke County on the Democratic ticket in 1868 and was re-elected to the same office in 1870. He resigned this office after locating in Seattle, where he arrived in July 1871, with no acquaintances in the Pacific Northwest.

Personal life and death White married Emma McRedmond, with whom he had three daughters.

White died in Spokane, at the age of 72.