JUDGE DANIEL APPLETON WHITE (1776-1861)
Excerpt from Jay Dowd's book on the history of the White Fund:
"Daniel White was born in 1776 and grew up on a large farm in Methuen. He sold a portion of that farm to the Essex Company in 1845 to serve its need for land as it built a dam on the Merrimack River and a system of canals along its banks. By this time White, a 1797 graduate of Harvard, had become a resident of Salem, Massachusetts. He served that community as a lawyer, president of the newly established Essex Institute, and judge of Salem’s Probate Court. White, we will read, had a piece of land, six acres in size, remaining from his original sale of the family farm. It already held family graves, and he at first expected it to remain a cemetery. But that use was deemed impractical, as streets and blocks were envisioned for the coming of downtown Lawrence. Rather than removing the restrictions and selling the land, White decided to donate it to the Essex Company. He was “desirous to do something for the permanent benefit of my native place” and “promote the improvement of the town’s numerous population.” Further communications between Judge White and Charles S. Storrow, the Essex Company treasurer, reveal the common ground the two shared on the subject at hand. Judge White asked the Essex Company to sell his acreage and set aside the proceeds for a lecture series serving the “industrial class” and expend the balance “to promote the moral, intellectual and Christian advancement and instruction of the inhabitants of the town of Lawrence.” Storrow heartily agreed, and suggested the idea of setting aside land for a public library as well. White chose three trustees - Storrow, Henry K. Oliver, and Nathaniel G. White - to oversee the sale of the land and implement a very specific set of guidelines known as the Indenture of 1852. After Judge White died in 1861, the trustees planned the first course of lectures as he himself might have done. They saved space on the corner of Hampshire and Haverhill streets for a library, and they built a trust to serve agencies that helped young people. Judge White gave his trustees latitude to decide on how “to promote improvement.” They addressed public health in 1912 by sponsoring the publication of The Lawrence Survey. Experts in housing and sanitation studied living conditions of an exploding population of workers living downtown. A year before, the trustees accepted a collection of fine art from the Rev. William E. Wolcott, who saw its educational potential. Lawrence’s Department of Public Health and the White Fund collection exist today to serve the population of Lawrence.....
Considered one of the founders of the Hasty Pudding Club, White and his 1792 classmates began a collegiate tradition that still exists today. With birth dates in and around 1776, the first Puddings had a natural affinity for George Washington and the American Revolution. They questioned their highly ordered world but managed their club with humor evident in their motto, “Concordia Discors” — discordant harmony."
