Kansas and Kansans: Volume 4 Mr. White was born at Whitstable, a town on the seacoast in County Kent, England, January 27, 1842. He was the second in a family of seven children born to Joseph and Jane (Collar) White. He was the only member of the family to come to America. His father Joseph was a sea captain. Mr. White was reared in England and in the English schools and largely through his own persistence and studious habits acquired a good education. While in England he learned shorthand. He acquired proficiency in this by arduous work often by candle light, and also commenced the reading of law. He married in England, and two years later, in 1867, determined to seek his fortune in the New World.