admin JAMES PLATT WHITE, M.D., was born in Austerlitz, Columbia County, N. Y., March 14, 1811. He was a direct descendant of Peregrine White, the first male child born in Plymouth Colony. His grandfather was a soldier of the Revolution, and his father, David Pierson White, served in the War of 1812. In 1816 the parents of James Piatt White settled in East Hamburg, Erie County, N. Y. The son acquired an English and classical education and began the study of law, but soon abandoned it for medicine. He attended medical lectures at Fairfield, N. Y., and later Jefferson Medical College, graduating in 1834. During the cholera epidemic of 1832, Dr. White, then a medical student, came into notice by his creditable services at Black Rock. In 1835 he began practice in Buffalo, and for the next ten, years devoted himself largely to surgery. Later he abandoned general surgery and made a specialty of gynecology, in which he was an expert. Dr. White was one of the founders of Buffalo Medical College, being appointed to the chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1846. A man of inventive genius, he added to the scientific resources of his profession, and had to endure persecution on this account. His reputation far exceeded local limits, and many patients came from great distances to avail themselves of his skill. He was a voluminous contributor to medical and surgical literature, and assisted in the establishment of the Buffalo Medical Journal.
Dr. White was President, Secretary and Librarian of the Erie County Medical Society, President and Vice-President of the New York State Medical Society, President and one of the founders of the Buffalo Medical Association, and corresponding secretary and later honorary Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. He was one of the chief factors in bringing the Buffalo State Hospital to Buffalo, served as manager and President of that institution, was one of the founders of the Buffalo General Hospital, and was the coadjutor of Bishop Timon in establishing the Buffalo Hospital of the Sisters of Charity, the Maternity and Foundling Hospital and the Providence Insane Asylum. During the Civil War he was Government Medical Inspector of Military Hospitals in the West and Southwest. In 1876 he was one of the Vice-Presidents of the Medical Congress at Philadelphia, and in 1877 was elected First Vice-President of the National Medical Association. He was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, President of the Board of Managers of the Church Charity Foundation and one of the founders of the Buffalo Historical Society, the Young Men’s Association and the Academy of Fine Arts. He was active in the development of Buffalo’s park system, and toward the close of his life he erected the White Building, in that city.
In 1836 Dr. White married Mary Elizabeth Penfield, daughter of Henry F. Penfield, of Penfield, N. Y. The death of Dr. White occurred September 28, 1881. His widow survived him less than four months.
SOURCE: Memorial and Family History of Erie County New York; Volume I