Merchant
Centurion, 1894–1927
Born 12 December 1843 in New York (Brooklyn), New York
Died 6 May 1927 in New York (Brooklyn), New York
Buried Fresh Pond Crematory and Columbarium
, Middle Village, New York
Proposed by David Henry Cochran and Seth Low
Elected 3 November 1894 at age fifty
Archivist’s Note: Brother of Alfred T. White; father of Harold T. White; father-in-law of William Emerson and Francis M. Weld; grandfather of David Weld and Alexander Moss White; great-grandfather of Alexander M. White
Century Memorial
William Augustus White was one of those men of affairs in the Century’s membership whose personal achievement outside the domain of business activities placed him high in the Club’s roster of amateurs. A shy man and not aggressive in conversation, he was in many respects an unusual personality. On books his ideas were as clear and interesting as they were on finance and industry. As a member of the Book Committee of the Brooklyn Public Library, he personally directed its most important purchases. His own private library of Elizabethan poetry, Shakespeariana, and Blake’s Drawings was one of the most important in this country. Mr. White devoted a great deal of time, and gave liberally, to the development of the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute; he was on the Visiting Committee of the Harvard Library and was interested in the Fogg Museum. He was in frequent communication with the British Museum, to which he made some important contributions. Along with these high literary qualities, he was a lover of nature and devoted to the mountains, and was said to have reached the top of Marcy in his eightieth year.
Alexander Dana Noyes
1928 Century Association Yearbook
