John Campbell White papers

The John Campbell White Papers are a collection of correspondence, legal documents, financial documents, the Second Bank of the United States documents, John Campbell White & Sons Distillery papers, printed ephemera, maps and charts, genealogical material, copies of medical articles, poetry, a travel journal, scrapbooks and scrapbook material, and commonplace books. The entire collection is arranged chronologically, within each series, ranging in date from 1772 to 1926. The collection, consisting of 25 boxes, has been reprocessed since the 1960s and placed in acid-free folders and boxes.

The bulk of the material concerns John Campbell White (1700s-1862) the son of Dr. John Campbell White (1757-1847). The majority of this material spans the years 1816-1870, the greater part of which is business and personal correspondence. Most of the correspondence relates to the business of John Campbell White while he was employed as Cashier at the Bank. There is also a large amount of business and personal correspondence to and from Henry White, John’s brother. Correspondence between individual members of the White family and either John or Henry is included in the correspondence subseries for John or Henry, while the remaining White family correspondence can be found in the “Correspondence-White family” series. The correspondence of those other than White family members is in the “Correspondence-General” series.

Next to correspondence, financial documents and bank documents constitute a substantial portion of the collection. Receipts constitute a large part of both the Financial document series and the Bank document series. The Financial document series includes both personal and business transactions, primarily activities of the Second Bank of the United States.

The materials in the Bank series, such as minutes, financial documents, legal documents, and correspondence provide a comprehensive look at the overall operations of the Bank itself. The current Bank series is the same Bank series that was created by the archivist in the 1960s. Due to time restraints, no additional Bank documents were added to this series. The researcher is advised there are documents related to the Bank in almost every other series in this collection.

While there are materials in the Distillery series related to the operations of the distillery, more can be gleaned from the family legal papers within this series. The legal documents in this series document a legal case among White family members over the ownership of the distillery and the estate of Dr. John Campbell White.

Though the remainder of the collection is smaller, the materials offer insight into what was deemed socially and medically important during the second half of the nineteenth century. This can be seen through what items were collected and saved, such as scrapbooks, commonplace books, a travel journal, poetry, copies of medical articles, maps and charts, and printed ephemera.

Genealogical material related to the White, Buckler, Eichelberger, Lyde, and Ridgely families will be found in Series VI. Researchers interested in the White family should also look at the “Correspondence- White family” subseries as well as “Legal Documents-White family” and “John Campbell White & Sons Distillery-Legal Documents”. A major difficulty for the researcher may be that numerous “John Campbell Whites” flourished simultaneously.

The arrangement of these papers, then, defines the scope of this collection. The papers preserved in this collection are a significant source of Maryland history. The history of the Second Bank of the United States and the White and Sons Distillery, along with the information regarding the White family leave much of value to the researcher.