WHITE, John, clergyman, born in Stanton, St. John, Oxfordshire, England, in 1575; died in Dorchester, England, 21 July, 1648. He was a kinsman of Bishop John White, whom Queen Elizabeth deprived of the see of Winchester on account of his Romanizing tendencies. The younger John was educated at Winchester and at Oxford, where he became a perpetual fellow in 1595, and in 1606 was appointed rector of Holy Trinity church, Dorchester, which post he held for forty years. In 1624 he projected the new colony of Massachusetts for those who could not conscientiously conform to the discipline and ceremonies of the Church of England, and in 1630 he succeeded in establishing at Mattapan, Massachusetts, which they renamed Dorchester, a party of 140 Puritans from Dorsetshire and the neighboring counties. He became one of the assembly of divines in 1643, and rector of Lambeth in 1645. He was known as the "Patriarch of Dorchester." Edward Everett says of him: "Like Robinson in reference to Plymouth, John White never set foot on the soil of Massachusetts, but he was the most efficient pro-meter of the undertaking, which resulted in the settlement not merely of our ancient town, but of the colony." See "Dorchester in 1630-1776, and 1855," Edward Everett's "Orations and Speeches " (3 vols., Boston, 1859). White published "The Planter's Plea, or the Grounds of Plantations Examined" (London, 1630); "A Way to the Tree o[ Life" (1647); and "Commentary on the Three First Chapters of Genesis" (1656).