Joseph White was born December 14, 1734 in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and as a child moved with his parents to Plaistow, New Hampshire. During the French and Indian wars of the 1760s, White and three other men spotted good-looking land along the river that separates New Hampshire and Vermont. The land lay on the Vermont side, and White and his friends became the original grantees of the area that is now occupied by the city of Newbury, Vermont. White settled there in 1763, along with some of his brothers and sisters.
White had served as Lieutenant in the army and was a major when the American Revolutionary War broke out.
White immediately declared himself on the British side, and sought asylum further north, making his way to the Loyal Block House on North Hero Island in Lake Champlain. The winter of 1781 was extremely bitter, and Captain Justus Sherwood, later a pioneer of Augusta and Elizabethtown, supplied White with clothing from his own funds, including such items as "a warm blanket coat, leggings and mogersons (moccasins) from Secret Service Stores."
Joseph White joined the British Secret Service. At the end of the war, he returned to the colonies to collect his children and bring them to Canada in the Fall of 1784. Joseph's wife was named Sarah and they had two sons and at least seven daughters.
Due to his services to the Crown, White was entitled to 1000 acres of land. The Whites, father and son, took up adjacent parcels of land, 100 acres each, on the Second Concession of Elizabethtown, running alongside Butler's Creek east of Ferguson's Corners. The rear of the properties was bisected by the stream.
John White, youngest son of Joseph Sr. married Lucy Kilborn, daughter of United Empire Loyalist Lt. Benjamin Kilborn.
The census of 1817 shows Joseph and Sarah White living in Elizabethtown with their grandson, John, son of Joseph Jr.. Between September 1823 and January, 1824, Joseph died on the homestead, close to 90. He is believed to be buried in an unmarked grave, or in an old family cemetery somewhere in Augusta or Elizabethtown."