Edward D. White Sr.

Edward Douglass White (1795 to 1847), sometimes called Edward D. White Sr., was an American lawyer and politician who became the tenth governor of Louisiana and served in the United States House of Representatives. Born in Maury County, Tennessee, the acknowledged son of James White, he moved with his father to Louisiana as a boy, graduated from the former University of Nashville in 1815 and began practising law in Donaldsonville. In 1825 Governor Henry S. Johnson appointed him an associate judge of the New Orleans Municipal Court. A Whig and follower of Henry Clay, he was elected to Congress in 1828, resigned in 1834 after winning the governorship, served as governor from 1835 to 1839, and then returned to Congress for two more terms from 1839 to 1843. He survived the 1833 explosion of the steamboat Lioness on the Red River. He died in New Orleans and was buried in Thibodaux, where his home is now the Edward Douglass White Historic Site. His son Edward Douglass White Jr. later became Chief Justice of the United States.