Williams: Oscar LeRoy White, brother of Deacon
From SABR member Joe Williams at OverlookedLegends.com on May 24, 2017:
In an interview with The Sporting News published a few weeks before his death in 1939, Hall of Fame baseball player James “Deacon” White was quoted as saying “I learned to play ball from a Union soldier, who returned to my home, Cornish, N.Y., in 1865, and taught the boys the new game of baseball they had played in the Civil War.” I’m not sure if he said Cornish since he was from Caton, New York which is about seven miles south of Corning, New York, but it is quite possible the soldier that taught him the game of baseball was his older brother. His brother was Oscar LeRoy White who returned home from the Civil War in 1865.
Oscar went by his middle name and was born in Caton on January 7, 1846 according to a record on Ancestry.com called the New York, Town Clerks’ Registers of Men Who Served in the Civil War, ca 1861-1865. His obituary lists his birth date as June 7, 1846. LeRoy was the eldest child of farmer Lester Smith White and his wife Adeline Hurd. James White would join the family on December 2, 1847. Other siblings would follow: Elmer Melville around 1850, William Henry in 1854, Phebe around 1856, Estella in 1858, George in 1862, and Hattie around 1866. His cousin Willard Elmer White lived nearby. Elmer, as he was called, was the son of Benjamin White (Lester’s brother) and Minerva Hurd (Adeline’s sister).
Read the full article here: http://overlookedlegends.com/oscar-leroy-white/
Originally published: May 25, 2017. Last Updated: May 25, 2017.