White Homestead

The White Homestead is a late-18th-century Federal-style farmhouse at 4398 Main Road in Tiverton, Rhode Island, USA. It was built around 1790 on land then owned by Godfrey Cook, a Tiverton yeoman; was acquired in November 1791 by Christopher White of Little Compton, and subsequently descended through six successive generations of his White-line family — Christopher⁵, Peregrine⁶ (Perry G.), Gideon S., Andrew, Louisa P. (White) Hart, and George P. W. + Edgar S. Hart — until its sale outside the family in August 1943. After two short intermediate ownerships (Humphrey 1943–1971, Toste 1971–1981), the modern 3.56-acre parcel was subdivided off the larger Toste estate in January 1981 and acquired by Edward L. and Michelle E. Fisher, who held the property for 41 years until selling to Cooper Liska-Smith and Stephanie Reichin in June 2022.

The property takes its historical name from the 152-year White-Hart family residency. It is described in the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission’s 1983 Town of Tiverton Preliminary Survey Report as the “White Homestead” — entry #112 — and was commemorated with a Tiverton Historical Preservation Advisory Board (THPAB) plaque in 2016. The White family who lived here are documented descendants of Mayflower passenger William White (d. 1621) and his son Peregrine White (b. aboard the Mayflower, November 1620), via Sylvanus³ → William⁴ → Christopher⁵ → Peregrine⁶ → Gideon S. → Andrew → Louisa P. White (m. David Hart). Eight of the nine documented generations were reportedly born in the house.

Architecture and description

The house is a 2½-story, five-bay, center-chimney Federal-style farmhouse with an ell projecting at the right rear. The exterior features a central entry beneath an “unrefined” bracketed entry hood (a later 19th-century addition) and 2-over-2 pane windows that replaced the original sash sometime in the 19th or early 20th century. A wood-shingled shed stands nearby. The structure is set back from the highway on a 3.56-acre lot dominated by mature stone walls.

The interior preserves a center-chimney plan with five or six fireplaces, including a beehive bake oven off the original kitchen, and six wood-stove flues. The kitchen wing in the ell is a later addition — possibly mid-19th-century, though no documentary anchor for the dating has surfaced. The house is finished in wide pine boards, with original (or early-replacement) hand-cut nails in the framing.

The architectural style, fenestration, and chimney configuration are all consistent with a construction date in the 1780s–1790s. The 1983 RIHPHC survey classifies the house simply as “Late 18th century, Federal.”

History

Pre-settlement and the Pocasset Purchase

The area around 4398 Main Road sits within the historic territory of the Pocasset, a band of the Wampanoag Confederation, whose lands extended north along the Sakonnet River. Nonquit Pond — the body of water about half a mile west of the house — bears a Wampanoag name. A 1925 excavation at the nearby Nonquit School (117 Neck Road, about 0.4 miles south) uncovered fourteen human burials and shell middens, evidence of Native settlement in the immediate neighborhood.

Following King Philip’s War (1675–76), Plymouth Colony made several land grants in the area in November 1676, including 200 acres immediately north of the Seaconnet–Little Compton boundary to Captain Robert Goulding (100 acres) and brothers David and Thomas Lake (60 and 40 acres respectively). Plymouth then sold roughly 30 “great lots” to the Proprietors of Pocasset in 1679–80 for £1,100. A 132-foot wide “proprietor’s way” was laid out from modern Fall River south to what is now Tiverton Four Corners; portions of this corridor became today’s Main Road. The first European settlement within modern Tiverton — called Pocasset — dates to 1681.

Tiverton was part of Plymouth Colony, then of Massachusetts Bay, until 1746, when the boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island was redrawn and Tiverton became part of Rhode Island. Land records from the pre-1746 period are held not in Rhode Island but at the Bristol County Registry of Deeds in Taunton, Massachusetts.

Cook ownership (pre-1791)

The 105-acre parent parcel from which 4398 Main Road was eventually subdivided belonged in the late 18th century to Godfrey Cook, a Tiverton yeoman who had died by the autumn of 1791. The Cook family was extensive in 18th-century Tiverton: the parcel’s neighbors at the 1791 sale included an Isaac Cook to the north and an Abial Cook to the south, both presumably relatives. How long the Cook family had held the land before 1791 is unknown; the question reaches into pre-1746 Massachusetts records that have not been examined.

When Godfrey died, his estate passed to his widow Phebe Cook and his five children, of whom four were named in the 1791 sale deed: Thomas Cook and George Cook (yeomen of Tiverton); Clarke Cook (formerly of Tiverton, then of Newport); and Philadelphia Brownell (widow of Thomas Brownell, mariner, of Newport). A fifth child — daughter Hannah (Cook) Allen, late wife of John Allen of Middletown, Rhode Island — had predeceased her father, and the 1791 deed expressly reserves her heirs’ fractional interest in the parcel, which was not conveyed.

The 1791 deed describes the parent parcel as containing “a Dwelling House and the Other Buildings thereon.” The presence of the standing dwelling on the parcel as of November 1791 is the earliest documentary anchor for the house’s existence. The 2016 THPAB plaque gives a build date of “ca. 1790,” based on the architectural style; the deed’s reference to the standing dwelling is the hard ceiling. The floor is unconstrained: the house could plausibly be slightly earlier than 1790, built during Cook-family ownership of the parcel.

Christopher⁵ White and Peregrine⁶ “Perry G.” White (1791–1832)

The property entered the White line through Christopher⁵ White of Little Compton (1715 Dartmouth, MA – 1795 Tiverton, RI), a blacksmith. Christopher executed the purchase deed on 8 November 1791 at Tiverton, paying the Cook heirs £607 2s 6d in lawful silver money for the 105-acre parcel and dwelling, plus an additional £90 to Phebe Cook for the release of her widow’s dower right, for a total consideration of £697 2s 6d. The four lead grantors — Thomas, George, and Phebe Cook and Hannah Cook (wife of George) — acknowledged the deed the next day, 9 November 1791, before Walter Cook, Justice of the Superior Court. The two Newport-resident grantors (Clarke Cook and Philadelphia Brownell) acknowledged a year later, on 8 November 1792 at Newport. The deed was recorded at Tiverton Town Hall on 15 November 1792.

On the same day Christopher took title (9 November 1791), he immediately reconveyed a half interest in the parcel to his son Peregrine⁶ White — known formally as Perry G. White or, in his own signature, “Parigreen” White — then a 43-year-old mariner of Little Compton. The consideration was £303 11s — almost exactly half of the £607 2s 6d Christopher had just paid. Father and son walked out of a single sitting of Justice Walter Cook that day as co-owners of the property. Three years later, on 11 November 1794, Christopher made a final inter vivos gift of his remaining half-interest to Peregrine⁶, conveying “one undivided equal half part of a certain farm with the dwelling house and other buildings there on standing” in consideration of “love good will and effection.” Christopher signed this 1794 deed by mark — he had become “feeble,” as his will of December 1793 already described him. He died sometime in the year before his will was probated on 5 October 1795.

By the end of 1794, Peregrine⁶ White was the sole owner of 4398. He held the property for the remainder of his life — at least 35 years and possibly as many as 38. His wife Patience White lived with him there; in his last will and testament, executed on 11 April 1829, he provided for her widowhood by giving her the “West half of my Dwelling House where I now live” so long as she remained his widow, together with detailed allowances of beds, books, firewood, a horse and chaise, Souchong tea, and “eight gallons of molasses.” He had two daughters, both then single — Patience and Abigail White — and two sons: Gideon S. White of Tiverton, to whom he devised “all my Real Estates which lies in the Towns of Tiverton and Little Compton, together with all the buildings and improvements thereon standing,” and George White, who had moved to Madison County, New York, where he lived with his wife Hannah and six children on a farm Peregrine⁶ had bought from “one Richmond.” Peregrine⁶ also held pews at the Methodist Meeting House in Little Compton and the New Congregational Meeting House in Tiverton. He died between April 1829 and the probate of his will on 3 December 1832 — the inscription “1832” on his Hillside Cemetery headstone is consistent with this window. He was 81–84 years old.

Gideon S. White (1832–1865)

Gideon S. White (21 April 1783 Little Compton – 15 March 1865, Hillside Cemetery) — Peregrine⁶’s son and sole executor — inherited the homestead farm and Peregrine⁶’s other Tiverton and Little Compton real estate by direct testamentary devise in 1832. Less is known about Gideon’s life than about his father’s or son’s: the cemetery headstone gives his birth and death years, and his role as Peregrine⁶’s executor and Andrew White’s father is documented through both wills.

Gideon also expanded the farm during his ownership. According to his son Andrew’s 1892 will, Gideon “bought of George Cook with my homestead farm” a 3.5-acre salt marsh (an undivided half part of a 7-acre tract on Nonquit Pond), and separately bought an additional ~4 acres of salt marsh from Job Eddy. Whether the “homestead farm” Gideon bought from George Cook in this single transaction was 4398 itself or an additional adjoining parcel is somewhat unclear — Peregrine⁶’s 1829 will already devised “all real estate in Tiverton and Little Compton” to Gideon, so 4398 would have passed by inheritance. The most likely reading: Gideon acquired adjacent or related land from a later George Cook to consolidate the homestead aggregate.

Andrew White (1865–1894)

Andrew White (1815, on the farm – between 15 December 1892 and ~1895) was the family’s most documented 19th-century resident. According to the 2016 THPAB plaque research, he was one of ten children; he learned the cooper’s trade from 1832 to 1835, then went to sea at age 21. He spent nine years at sea as a cooper — a skilled position equivalent to second mate — before returning to Tiverton in the mid-1840s. He married Louisa Tripp of Westport, Massachusetts.

Andrew’s brother Isaac G. White (b. 1821) is identified by the plaque as the builder of the Isaac G. White House at 563 Neck Road, Tiverton (c. 1863) — one of the “four old houses in the area built by members of the White family” referenced in the 1983 RIHPHC survey. The other two White-family houses are the Christopher White House at 3650 Main Road (c. 1855, Greek Revival) and another Christopher White House at 3658 Main Road (late 18th c.). These were not built by Christopher⁵, who died in 1795, but by a later 19th-century Christopher White — almost certainly Andrew’s elder brother of the same name, who is mentioned as a grandson in Peregrine⁶’s 1829 will.

Andrew had four children documented by the THPAB plaque: Charles H. White; Andrew Peregrine White (b. 1845, “A.P.,” later a prominent Four Corners merchant); Edgar R. White; and Louisa P. White, who married David Hart and remained on the homestead farm. The Edgar R. White line is something of a puzzle — he is named by the plaque but does not appear in Andrew’s 1892 will, suggesting he may have predeceased his father.

Andrew’s will, executed on 15 December 1892, distributed his property as follows: his eldest son Charles H. had already received “all that part of the Godfrey Cook farm lying West of the Davol road” by inter vivos conveyance. Andrew P. White received “all that part of the Godfrey Cook land lying East of the Davol road” plus a one-third interest in a Cold Brook wood lot in Little Compton, plus the cancellation of an outstanding mortgage debt to his father. The homestead farm — including the dwelling, all buildings, all chattels found within, and the salt marsh — was devised to daughter Louisa P. Hart, on condition that she pay all of Andrew’s debts and funeral expenses. Louisa and her husband David W. Hart were named principal executrix and assistant executor. Andrew signed by signature, not by mark — he was 77 years old, literate, and competent. Witnesses to the will were Christopher Manchester, George W. Cory, and John T. Cook (later the Tiverton Probate Clerk). Andrew died sometime after this date and before January 1896.

Louisa P. (White) Hart and the Hart sons (1894–1943)

Louisa P. (White) Hart held the homestead farm only briefly. By 6 January 1896, her husband David W. Hart was petitioning the Tiverton Probate Court for guardianship of their son George P.W. Hart, then a minor of fourteen years — meaning Louisa had died sometime between Andrew’s December 1892 will and January 1896. She died intestate; administration of her estate is recorded in Tiverton Probate Book 27.

By Louisa’s death the property passed by intestate succession to her two minor sons, George P. W. Hart (born approximately 1881–1882) and Edgar S. Hart, who became co-owners as heirs-at-law. George P. W. Hart’s middle initials almost certainly stand for “Peregrine White,” preserving the family’s mid-18th-century patriarch’s name into the late 19th century.

George P. W. Hart became the principal long-term resident — the THPAB plaque records that he “occupied the house until his death” — while his brother Edgar S. Hart (later a Chief of Police in Tiverton) built a separate residence nearby. The two brothers were the last members of the family to live continuously at the homestead.

The 1943 sale and the Humphrey decade (1943–1971)

On 16 August 1943, George P. W. Hart (then in his early 60s) and his brother Edgar S. Hart — “all the heirs-at-law of said Louisa P. Hart, deceased intestate” — sold the homestead farm to Karl Humphrey and Marion M. Humphrey, husband and wife, of the City of Providence, Rhode Island. The deed (recorded the next day at Book 72, page 42) carved out an unusual life-tenancy reservation: George P. W. Hart and his wife Blanche M. Hart retained the right to occupy “suitable living quarters” in the dwelling for the rest of their lives, plus garage space, three poultry houses in the orchard, and a two-acre “Orchard Lot” south of the driveway. Edgar S. Hart’s wife May B. Hart joined in releasing her dower rights to round out the conveyance.

The Humphreys never lived at 4398 — they were Providence residents — but over the next three years they assembled a substantial Tiverton and Little Compton land portfolio centered on the property. By 1946 they had added six additional parcels including the abutting Asa Davol Homestead Farm (160 acres), portions of the Pindar Seabury Farm, the Smiton Lot, and tracts in Little Compton, bringing their total holdings to several hundred acres.

Joseph F. Toste, Jr. and the Toste decade (1971–1981)

After 28 years of Humphrey ownership, on 27 September 1971 Karl and Marion Humphrey sold their entire seven-parcel Tiverton and Little Compton portfolio — including the homestead farm — to Joseph F. Toste, Jr. and Beverly M. Toste, husband and wife, of Tiverton, as tenants by the entirety. The 1971 deed (Book 106, pages 1139–1142) expressly preserved George P. W. Hart’s 1943 life-tenancy reservation; Hart was then 89–90 years old and still living on the property.

The Tostes incorporated Joseph F. Toste, Jr. and Sons, Inc. as a Rhode Island corporation and used it as a vehicle for subdividing and developing the larger holdings. The corporation is distinct from the later (1993) Toste Farm Corporation — a Morash/Acebes investor entity unrelated to the Toste family that took its name from the 417-acre adjacent Toste Farm tract.

George P. W. Hart died sometime between 28 September 1971 (when his life tenancy was preserved) and 29 January 1981 (when the Toste corporation, treating the dwelling as unencumbered, subdivided the homestead lot for sale to the Fishers). He was in his early 90s.

The 1981 subdivision and the Fisher era (1981–2022)

On 29 January 1981, Joseph F. Toste, Jr. and Sons, Inc. — acting through Beverly M. Toste, its President — executed a surveyed subdivision deed (Book 159, pages 219–220) cutting 3.56 acres off the larger Toste estate and conveying the new lot to Edward L. and Michelle E. Fisher of Tiverton. The metes-and-bounds in the 1981 deed match the modern 4398 Main Road parcel exactly; this is the deed that created today’s lot.

The Fishers held the property for 41 years. During their ownership the property card records two principal outbuildings:

• A 945-square-foot barn and loft built in 1986
• A 1,040-square-foot garage with quarters built in 1992, attached to a 12-by-26-foot wood deck at the rear

The Fishers sold to Cooper and Steph on 28 June 2022 for $1,320,000 (Book 1865, page 137).

The White-Hart family tree

The documented White line at the homestead descends from Mayflower passenger William White (d. February 1621, Plymouth Colony):

William¹ White (Mayflower, d. 1621)
  └─ Peregrine² White (b. aboard Mayflower Nov 1620 – d. 20 Jul 1704, Marshfield MA)
       └─ Sylvanus³ White (pre-1667 – ?, Scituate MA)
            └─ William⁴ White (c. 1683 – Oct 1780, Dartmouth MA; blacksmith)
                 └─ Christopher⁵ White (1715 Dartmouth – Oct 1795 Tiverton; blacksmith; m. Elizabeth Thurston 1738/9, then Sarah Earl)
                      └─ Peregrine⁶ "Perry G." White (19 Nov 1748 Little Compton – between 1829 and 1832; mariner; m. Patience)
                           ├─ Gideon S. White (21 Apr 1783 – 15 Mar 1865; sole executor of father's will)
                           │   ├─ Christopher White (Andrew's older brother; likely the builder of 3650/3658 Main Road)
                           │   └─ Andrew White (1815 – between 1892 and 1895; cooper at sea 1836–1845; m. Louisa Tripp of Westport, MA)
                           │        ├─ Charles H. White (received west part of "Godfrey Cook farm")
                           │        ├─ Andrew Peregrine "A.P." White (b. 1845; Four Corners merchant; built A.P. White Store / Provender)
                           │        ├─ Edgar R. White (named in plaque, not in 1892 will — possibly predeceased)
                           │        ├─ Isaac G. White (b. 1821 — Andrew's brother; built Isaac G. White House at 563 Neck Road)
                           │        └─ Louisa P. White (m. David Hart; the residing heir of the homestead)
                           │             ├─ George P. W. Hart (~1881/82 – between 1971 and 1981; m. Blanche M. Hart)
                           │             └─ Edgar S. Hart (Chief of Police, Tiverton; m. May B. Hart; lived in separate house nearby)
                           ├─ George White (in Madison Co., NY; m. Hannah; six children: Abigail, Perry Green, Robert, Leverette, Patience, George Franklin)
                           ├─ Patience White (single in 1829)
                           └─ Abigail White (single in 1829)

The compound surname “White-Hart” used by the 1983 RIHPHC survey refers to the marriage of Louisa P. White to David Hart, which brought the Hart name into the family at the homestead. Their two sons George P. W. and Edgar S. Hart are the only two Hart-surname generations of the nine-generation total. Following the 1943 sale, no member of the White or Hart families has been documented at the property.

Family burials at Hillside Cemetery

Several generations of the family are buried at Hillside Cemetery (Rhode Island Historical Cemetery, Tiverton #6), about 0.4 miles south of the homestead on Main Road, across from the Amicable Congregational Church. Headstones photographed at the cemetery and confirmed against probate records include:

Beyond the main history

A few additional threads that the 4398 research has illuminated — related to the homestead’s history but not part of its direct chain of title. The three sections below — other White-family houses in the immediate area, contested probates in the broader family, and the “whaling captain” tradition — are adjacent stories that the same family network produced over the centuries.

Other White-family houses in the immediate area

The 1983 RIHPHC survey records that 4398 was “one of four old houses in the area built by members of the White family.” All four are now identified:

In addition, Andrew Peregrine (“A.P.”) White, Andrew’s son, built the substantial A.P. White Store at 3883 Main Road in 1876 — today’s Provender café — at the northwest corner of Tiverton Four Corners. While not residential, the store records the family’s continuing presence on the Main Road corridor through the late 19th century.

Contested probates in the broader family

The family’s legal history includes two will contests significant enough to draw appellate attention. Both involve relatives connected to 4398, though neither contest directly affected the homestead farm itself.

The 1810 contest of Sarah (White / Perry)’s will

Sarah White — Christopher⁵’s second wife, widow of Christopher at his 1795 death — executed her own will on 12 June 1800, leaving the bulk of her separate Earl-family estate (a dwelling house with garden and adjoining land on the east side of “the Highway,” not 4398) to her three daughters by her first marriage: Phebe Borden, Ruth Brown, and Sarah Cook. She named two of her sons-in-law (Nathan Borden and Elisha Brown) as joint executors.

Sarah later remarried John Perry of Tiverton, becoming Sarah Perry, and on 12 August 1804 executed a codicil materially altering the original will: the portion of the dwelling house originally devised to her daughter Sarah Cook was redirected to her sister Ruth Brown; daughter Sarah (now remarried as Sarah Brownell) was reduced to a token bequest of one cow. The codicil also dismissed Nathan Borden as joint executor, leaving Elisha Brown as sole executor. Sarah Perry’s third husband John Perry approved the codicil.

When Sarah Perry’s will and codicil were presented at the Tiverton Probate Court on 5 March 1810, the will was approved — and Borden Brownell (most plausibly Sarah Brownell’s son, the testator’s grandson, who stood to lose his share of the dwelling-house bequest under the codicil) immediately appealed to the Supreme Court of Probate at Newport. He posted John Cook Jun.r and Andrew M. Corie as bondsmen. The outcome of his appeal is not recorded in the documents currently in hand.

The 1894–95 contest of Christopher White (the great-grandson)

A second, more dramatic contest involved a later Christopher White — not Christopher⁵ of 1715 (long dead by 1894), but most plausibly Christopher⁵’s great-grandson, the very Christopher White whom Peregrine⁶’s 1829 will named as a grandson “son of my said Son Gideon S. White.” If that identification is right, this 1894 testator would be Andrew White’s older brother — born ca. 1810, raised at 4398, and the most likely 19th-century builder of the two Christopher White Houses at 3650 and 3658 Main Road that the RIHPHC survey records. His farm passed to his son Leroy M. White by inter vivos conveyance and is not 4398, but the probate file ties directly into the Hillside Cemetery scene across from the homestead: this Christopher’s son Frank E. White (1849–1902), named as executor under the disputed will, is buried at Hillside.

Christopher White executed his last will on 1 June 1894, distributing his residue (after a life estate to his wife Sarah A. White) in one-fifth shares to his five surviving children — Frank E. White, daughters Charlotte P. Chace, Amy P. Pierce, and Harriet B. Durfee, and son William F. White. William’s share was burdened with an unusual debt-offset condition: he had to repay sums owing to the estate before he could draw anything, or his share would be redistributed to his four siblings. The will also contained an aggressive forfeiture clause: any devisee who contested the will would lose their gift entirely. Christopher appointed son Frank E. and son-in-law William H. Pierce (of Fall River, MA, husband of daughter Amy) as joint executors, with no bond required.

When Christopher died, the Tiverton Probate Court approved the will and issued Letters Testamentary on 5 August 1895. The same day, Arnold Green, Esq. of Providence noticed an appeal on behalf of “persons interested” (not named in the recorded decree) — posting only the minimum $100 bond required by the court. The case was filed as Newport County Appellate Division No. 175, then transferred by agreement of the parties to the Supreme Court Appellate Division at Providence. It was heard on 29 November 1895: the two subscribing witnesses (J. C. Blaisdell and Geo. N. Durfee) were examined, and the appellants put on additional testimony.

On 2 December 1895, the Appellate Division ruled. The 1 June 1894 instrument was found NOT to be the last will and testament of Christopher White. The decree was entered the next day and certified back to the Tiverton Probate Court the same day — a rapid disposition that suggests the court found the case clear-cut after the hearing.

The family’s response was unusual: rather than fight further or attempt to probate an earlier will, Sarah A. White and others (including, presumably, the same Frank E. and William H. Pierce who had been named executors under the rejected will) petitioned the Tiverton Probate Court on 9 December 1895 for letters of administration on Christopher’s now-intestate estate, asking that the same Frank E. and William H. Pierce be appointed as Administrators. The court granted the petition on 6 January 1896 and required a $10,000 personal bond without surety — an exceptionally substantial figure for the era, implying both that Christopher’s estate was large and that Frank E. and Pierce were considered financially solid enough to be trusted without external sureties. Formal Letters of Administration were issued on 7 January 1896. The inventory committee — Frank E. White, William B. M. Chace (Charlotte’s husband), and William H. Pierce — was composed entirely of the son and the two sons-in-law: the inner family circle.

The identity of the appellants who succeeded in overturning the will is not recorded in the documents currently in hand, but the structure of the will (aggressive forfeiture clause; debt-offset against William F. White’s share) and the family’s quick pivot to administer the estate as intestate together suggest that the contest most plausibly came from outside the immediate Sarah/Frank/Pierce/Chace alliance — perhaps from William F. White himself (who had the most to gain from upsetting the will), from another family branch the will partially disinherited, or from creditors of the estate.

In popular tradition: the “whaling captain” attribution

The 1983 RIHPHC survey describes the homestead as “built by a whaling captain who sailed out of New Bedford,” citing A Patchwork History of Tiverton, Rhode Island (Tiverton Historical Society, 1976) and History of Newport County, Rhode Island by Richard M. Bayles (1888). The attribution has long puzzled local historians because:

• The 1791 Cook-to-White deed identifies all parties — Cook heirs and Christopher White — as yeomen, not mariners. No whaling captain appears in the chain of title.
• The first documented maritime member of the family at 4398 is Peregrine⁶ White, whose 9 November 1791 half-purchase deed identifies him as a mariner of Little Compton — not a captain, and three years before New Bedford’s whaling industry began its rise (1820–70).
• The first member of the family to make a documented whaling career was Andrew White (b. 1815), who went to sea at age 21 as a cooper (a skilled trade), not as a captain.
• The Cory family — distinct from the Whites — produced documented whaling captains named Andrew Jackson Cory and Edward Gray Cory, and an earlier historian (probably Bayles, 1888) appears to have conflated them with the Whites of 4398.

The most likely reading of the “whaling captain” tradition is that it is a retrospective folk attribution — fusing Peregrine⁶’s 1791 mariner identification, Andrew White’s 1830s–40s cooper career, and the Cory whaling captains in nearby houses — that hardened into a local legend by the time Bayles wrote in 1888 and was repeated by the Patchwork History in 1976.

Sources

The most heavily-used primary sources for this history, all on file:

Land Evidence Records (Tiverton Town Hall)

• Book 4, pp. 142–145 — Cook heirs → Christopher White, 8 Nov 1791
• Book 4, pp. 159–161 — Christopher White → Perry White, 9 Nov 1791
• Book 5, pp. 285–286 — Christopher White → Perry G. White, 11 Nov 1794
• Book 72, pp. 42–43 — George P. W. & Edgar S. Hart → Karl & Marion Humphrey, 16 Aug 1943
• Book 106, pp. 1139–1142 — Karl & Marion Humphrey → Joseph F. & Beverly M. Toste, 27 Sept 1971
• Book 159, pp. 219–220 — Joseph F. Toste, Jr. and Sons, Inc. → Edward L. & Michelle E. Fisher, 29 Jan 1981
• Book 1865, p. 137 — Fisher → Liska-Smith / Reichin, 28 Jun 2022

Probate Records (Tiverton Town Hall)

• Probate Book 5, pp. 268–270 — Will of Christopher⁵ White, 18 Dec 1793 (probated 5 Oct 1795)
• Probate Book 6, pp. 309–312 — Will of Sarah White (Christopher⁵’s second wife) + 1804 codicil as Sarah Perry, presented 5 Mar 1810
• Probate Book 11, pp. 43–49 — Will of Parigreen (Peregrine⁶) White, 11 Apr 1829 (probated 3 Dec 1832)
• Probate Book 17, pp. 534–536 — Will of Andrew White, 15 Dec 1892
• Probate Book 27 (not yet pulled) — administration of Louisa P. Hart’s intestate estate

Other primary records

• Tiverton Tax Assessor property record card (parcel 809-102), 10/3/2023
• Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, Town of Tiverton Preliminary Survey Report (1979, this copy 1983), entry #112
• Tiverton Historic Preservation Advisory Board plaque research, by Susan E. Anderson (2016)
• Headstone photographs, Hillside Cemetery / Tiverton #6
• Correspondence: Jeanne Spencer (Tiverton Recording Clerk), Susan E. Anderson (Tiverton Historical Society), David Robert (Tiverton Tax Assessor)

Secondary sources

• A Patchwork History of Tiverton, Rhode Island, Tiverton Historical Society, 1976
• Richard M. Bayles, History of Newport County, Rhode Island, 1888
• General Society of Mayflower Descendants, Mayflower Families Through Five Generations, Volume One: Francis Eaton, Samuel Fuller, William White
• Toste Farm Corp. v. Hadbury, Inc., 70 F.3d 640 (1st Cir. 1995) and 798 A.2d 901 (R.I. 2002)

Full transcriptions of the listed deeds and wills are filed in References/Deeds/ and References/Probate/. Working-research notes — open questions, research plans, and outreach records — are in this folder alongside this document. The companion working document Tiverton House History carries the detailed primary-source analysis on which this narrative is based.

This article was first compiled on 30 May 2026 by Cooper Liska-Smith from primary documents drawn from Tiverton Town Hall’s Land Evidence and Probate Records, with research assistance from Claude (Anthropic), Jeanne Spencer (Tiverton Recording Clerk), Susan E. Anderson (Tiverton Historical Society), and the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission.