The Story of the Sacred Harp, & B F White
(Much of the quotes below are from a family friend Joe S. James 
and verified by several BF White descendants.)

Benjamin Franklin White was born September 20, 1800, near Spartanburg, South Carolina, and near the homestead of William Walker.  He was the youngest of the fourteen children of Robert White who lived to 104 years of age and died in Augusta, Georgia.  

"His (BF White's) brother, Robert White Jr., took him when he was an infant and reared him to manhood."  His education was meager. "We are informed that he only attended a literary school for about three months," that is, he attended "three session of the school held after laying by crops."  "These were the only schools that were anywhere taught in the country at that time.  His father was inclined to music and the son fell into line... His talent for the great science was astonishing and amazing, when all the surroundings and circumstances are considered... He took up the science of music without a preceptor, and while it was hard to get hold of sufficient treaties (sic) on the subject, he started out with a determination to master the science.  It is said of him that he would sit for hours at a time and look at the different freaks (aspects?) of nature, and note the regularity and harmony with which it did all its work."  He was a deeply religious man and a member of the Missionary Baptist Church.  "When he started to compose a tune it was his habit to invoke the blessings of his Maker.  And if he felt he did not have it (the divine blessing)  on the particular work he was engaged in, he would abandon and lay aside the piece of music."  BF White's daughter, Mrs. Mattie America Clarke, told me that her father was a fifer in the War of 1812, hence at twelve years of age.

He married December 30, 1825, Thurza Golightly (b. Oct. 13, 1805; d. Sept. 2, 1878), sister of Amy Golightly, who married William Walker, in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  James tells his version of White's collaboration with the nine-year-younger Walker as follows: "Major White and his brother-in-law wrote a book known by the older people as the Southern Harmony, in four-shape notes, the same as those used in the Sacred Harp... An arrangement was made between them for Walker to go north and have the book published there being no publishing houses in the South with a plant suitable to print the book.  Walker took the manuscript, and he and his publishers changed the same without the knowledge or consent of Major White and brought it out under the name of Walker also entered into a combination with the publishers and in this way managed to deprive Major White of any interest in the Southern Harmony, although all the work, or most of it, was done by Major White.  On account of this transaction and treatment the two men never spoke to each other again." And Major White "soon after moved to Harris County, Georgia (Mrs. Clarke told me this was in either 1840 or 1841), and engaged in composing and writing the songs in the Sacred Harp.

"Before he began the writing of the Sacred Harp he was running a newspaper called The Organ--the official paper published in Harris County at Hamilton...A large number of the compositions that were first printed in the paper are now embodied in the Sacred Harp.  For several years he was clerk of the superior count of Harris County and was a very popular man in that section of the state."

A Lifelong Teacher of Singing

It seems that White was a lifelong teacher of singing. But "he never used his talent as a musician to make money. He had a higher, greater, and more glorious intention in view, and was untiring in his energy and efforts to bring simplicity to the singing of music and to furnish to beginners and to the poor a form of music...that would find lodgment in the hearts and quicken the inner recesses of the soul; to look farther than to the mere rendering of the song, and to bring them to a higher and intimate relation to the Author of all (sic) all the charms and concords in music, and to teach them to sing such songs as would bring them in sacred nearness to their Maker.

"it is said of him that if he found in his travels in teaching a person with a musical voice, and they were unable to pay their tuition for instruction, he invariably gave them their instruction for free.  He never turned one away on account of poverty, or inability to pay.  He carried to his home in his early days many poor girls and boys and learned (sic) them music.  It was a habit of his never to allow any one to pay board or lodging who stayed at his house, it made no difference whether the visit was long or short.  It is claimed that he taught more people to sing that any other man who ever lived in the South; not that he taught all of them himself but which the people had the opportunity to learn music.  Some of the most notes teachers in the state were under his instruction.  We mention a few of them: J P Reese, H S Reese, A Ogletree and, in fact most of the composers whose names are given in the Sacred Harp."

James has much to say of the personal attractiveness of BF White.  "He was gentle in his nature, lovable in disposition and treated everyone with universal kindness...He had sufficient resentment, however, for his own protection, but he would not allow his wrath or unkind feelings to go any further than to protect his own reputation and his dignity as a gentleman."  And while he was a Missionary Baptist, "he was liberal in his views" and "worshipped in the various churches: the Primitive Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Christian," etc.

Despite his limited and almost self-gained musical education, "White gave to the world some of the sweetest and most melodious music that is printed in any of the song books."  And yet, his professional generosity made him hospitable to other contributors to the Sacred Harp.  "And numbers of tunes in this book which were composed and arranged by him" have been credited to others.  I shall have more to say on his compositions in the following chapter. 

Gift For Organization

It seems that one of White's valuable gifts was that of organization. This "keen sense...and his quickness of observation" led him to see, in the then sparsely settled condition of the county, that it was necessary to have some kind of musical organization in Georgia, and the result of his effort was the formation of the Southern Musical Convention in 1847 in Upson County.  White was president of his convention from the time of its organization up to 1862, in 1867, "and perhaps in other years". 

In the last eight days of Major White's life, while he was suffering from injuries resulting from a fall on the streets of Atlanta, "he recounted all the mistakes as well as the good that had followed him throughout his life. He summed it all up in the words, 'The end has come and I am ready,'" A short time before he died he sang "Sounding Joy," a tune of his (words by Watts) in the Sacred Harp, "plainly and distinctly." The song begins, "Behold, the morning sun begins its glorious way."  He died December 5, 1879, and is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta near the Decatur Street entrance in the northeast corner.  In 1927, forty-eight after his death, his surviving descendants and the Sacred Harp singing organization erected the memorial tombstone.

notes: We now know Robert Sr. was almost 101 years old when he died in Union County SC, he is buried at the Padgett Creek Baptist Cemetery in Cross Keys Union County SC. This is recorded in several Bible records and Church records, namely the Cedar Springs Baptist Church 25 Nov 1843. 

I am very intrigued about this mention of Robert Sr. dying in Augusta GA, at 104, it is said one son Tillman White lived there... Mary was in Richmond County also... did he live with them a time??? Richmond county is right up against the border of South Carolina.

However, we know that Robert Sr was dismissed from the Lower Fairforest in 1829 and joined the Cedar Springs Baptist Church in Spartanburg SC. where his son Robert Jr. was a member, Sr. was 86 at this time, I suspect he was living with Jr. until his death 21 Nov 1843.  It is also note worthy to mention Robert Sr. oldest son William, died in 1829, and shortly after this, Sr. moved to Spartanburg.

The statement above that "BF White was taken as an infant and raised by Robert Jr, his brother", may not be exactly correct, Mildred Whitehead White, his mother died in 1807, and by 1810 Robert Sr. remarried to Elizabeth.  I suspect he was about 7 years old, a period between Robert Sr's remarriage.  BF does reappear at the Lower Fairforest church in his later years, as he is paid for work, $5.00's, by the church.  

 Joe S. James interviews most all of BF's children, talked about their professions, and where some of them worked and moved,  a valuable genealogical source. Most of the descendants of BF White were also musically inclined, some singers, some teachers...and this continued from BF's children's children...etc.