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     Elijah White was born 2 miles west of Poolesville, Montgomery County, Maryland at Stoney Castle, the family farm, on 29 August 1832 and at the age of 16 received a formal education at Lima Seminary in Lima, Livingston County, New York for 2 years and then went to Granville College, Licking County, Ohio for 2 years.

     In 1855, at the age of 23 he went to Kansas and joined a company from Missouri to fight in the Missouri-Kansas border war in search of excitement.

     In 1856 he purchased 355 acres of land along the Potomac 3 miles North of Conrads Ferry in Loudoun County, Virginia. Unknowingly to him the location of his farm would become a crossing for both armies known as White's Ford. On the December 9, 1857 he married Sarah Elizabeth Gott.

     Elijah White join Captain Daniel T. Shreve's company of Loudoun Calvary and rose to the rank of corporal before he left in June 1861 and joined Capt. Frank Mason's company, which became Company C of Lt. Col. Turner Ashby's 7th Virginia Calvary Regiment. While home on leave he volunteered his service to Colonel Eppa Hunton of the 8th Virginia Infantry in command at Ball's Bluff as the Union army crossed the river. He served as couriers, scout, and guide.

     He applied for a commission of Captain in the Confederate army but instead was appointed as a captain in the Provisional Army with permission to raise an independent company for border warfare. He opened a recruiting station in Leesburg, Virginia in which his company's start begins.

     And so the legacy of the 35th begins.

To find out more on Lt. Col. White during the war years, click on the years below for the history on the 35th Battalion Virginia Cavalry

1861-62186318641865

     Elijah White the Lt. Colonel returns to his Loudoun County farm to become Elijah White the farmer, but the restless spirit that carried him through the war was not fit to be strapped to a plow.

     In 1866 he is elected as sheriff of his local county for a four-year term of office. This was the only political office he ever held.

     He was a successful businessman, being involved in a successful grain and farm supply business with his old army surgeon Edward Wooton as his partner; the operation of a Potomac River ferry that still carries his name; and as president of People's National Bank of Leesburg.

     He was very active in veteran's affairs and always in demand at their reunions. He was the first commander of the Clinton-Hatcher Camp Confederate Veterans. He gave his account of the Battle of Ball's Bluff to the Daughter's of the Confederacy as a fund raiser to pay for the statue in the courthouse yard in Leesburg, Va.

     Elijah White had a great love for the church and in 1877 he is appointed as an elder of the church at the Primitive Baptist Church. This was a start of his career in the ministry that included preaching, performing marriages and the conducting of funerals.

     Elijah White died on January 11, 1907 and was buried in Leesburg Union Cemetary as the most distinguished soldier from Loudoun County.

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