Isaac White, born in Prince William County, Virginia, in 1776, became an early leader in the Indiana Territory after he and his brother Thomas left Virginia in 1800 and settled at Vincennes on the Wabash River. His father, a British captain in the Marine service who resigned his commission, took an active part in the Revolutionary War and was killed late in that war. White was appointed superintendent of the United States salt works on the Saline River in what is now Gallatin County, Illinois, by Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison on September 30, 1805, then was appointed captain of a company of militia by Governor Harrison on September 20, 1806, and a colonel in 1810 by the governor of the Illinois Territory. After resigning from the government salt works, he entered military service under General Harrison in the campaign against Indian uprisings in Indiana and was killed in the early morning at the Battle of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811. Remembered as an able and brave officer whose death was greatly lamented in Indiana, he later gave his name to White County, Indiana, when the Indiana General Assembly named the newly formed county in his honor on April 1, 1834.