Reuben Grayden White and his wife, Mrs. Rachel Peebles White, lived in Hempstead, Texas, around 1927, where they owned a cotton plantation. Rachel Peebles White was the daughter of Dr. Richard Rodgers Peebles, a pioneer Texas physician, and Mary Ann Calvit Groce. Dr. Peebles established a large medical practice in Texas, tended to the wounded during the battle of San Jacinto, and led successful mercantile ventures including the construction of the Washington County Railroad. He helped rent Independence Hall for the Convention of 1836, and was therefore the recipient of a gift of The Ark of the Covenant of the Texas Declaration of Independence. This relic of the Republic of Texas was handed down, and the Whites donated it to the people of Texas, via the University of Texas in 1927. In 1961 the relic was delivered to Governor Price Daniel and placed under the care of the Texas Library and Historical Commission.
Dr. Peebles was responsible for the routing of the Houston and Central Texas Railway through what would become Hempstead, Texas, and the White and Peebles families were founders of the town.
Sources : Shuffler, R. Henderson. The Ark of the Covenant of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 1 (July 1961).
Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. Peebles, Richard Rodgers, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/PP/fpe10.html (accessed August 4, 2010).
From the guide to the White, Reuben G. Family Papers 1930., 1819-1929, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
