The land was yours through working it. They were sharecroppers. I lived on eight or ten farms before we moved for a year to Massachusetts. The kind of flexibility and mobility he brought to his employment, for example, may look like the expression of a restless soul, but think about it. What doesn't change is the landscape.
Titles come and go but the land stays put.
The enterprising White left no line of North Country work unsampled. Farmed with his father, helped his grandfather with his traplines. Beat the dew off golf links in Lake Placid with a bamboo pole. As one industry thrived, then foundered and was replaced by another, White kept pace. When vacationers sluiced into the back roads of the region, he met a need there too, renting out roadside cottages.