Colonel John McKee (c. 1821 – 6 April 1902) was an African American who became an extremely wealthy property owner in Philadelphia.

[a] An 1838 registration in Alexandria describes him as "a bright mulatto boy, about 19 years old, 5 feet 4½ inches tall, who is straight built with light colored eyes.

In Philadelphia, McKee provided them with cheap housing in exchange for rents and for the titles on property that the former slaves had been granted in the South.

[7] McKee's expanded his holdings from housing in Philadelphia to acreage in West Virginia, Georgia, and Kentucky.

[1] He founded McKee City, New Jersey, a 4,000-acre planned community where African Americans from the south could settle after the Civil War.

[14] When Colonel McKee died, he left his daughter Abbie a shabby house and a legacy of just $300, and $50 for each of her children.

[14] The $2 million bequest, to be administered by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia headed by Archbishop Patrick John Ryan, was to be used "to build a Catholic church, rectory and convent in McKee City, New Jersey and ... to build and maintain a charitable institution in Philadelphia for the education of both white and colored male orphans.

He also requested in his will to receive a funeral at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul and burial at Lebanon Cemetery.

This did not occur, however, since the will was not read until after he was already given a Presbyterian funeral and burial at Eden Cemetery in Collingdale, Pennsylvania, a few miles outside Philadelphia.

The college would provide naval training for poor orphaned boys from Philadelphia and its surroundings, black or white.

"[19] One of Abbie's sons was Theophilus John Minton Syphax, a classmate and friend of the future educator Roscoe Conkling Bruce at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.

He decided that the remaining estate, now worth just over $1 million, would be used to provide scholarships for orphaned black and white boys.

[3] Although the college was never built, and the equestrian statue was never created, in 2012 the scholarship committee obtained court permission to use a small amount of the funds to erect a tombstone with McKee's and his eife's names, with an image of a man on horseback.