Poet William Henry Drummond said of White, "the trail Peter White has cut through life is blessed by acts of private charity and deeds of public devotion that will serve as a guide to those who follow in the footsteps of a truly great, and above all, good man.

[8] While in port in Bay City, Michigan, White fell while boarding the ship and broke his arm.

[1] The arm was badly set and swelled; on arrival in Detroit, local doctors thought it required amputation.

[1] It took White's arm four months to heal,[10] but as soon as he was able he began work as a clerk at Freeman & Bro., a store on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit.

[11] He stayed on as a clerk for a year, then shipped out, hoping to be an assistant lighthouse keeper at the Waugoshance Light.

[1] After marking the site and spending a month[10] clearing the area and prospecting for iron there, on June 10, 1849, they returned to the shore, expecting a shipment of machinery and more men from Worcester, Massachusetts.

[14] More men arrived on a second ship, and the party cleared land and erected buildings in Marquette to house a machine shop, forge, saw mill, and other industrial efforts.

[20] In 1852, W. H. Bruce of Green Bay, who had the responsibility of distributing mail to all of the Upper Peninsula, received Philo Everett's resignation as the postmaster of Carp River.

[21] White ran the Carp River post office out of the store he clerked at, which was indeed next door to the house of the Marquette postmaster.

[22] After some time, White formally changed the name of his post office to "Marquette," and he continued as the town's postmaster for a total of 12 years.

[23] White continued working for the Cleveland Company for some time, but resigned in 1854 and opened his own store.

[26] White ran for a seat in the legislature, hoping to represent Marquette while the land distribution was debated.

[26] He won, and that winter attended the legislative session in Lansing, taking 15 days to arrive after snowshoeing from Marquette to Escanaba.

[5] (Saint Paul's Episcopal Church in Marquette contains stained glass windows dedicated to his children[31] and a chapel built by Peter White in memory of his 12-year-old[32] son Morgan.

[28]) Of the remaining two, one daughter married A. O. Jopling and had two children, before she also died, preceding White in death.

[5][33] White's lone remaining daughter, the only one of his children to outlive him, married George Shiras III, son of United States Supreme Court Justice George Shiras, Jr.[34] In addition to his earlier real estate dealings, White began contracting to supply materials for construction.

[39] Mining-related business opportunities abounded in the Marquette area; White was a director of the Cleveland Iron Company,[33] and tried his hand at organizing both the Carp River Forge.

[41] He also began an insurance company,[38] was a director of the People's State Savings Bank of Detroit, and owned large tracts of timbered land.

[43] In 1875, White was elected to the Michigan Senate, and was particularly successful in getting aid for a railroad between St. Ignace and Marquette.

[49] With that accomplished, he convinced the city council to accept the gift, and used his own fortune to improve the park and maintain it for five years.

[49] At around the same time, he began serving as president of the Mackinac Island State Park Commission, a position he kept until his death.

[30] On the morning of June 6, 1908, White complained of indigestion while visiting Detroit,[5] and began a walk from City Hall back to the Ponchartrain Hotel.