He also ordained two African-Americans as deacons and then priests, Absalom Jones of Philadelphia (in 1795 and 1804, respectively), and William Levington of New York (who became missionary to free and enslaved African Americans in the South and established St.James Episcopal Church in Baltimore circa 1824).

[9] White also took an active role in creating several charitable and educational institutions, usually by organizing Presbyterians, Methodists and other Protestants in those philanthropic enterprises.

In 1795, White raised funds to create a school (built on Race Street between 4th and 5th) for black and Native American children.

He also helped to create a Magdalen Society in Philadelphia in 1800 for "unhappy females who have been seduced from the paths of virtue and are desirous of returning to a life of rectitude."

Not known for his oratory (but for quiet sardonic wit), White earned Philadelphians' esteem for his erudition and ongoing charitable works, especially during the multiple outbreaks of yellow fever in that city throughout the 1790s.

White and his friend and neighbor Benjamin Rush were among the few prominent citizens who remained to tend the ill when many other wealthy inhabitants fled to the countryside.

[13] At the next Convention, Wilson took himself out of contention, as did Meade, and the divided delegates eventually selected Henry Onderdonk (of Brooklyn, New York; who preferred High Church practices but had also revitalized that congregation).

White was a member of the American Philosophical Society,[14] along with many other prominent Philadelphians, including Benjamin Franklin, as well as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania from 1774 until his death.

White's younger sister Mary was married to Robert Morris, who was known as the "Financier of the Revolution" for securing funding for the colonial cause.

[15] A lengthy obituary devoted to White in the National Gazette and Literary Register described him thus: ... [T]he duties of the several important relations in which he stood to society were performed with undeviating correctness and suavity; he possessed the rare merit of winning the respect and love of an entire community to which he was an ornament and a blessing.

His piety was deep and unfeigned; his walking humble yet dignified; his acquirements profound; in his mind the welfare of the Christian church was always the prominent consideration ...

[18] In White's response of August 15, 1835 to Colonel Mercer of Fredericksburg, Virginia, he writes: In regard to the subject of your inquiry, truth requires me to say that General Washington never received the communion in the churches of which I am the parochial minister.

I have been written to by many on that point, and have been obliged to answer them as I now do you.This letter is one piece of evidence among many which are frequently cited in support of Washington's deist or even atheist beliefs.