Family Connections and Private Life
Bishop White was married to Mary Harrison (1750–1797), who came from a landed Virginia family. Mary's father, Capt. Henry Harrison, had also been the Mayor of Philadelphia from 1762-1763. The Whites had eight children, only three of whom survived to adulthood. As a widower, Bishop White supported seven of his grandchildren. In 1813, the bishop's widowed daughter Elizabeth brought her two daughters to live in the house. Elizabeth, called "Betsy" by the family, managed the household for nearly twenty years until her death in 1831. After the death of the Whites' son-in-law and daughter Mary, the Bishop and Betsy brought his five grandchildren (through Mary) into his home where they lived for the ten years leading up to 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.
Bishop White's household included a free African American coachman, named John, but no slaves.
A lengthy obituary devoted to Bishop White in the National Gazette and Literary Register described him thus:
"...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...He was one of those examples of steady virtue sent upon earth by Divine Providence, as if to prove how near the great pattern of perfection it is permitted to approach."
Bishop White died at his home after a lingering illness, retaining his full mental faculties until the end. He was buried in the family vault at Christ Church Burial Ground on July 20, 1836, next to his brother-in-law, Robert Morris. On December 23, 1870 his remains were re-interred in the chancel of Christ Church.
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