bodies. Thus, at the founding General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1785, the House of Deputies was composed of both lay and clergy members. After his consecration in England, White helped create an American episcopate, participating in the consecration of Thomas John Clagett as Bishop of Maryland at the General Convention in 1792, as well as serving as the Episcopal Church's first and fourth Presiding Bishop (the latter time as the most senior of bishops, as became the custom for the next century). White participated in the consecration of most American Episcopal bishops during the country's first two decades. 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). Although White did not travel extensively through his diocese, he did support missionary priests, including: Simon Wilmer, who traveled through Pennsylvania and New Jersey and ultimately settled down in what became the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C.); William Meade, who traveled extensively throughout Virginia and ultimately became its bishop, White participating in his consecration; and Jackson Kemper, first in Philadelphia for 2 decades, founded the Society for the Advancement of Christianity and became the Episcopal Church's first missionary bishop. The elderly White made only one trip to the western parts of his diocese. In 1825 he traveled with Kemper to western Pennsylvania confirming 212 and consecrating three buildings. On that trip, with permission of Richard Channing Moore, Bishop of Virginia, he also visited Wheeling, West Virginia in what much later became West Virginia to confirm parishioners and consecrate St. Matthew's Church. 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 1785, White founded the Episcopal Academy, to educate the sons of Philadelphia's Episcopalians and others. 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." This was the first institution of this kind in the United States. In 1820, White