Though an Anglican (Episcopalian) cleric who was sworn to the king in his ordination ceremony, White, like all but one of his fellow Anglican clerics in Philadelphia, sided with the American revolutionary cause [REF].
In 1820, Bishop White joined prominent Philadelphia philanthropists who, in 1820, convinced the Pennsylvania legislature to fund the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, founded by rabbi David G. Seixas, now known as the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf.