William White

REV. WILLIAM WHITE, D.D., the honored and respected rector of St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal church of Butler for half a century, is one of the few living pioneer ministers of his church in Pennsylvania. He is a native of Stewartstown, County Tyrone, Ireland, born March 18, 1811, and is thus in the eighty-fifth year of his age. He grew to manhood in his native land, came to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1832, and entered the Western University, graduating from that institution in 1834. In 1837 he graduated at the General Theological Seminary of New York, was ordained as deacon by Bishop Onderdonk, in Christ church, Philadelphia, the same year, and was sent to take charge of the Freeport and Butler congregations. In 1838 he was ordained a priest by the same bishop, and remained in charge of both churches mentioned until 1842, when he gave up the Freeport charge and confined his labors to Butler and vicinity. Dr. White was married October 7, 1840, to Mary Bredin, a daughter of James Bredin, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to whom have been born six children, as follows: Annie; Isabella; Thomas, an Episcopal minister of East Albany, New York; George R., attorney at law of Butler; James B., deceased, and William, a consulting engineer of Pittsburg. For several years Dr. White combined with his parochial duties those of a teacher in the old Butler Academy, and many of the leading men of western Pennsylvania look up to him with pride as their preceptor. He continued as pastor of the Butler congregation until 1877, when the infirmities of advancing age induced him to lay down the burden, although he still occasionally performed the offices of his sacred calling in the adjoining counties of Armstrong and Clarion. With the passing years this work also had to be abandoned, and now at the ripe age of eighty-four he confidently and patiently awaits the call to his eternal reward. For nearly sixty years his name has been closely associated with the religious and educational life of Butler county, and few of its citizens have won to a greater degree the unbounded love and confidence of the whole people than this venerable patriarch whose rare usefulness throughout that period is gladly acknowledged by all.