History & local legend
Bishop William White lived in this Philadelphia house from its completion in 1787 until his death in 1836. White was Pennsylvania’s first Episcopal bishop and rector of Christ Church and St. Peter’s Church. The National Park Service preserves the house on Walnut Street, including the book he was reading near the end of his life.
Ghost-tour accounts give the household two very different lingering residents. One is a cat reportedly seen beside a window or heard meowing inside. Local tradition sometimes identifies it as the pet of White’s neighbor, physician Benjamin Rush.
The other is a man’s silhouette said to cross the rooms. Storytellers associate it with John, White’s coachman, a free African American man who lived in a rear apartment and died during Philadelphia’s yellow fever epidemic of 1793.
