{"id":2,"date":"2013-06-19T01:47:18","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T01:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mckeescholars.org\/wp\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2018-02-18T17:23:27","modified_gmt":"2018-02-18T17:23:27","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/mckeescholars.org\/wp\/?page_id=2","title":{"rendered":"John McKee Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"John

Colonel John McKee<\/p><\/div>\n

Of African-American heritage, John McKee, was born in Alexandria, Virginia. He was apprenticed at a brickyard, but at age 17, he ran away to Baltimore where his uncle found him and\u00a0brought him home\u00a0to finish that apprenticeship. He then left for Philadelphia where he first worked in a livery stable, then at a restaurant on Market Street below Eighth Street.\u00a0He married the restaurant owner\u2019s daughter, Emeline Prosser, sometime before 1847 and\u00a0operated the restaurant and dabbled in real estate until 1866, when he turned to investing in real estate full time.<\/p>\n

Colonel McKee, was associated with the 12th and then the\u00a013th Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard<\/a>\u00a0as well as\u00a0the 8th New Jersey in the early 1870s, both as an organizer and an officer.<\/p>\n

When he died of a paralytic stroke on April 6, 1902, at the age of 81, he was called\u00a0“the wealthiest negro in the United States” according to an article in the\u00a0New York Times (April 11, 1902)<\/a>. His estate included extensive mineral and real estate holdings in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Georgia.\u00a0McKee City<\/a>, in Atlantic County, New Jersey, was created by him from what was a wilderness in the \u201cPine Barrens.\u201d He also owned over 300 rental properties in Philadelphia and a personal residence at 1030 Lombard Street.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

After numerous provisions for his friends and family,\u00a0John McKee\u2019s Will<\/a>\u00a0directed that the balance of his estate be held in trust for the purpose of establishing a college, with emphasis on nautical training and a curriculum similar to the United States Naval Academy. The school was to be for\u00a0“poor colored male orphan children and poor white male orphan children (and by the term \u2018orphan\u2019 I mean fatherless children)” between the ages of twelve and eighteen years. Included in his estate was sixty-six acres of land along the Delaware River that would have been an ideal site for such a school. He set forth many other details of its proposed operation in the Will, which was\u00a0probated on May 21, 1902<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although not raised a Roman Catholic, Colonel McKee named the Archbishop of Philadelphia and his\u00a0own attorney, Judge Joseph P. McCullen, as executors and trustees of his estate. It is understood that he had confidence in the continuity and integrity of the Catholic Church, stemming largely from the fact that, when\u00a0he was stricken with typhoid fever in 1896, he found that Catholic nuns would minister to him and other persons of color suffering from the disease, while many other white caregivers would not. The Archbishop of Philadelphia is presently the sole trustee.\u00a0The trust benefits fatherless boys of all faiths and races.<\/p>\n

According to contemporary accounts, Colonel McKee was buried from the Central Presbyterian Church, then located at 9th and Lombard Streets, Philadelphia, rather than being buried with his wife in the Lebanon Cemetery as stipulated in his Will. It is reported that he was laid to rest at the Olive Cemetery, 46th and Merion, Philadelphia. His\u00a0Will<\/a>\u00a0was not read until after his funeral, so his detailed funeral instructions were not followed.\u00a0 Both cemeteries were later closed and his and his wife’s remains were moved to Eden Cemetery, Collingdale, PA, in or about 1923.<\/p>\n

When time came to set up McKee College, a \u201clost\u201d heir by the name of\u00a0T. John McKee<\/a>\u00a0and some existing schools claimed that, since\u00a0the estate was then inadequate to establish a\u00a0new institution\u00a0in accordance with the exact terms of the Will,\u00a0the fund\u00a0should be paid to him or to them. The heirs argued for an intestacy; the schools asked that the estate go to one of them. After years of litigation, the Court issued anOpinion<\/a>, based in part on the\u00a0Preliminary Report of Amicus Curiae<\/a>\u00a0and theRecommendations of the Master<\/a>, that, since the purposes of the Will could not be fulfilled precisely as Colonel McKee had specified, the estate should be used for the purpose most nearly approximating Colonel McKee\u2019s educational goals until the fund might be sufficiently increased, by further donations or otherwise, to endow the school that he envisioned. Until that time, in the view of the Court, the trust should provide current educational assistance in the form of post-secondary college and vocational scholarships to fatherless young men of all races from the five county Philadelphia area in Pennsylvania. While the fund has grown, the costs of building and endowing the school he planned have risen even more.\u00a0 So this Trust continues to grant scholarships and\u00a0receive contributions from supporters of Col. McKee’s vision<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 1955, the John McKee Scholarships were established to assist applicants who meet the conditions set by the Court under the Will. A Committee of distinguished citizens was chosen by the Court to administer the selection process and to establish criteria for the awards. It has been possible, through these scholarships, to aid hundreds of fatherless young men, providing them the means to pursue further education, both\u00a0at the college level and by way of vocational training,\u00a0and, thus, to honor the charitable intent of Colonel McKee.<\/p>\n

Click here to view the John McKee Archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

John McKee’s connection to George Washington<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, the widow of Daniel Parke Custis.\u00a0 Daniel and Martha had had a son, John Parke “Jacky” Custis and he had a son, George Washington Parke Custis, known as “Wash”, who was adopted by George.\u00a0 As a result, Wash became George’s grandson, by adoption.\u00a0 Wash had a daughter by a slave, Arianna Carter, by the name of Maria Carter Custis (George’s great-grandaughter).\u00a0 She married Charles Syphax and they had a son, Douglass P. Syphax (George’s great-great-grandson).\u00a0 Douglass married Abbie Ann McKee, the daughter of John McKee.\u00a0 So John McKee became the father-in-law of George Washington’s great-great-grandson!\u00a0 (By the way, George Washington Parke Custis (Wash) married Mary Fitzhugh and their daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis married her third cousin, Robert E. Lee!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of African-American heritage, John McKee, was born in Alexandria, Virginia. He was apprenticed at a brickyard, but at age 17, he ran away to Baltimore where his uncle found him and\u00a0brought him home\u00a0to finish that apprenticeship. He then left for Philadelphia where he first worked in a livery stable, then at a restaurant on Market […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mckeescholars.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mckeescholars.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mckeescholars.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mckeescholars.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mckeescholars.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/mckeescholars.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"http:\/\/mckeescholars.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mckeescholars.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}