Biography:

In 1868, two former classmates and best friends founded the Pythians, one of Philadelphia's first African-American baseball nines, and a team that would be the first in the nation to petition for membership in an organized baseball league. Jacob "Jake" White Jr. (1837-1902) and markerOctavius Catto had been friends since childhood. Both were sons of prominent black Philadelphians.

Jake's father was director of the Sunday school at First African Presbyterian Church, whose pastor was Catto's father. The two boys had gone to school together at the Institute for Colored Youth, a school for African-American youths founded by Philadelphia Quakers in 1851, where they received outstanding liberal arts educations and an introduction to baseball's precursor, the game of cricket.