Samuel Seabury Appointed First Protestant Bishop in the United States
Samuel Seabury was appointed as the first Protestant bishop in the United States on November 14, 1784, after being consecrated by Episcopalian bishops in Scotland. His appointment occurred shortly after the American Revolution, during a time when many former Church of England congregations identified as Protestant Episcopal. Born on November 30, 1729, in North Groton, Connecticut, Seabury came from a lineage of early American colonists and spent much of his childhood in Long Island. After graduating from Yale College, he pursued a career in ministry and medicine, eventually becoming a missionary and serving various congregations.
Seabury was a vocal Loyalist during the Revolution, which led to imprisonment and ultimately a shift in allegiance to the new United States. His consecration was initially delayed due to his political views and the need for a new church structure independent of the English bishops. However, his eventual consecration in Scotland marked the establishment of a "free and valid episcopate" for the Episcopal Church in America. Following his return to the U.S., he continued to lead and expand the church until his death on February 25, 1796. His legacy includes the establishment of a unified American Episcopal Church, culminating in formal recognition of his episcopacy at the 1789 general convention. Seabury's remains were later interred beneath the altar of St. James' Church in New London, Connecticut.
Samuel Seabury Appointed First Protestant Bishop in the United States
Samuel Seabury Appointed First Protestant Bishop in the United States
A year after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution, Samuel Seabury was consecrated by Episcopalian bishops in Scotland on November 14, 1784, as the first American bishop. Most of the congregations in the former American colonies that had been a part of the Church of England were by then calling themselves Protestant Episcopal, and in the following year they held an organizing convention for the newly forming Protestant Episcopal Church.
Seabury was born in North Groton, Connecticut, on November 30, 1729. His New World roots went back almost a century. One of his ancestors, John Seabury, was among the earliest American colonists when he arrived in Boston from England in 1639. Samuel Seabury spent most of his childhood in Connecticut until in 1742 he and his family moved to Hempstead in Long Island, New York. The son of a minister, Seabury wanted to devote his life to the same work.
When Seabury graduated from Yale College in 1748 with a bachelor of arts degree, he was too young to be ordained. Therefore, he studied theology and medicine under his father, who was also a physician, and served as a catechist in Huntington, Long Island. He completed his medical education between 1752 to 1753 at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and was ordained a priest of the Church of England in London in December 1753.
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel named Seabury a missionary to the Christ Church parish in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a post that he assumed upon his return to America in 1754. He married Mary Hicks of Staten Island, New York, in 1756. During the next 20 years he also, successively, served Grace Church in Jamaica, Long Island, and St. Peter's Church in Westchester County, New York (later part of the Bronx). Besides putting his medical training to good use, in Westchester he assumed the additional role of schoolmaster. In the early 1760s he was awarded master's degrees by King's College (now Columbia University) and Yale.
Soon after returning to the colonies, Seabury-who as a priest of the Church of England was a faithful servant of the king-began to involve himself in the evolving controversies between Great Britain and the American colonists. He firmly believed that the colonies would benefit by remaining attached to Britain while using peaceful, legal means to seek resolution of their differences.
He wrote newspaper articles and pamphlets, clearly and emphatically putting forth his views. An able defender of the monarch, he increased his activities on behalf of the king as the rift between Britain and the colonies deepened. Four pamphlets he wrote during this later period bear the pseudonym A. W[estchester]. Farmer and are appropriately written in the language of an educated farmer rather than that of a clergyman. One of them aroused so much indignation that in Connecticut copies were either tarred, feathered, and nailed to whipping posts or burned publicly. Rebuttals to Seabury's pamphlets were written by Alexander Hamilton, then an undergraduate at King's College and later one of the principal figures in the founding of the new republic.
When the first shots of the Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, Seabury and other Loyalists went into hiding. He soon emerged, despite that fact that he had publicly identified himself as a Tory leader. In November he was seized and imprisoned in New Haven, Connecticut, for about a month. Freed, he returned to Westchester, but after eight months he decided to seek safety on British-held Long Island.
His familiarity with Long Island and Westchester qualified Seabury to serve as a British army guide for those areas. He also served as chaplain to both the Provincial Hospital in New York and the King's American Regiment, and was a physician for the New York City Almshouse. As a result of the influence of Loyalist friends, at this time Seabury was granted the degree of doctor of divinity by Oxford University in England. He and his family lived in New York City during most of the conflict, even after the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1777 appointed him missionary to Staten Island (not then a part of New York City).
Despite the strength of his loyalty to Britain before and during the Revolution, after the conclusion of the war Seabury gave his full allegiance to the new country. Because church and state were bound together in England, the churches established in the 13 colonies now needed to organize themselves on a new, independent basis. While a part of the Church of England, they had been within the jurisdiction of the bishop of London.
On March 25, 1783, the Episcopal clergy of Connecticut, while meeting in Woodbury, elected Seabury their first bishop. In early June he sailed for England to request consecration by the English bishops. However, his allegiance to the United States and other points concerning church and state relationships proved to be large obstacles. He waited in England for a year, hoping that action permitting his consecration would be taken. Finally he appealed for consecration to the Scottish Episcopalian bishops, who themselves took no oath of allegiance to the monarch. They consented, and on November 14, 1784, Seabury was consecrated bishop in Aberdeen. A “free and valid episcopate,” in Seabury's words, had been secured for the Episcopal church in America.
In the summer of 1785 he returned to the United States, and from that time until his death he served as bishop of Connecticut, and, beginning in 1790, of Rhode Island as well. He was also the rector of his father's old church, St. James' in New London, Connecticut.
Dispute over the recognition of Seabury as a bishop arose, mainly because of the method of his consecration but partly because of his former loyalist sympathies. However, at the general convention of 1789, during which the organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church was completed, he was formally recognized as a bishop. By that time an act of Parliament had made it possible for English bishops to consecrate (in 1787) two additional bishops for the United States. The English and Scottish branches of the Anglican Church were thus united with the American Church.
A simple man with strong faith, Seabury worked throughout his life with great determination to expand the influence of the church. During his episcopate his efforts met with considerable success. Upon his death in New London, Connecticut on February 25, 1796, one of his six children, Charles, succeeded him as rector of St. James' Church. Seabury was buried in the public burying ground in New London, but his remains were later transferred to lie beneath the altar of St. James' Church.