Samuel Seabury
The Right Reverend Samuel Seabury (November 30, 1729 – February 25, 1796), was the first American Episcopal bishop, the second Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA, and the first Bishop of Connecticut.
History
Samuel Seabury was born in Ledyard, Groton, Connecticut in 1729. His father, also Samuel Seabury (1706-1764), originally a Congregationalist minister in Groton, was ordained deacon and priest in the Church of England in 1731, and was a rector in New London, Connecticut, from 1732 to 1743, and in Hempstead, Long Island, from 1743 until his death.
Samuel Seabury (the son) graduated from Yale in 1748; studied theology with his father; studied medicine in Edinburgh from 1752 to 1753; was ordained deacon by the bishop of Lincoln and priest by the bishop of Carlisle in 1753; was missionary in New Brunswick, New Jersey from 1754 to 1757, rector in Jamaica, New York from 1757 to 1766, and of St Peter's, Westchester (now annexed to The Bronx) from 1766 to 1775.
Revolutionary times
He was one of the signers of the White Plains protest of April 1775 against all unlawful congresses and committees, in many other ways proved himself a devoted loyalist, and wrote the Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of the Continental Congress (1774) by A. W. Farmer (i.e. a Westchester farmer), which was followed by a second "Farmer's Letter", The Congress Canvassed (1774), answered by Alexander Hamilton in A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress, from the Calumnies of their Enemies. A third "Farmer's Letter" replied to Hamilton's View of the Controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies, in a broader and abler treatment than in the previous pamphlets. To this third pamphlet Hamilton replied with The Farmer Refuted (1775).
These three "Farmer's Letters" — a fourth was advertised but apparently was never published — were forcible presentations of the pro-British claim, written in a plain, hard-headed style; their authorship was long in question, but it is certain that Seabury claimed them in England in 1783 when he was seeking episcopal consecration. At the same time he claimed the authorship of a letter, not signed by the Westchester farmer, which under the title An Alarm to the Legislature of the Province of New York (1775) discussed the power of this, the only legal political body in the colony.
Seabury was arrested in November 1775 by a mob of lawless Whigs, and was kept in prison in Connecticut for six weeks; his parochial labors were broken up, and after some time in Long Island he took refuge in New York City, where in 1778 he was appointed chaplain to the King's American Regiment.
The episcopacy
On March 25, 1783 he was chosen their bishop by ten episcopal clergymen of Connecticut, meeting in Woodbury; as he could not take the British oath of allegiance, Seabury was shut out from consecration by the English bishops, and he was consecrated by Scottish bishops in St Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen on November 14, 1784. The anniversary of his consecration is a now a feast day on the calendars of both the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and the Anglican Church of Canada.
He returned to Connecticut in 1785 and made New London, Connecticut his home, becoming rector of St James's Church there. The validity of his consecration was at first questioned by some, but was recognized by the General Convention of his church in 1789. In 1790 Seabury took charge of the diocese of Rhode Island also. In 1792 he joined with Bishops William White and Samuel Provoost, who had received English consecration in 1787, and James Madison (1749-1812), who had received English consecration in 1790, in the consecration of Bishop Thomas J. Claggett of Maryland in 1792, thus uniting the Scottish and the English successions. He died in New London on 25 February 1796.
He was a great organizer and a strict churchman. After his consecration he used the signature Samuel Bp. Connect. Seabury's "Farmer's Letters" rank him as the most vigorous American loyalist controversialist and as one of the greatest masters of style of his period.
Consecrators
- The Right Reverend Robert Kilgour, 39th Bishop of Aberdeen
- The Right Reverend Arthur Petrie, 37th Bishop of Bishop of Moray, Ross and Caithness
- The Right Reverend John Skinner, Bishop Coadjutor of Aberdeen
Samuel Seabury was the 1st bishop consecrated for the Episcopal Church.
Family
His son Charles (1770-1844) was rector in various Long Island churches; and Charles's son Samuel (1801-1872), who graduated from Columbia in 1823, was rector of the Church of the Annunciation in New York City from 1838-1868, and professor of Biblical learning and the Interpretation of Scriptures in the General Theological Seminary from 1862. William Jones Seabury (b. 1837), son of the last named, was rector of the Church of the Annunciation from 1868 to 1898, professor of ecclesiastical polity and law in the General Theological Seminary from 1873, and published a Manual for Choristers (1878), Lectures on Apostolic Succession (1893) and An Introduction to the Study of Ecclesiastical Polity (1894).
Popular Society
Samuel Seabury has a park named in his honor on the corner of 96th street and Lexington ave on the island of Manhattan in New York City. The park has little connection to Samuel Seabury aside from his short stay in New york City in late 1775. The Park was recently renovated from 2005-2006.
Publications
- An Alarm to the Legislature of the Province of New York (1775)
- The Communion-Office, or Order for the Administration of the Holy Eucharist or Supper of the Lord with Private Devotions (1786)
- The Congress Canvassed (1774) as "A. W. Farmer"
- An Earnest Persuasive to Frequen Communion (1789)
- Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of the Continental Congress (1774) as "A. W. Farmer"
- Hamilton's View of the Controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies as "A. W. Farmer"
See also
References
- E. Edwards Beardsley, Life and Correspondence of the Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury (Boston, 1881).
Paul V. Marshall, "One, Catholic, and Apostolic--Samuel Seabury and the Early Episcopal Church." New York: Church Publishing Incoorporated (2004).
- The Episcopal Church Annual. Morehouse Publishing: New York, NY (2005).
- Wilkinson, Todd. "The Scottish Roots of the Episcopal Church". Scottish History Online. Accessed CJJDay 14:49, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
External links
- "Scottish Roots of the Episcopal Church" on the Scottish History website.
- "Samuel Seabury" on Virtuology.com, Virtual American Biographies