Colonial Clergy Preface

American Colonial Anglican Clergy   Preface

                The clergy of the Church of England were important in the educa­tional, social and political life of the American colonies.  They were among the best educated; many had social and economic connec­tions in Britain; their sermons helped form community attitudes.  Knowing more about these men will help us better understand both the church and the society in which they served.

                Included here is information about the over 1100 clergy who served Church of England congrega­tions in the area now included in the United States from the baptisms of Manteo and of Virginia Dare in North Carolina (which may have been lay baptisms), to 1785, the year of the first ordinations by Bishop Samuel Seabury of Connecti­cut.  Seabury ordained a number of men for service in other states.

                For each man I include all available data on:

                Name, in the spelling he used, if known, or the most common spell­ing; four dates: birth, first mention in America, last mention in America, and last date known (often death). 
                Birth date, place and parents.  (The year of birth, if not other­wise known, is calculated from the Prayer Book rubric, And every man which is to be admitted a Priest shall be full Four-and-Twenty years old.)
                Education, (see below), and activity before ordination.
                Ordination, and any parish ministry in Britain.  Where the diocese is known the name of the ordaining bishop is added from the lists in Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1987/88 edition.
                The dates, and places if given, of Bishop of London's license to officiate, and the Royal bounty for £ 20 passage money.
                The churches served in America, dates of service, and death date, place and burial,
                Any other information about ministry in America,
                Publications,
                Marriage, children and descendants.

                Each biography is followed by a select bibliography.  Books are cited by author's last name and one word from the title, articles by author's last name, title in quotation marks, journal name abbreviated, volume, year, and pages.  Consult the Bibliography for full names.  For ease of reference, all Roman numerals have been converted to Arabic numbers.

                Information on years of birth, beginning and end of ministry in America, and death, colonies served, place of birth, education, and whether married and father of children is in an Excell file for ease of sorting and comparison. Information in bold face is based on known data; other information is assumed.

                Three Appendices include:

               Others Ordained: clergy who have some connection with America, who were born here or visited here, or intended to come here, but for whom I have found no record of parish service in America.
                Others Not Ordained: men who have some connection with America, including schoolmasters or lay readers, or those who sought ordination for or from America, but were not ordained.
                Clergy who served in or had some connection with Canada. Those who served in what is now the United States and in Canada are listed twice.
                Clergy who served in or had some connection with Bermuda, the West Indies, or Central and South America. Those who served in what is now the United States and in these areas are listed twice.
                Schoolmasters and other lay men and women who served in these areas.
                Swedish Lutheran clergy and schoolmasters of Pennsylvania and Delaware.

                Three Bibliographies include all the books, articles, and unpublished dissertations that I have found, or found

reference to, about the colonial Church of England.

                This work is based on research begun by my father, the late Rev. Dr. Nelson Waite Rightmyer (1911-1983).  In the course of  almost 50 years as parish priest, seminary professor and diocesan historiographer he wrote two books and a number of articles:
                The Anglican Church in Delaware.  Philadelphia: Church Historical Society, 1947.
                Maryland's Established Church.  Baltimore: Church Historical Society, 1956.
                “The Anglican Church in Maryland: Factors Contributing to the American Revolution.”  Church History (1950)[September] 187-198.
                “Joseph Pilmore: Anglican Evangelical.”  Historical Magazine 16(1947):181-198.
                “List of Anglican Clergymen Receiving a Bounty for Overseas Ser­vice, 1680-1688.”  Historical Magazine  17(1948): 174-182.

                He also wrote several articles for the Maryland Historical Magazine

                With John Clement, George MacL. Brydon, and Walter H. Stowe, he prepared “Anglican Clergy­men Licensed to the American Colonies 1710-1744.”  Historical Magazine 17(1948): 207-250.

                My own work is in “The Holy Orders of Peter Muhlenberg.”  Historical Magazine 30­(1961):183-197.
“Calendar of the Fulham Papers, Volumes XLI and XLII: An Addition to Manross.” Anglican and Episcopal History 62:2 (June, 1993): 237-265, and “Fulham Papers, Volume 42: Licenses to North America in the Time of Bishop Gibson.” Anglican and Episcopal History 62:3 (September, 1993) 397-446.

                The best recent work on the colonial clergy is John K. Nelson, A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690 – 1776. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2001. I have drawn on Nelson and on these older lists of clergy:

                John Clement, “Clergymen Licensed Overseas by the Bishops of London, 1696-1710.”  Historical Magazine 16(1947):328-345.
                Frederick Dalcho, Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Charleston: Protestant Episcopal Society, Tricentennial Edition, 1970. (originally published 1820).
                Gerald Fothergill, A List of Emigrant Ministers to America 1690-1811. London: Elliot Stock, 1904. (Abbreviated EM with the MB Money Book reference).
                Edward L. Goodwin, The Colonial Church in Virginia.  Milwaukee: Morehouse, 1927.
                George Woodward Lamb, compiler, “Clergymen Licensed to the American Colonies by the Bishop of London: 1745-1781.”  Historical Magazine 13(1944):128-­143.
                Pascoe, Charles Frederick, Classified Digest of the Records of the SPG.  London: [   ], 1895, and Two Hundred Years of the S.P.G.: An Historical Account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701-­1900.  2 vols.  London: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1901.
                Weis, Frederick Lewis,
                The First Record Book of the Society of the Descendants of Colonial Clergy. n.p.: Society of the Descendants of the Colonial Clergy, 1934.
                The Colonial Clergy and Colonial Churches of New England. Lancas­ter, Massachusetts: Society of the Descendants of the Colonial Clergy, 1936.
                The Colonial Churches and the Colonial Clergy, Middle & Southern Colonies. Lancaster, Massachusetts: Society of the Descendants of the Colonial Clergy, 1938.
                The Colonial Clergy of Maryland, Delaware and Georgia. Lancaster, Massachusetts: Society of the Descendants of the Colonial Clergy, 1950.
                The Colonial Clergy of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Lancaster, Massachusetts: Society of the Descendants of the Colo­nial Clergy, 1955. 
                The Colonial Clergy of the Middle Colonies, Worcester, Massachu­setts: American Antiquarian Society, 1957.
  
Other books, articles, and dissertations on which I have drawn include these:
                Austin, Alan Kenneth. The Role of the Anglican Clergy in the Political Life of Colonial Virginia. Ph.D., University of Georgia, 1969.
                Bolton, Sidney Charles.The Anglican Church of Colonial South Carolina, 1704-1754: A Study in Americanization. Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1973.
                Dresbeck, Sandra Ryan. The Episcopalian Clergy in Maryland and Virginia 1765-1805. Ph.D., UCLA, 1976.
                Goodwin, Gerald Joseph. The Anglican Middle Way in Early Eighteenth Century America: Anglican Religious Thought in the American Colonies. Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1965.
                Gundersen, Joan.  The Anglican Ministry in Virginia, 1723-1776. Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 1972.
                Jordan, Jean P. The Anglican Establishment in Colonial New York, 1693-1783. Ph.D., Columbia University, 1973
                Lorenz, Otto. The Virginia Clergy and the American Revolution. Ph.D. University of Kansas, 1970.
                Nelson, John Kendall. Anglican Missionaries in America 1701-1725, A Study of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Ph.D., North­western University, 1962.  (Microfilm, University Microfilms, 1965)
                Stokes, Durward T. The Clergy of the Carolinas and the American Revolution. Ph.D., University of North Carolina, 1968.
                van Voorst, Carol Lee. The Anglican Clergy in Maryland, 1692-1776, Ph.D. Princeton, 1978. (Published)
                Zimmer, Anne Young. Jonathan Boucher: Moderate Loyalist and Public Man. Ph.D., Wayne State University, 1966. (Published)

                With regard to the education attributed to some of the clergy. " If it be asked what proof we have of the identifica­tions, the answer must frankly be given - that it is to some extent guess-work.  Of course practical certainty can be attained in many cases: the name may be a peculiar one; the degree may be decisive; the birth-place, parentage, or patronage may give a useful clue.". (Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxoniensis, I:xiii.)

                “The cases were very numerous in which a student duly entered at a College had nevertheless neglected the statutory duty of matriculation . . . the number of Oxonians given by Foster must be seriously defec­tive, since it rests almost entirely on the matricu­lation lists.  We may therefore fairly claim that, if we have had a heavier task, we have, in return, obtained a more complete list. (John Venn and J.A. Venn, Alumni Canta­brigienses, I:3)

                Clergy who attended Harvard or Yale have their class rank, as given in Sibley's Harvard Graduates and Dexter, Yale Graduates, expressed as a fraction.  For example 9/36 means ranked 9th of 36 in the class. “In the colonial period the members of Harvard class­es were placed in an order of seniority in which they recited, sat at table, marched in processions as long as they lived, and were embalmed in the catalogue of graduates.  No doubt they main­tain it in Heaven; it was far more important than piety or sectarianism.  When members of the earlier classes in this volume were placed, a considerable weight was given to the intellectual promise of the indi­vidual.  In the later period the order of seniority became a reflection of the order em­ployed at any public function on those days.  First came the sons of governors, then the sons of lieutenant governors, then the sons of the members of the upper branches of the legisla­tures in sequence of their father's elections, then the sons of Justices of the Peace in the order of their father's com­missions, then the sons of other college graduates roughly in the se­quence of the father's graduations, and finally the bulk of the class in an order based on neither wealth or social standing in the modern sense, ex­cept that elderly charity students of much piety but little intellectual promise were at the foot.” (Clifford K. Shipton, New England Life in the 18th Cen­tury: Repre­sen­tative Biographies from Sibley's Harvard Graduates, xxvi.)

                Before the calendar reform of 1752 the year began in England on March 25, in Scotland and on the Continent on January 1.  For example a bishop's register might show ordination as Deacon in December, 1730 and Priest in January, 1730.  The convention, often found in the original documents, was to use a double date, for example 1730/1, between January 1 and March 25.  The second number corresponds to the year beginning January 1.  I have added double dates where necessary for clarity.

                Maryland and Virginia clergy were paid in pounds of tobacco, indicated by T.  In Maryland the General Assembly set clergy salaries at T 40 (later T 30) per poll - white men 16 and over, slave men and women 16 and over.  Some Maryland parishes paid better than others; and a ranking is indicated for the incumbent in each case. In Virginia each vestry set a tax per poll to cover the minister's salary of T 16,000 and other parish expenses.  Clergy also received allowances for cask - loss in packing, and sometimes payment in lieu of a glebe.

                Two principal sources of information about the clergy are the Fulham Papers and the records of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (the SPG); both are on microfilm.  The Fulham Papers are calendared in William Wilson Manross, The Fulham Papers in the Lambeth Palace Library, American Colonial section Calendar and indexes,  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965, and in my articles in AEH 62(1993) and are cited in the notes to each entry as FP with the page number in Manross and the volume and page number which key to the microfilm; within the entry as volume: page.  The SPG papers are in three volumes of letters (A, B, and C/AM) and in the Journal.  They are cited at the beginning of the notes as SPG A, B, C/AM or Journal and within the entry as A., B., or C/AM., with volume. and page.  Journal entries are by date.