The American clergyman Philander Chase (1775-1852) was a pioneer Episcopal missionary in the early years of westward expansion and the first Episcopal bishop in both Ohio and Illinois.

Philander Chase was born on Dec. 14, 1775, at Cornish, N.H., the last of 15 children. He grew up in the Congregationalist faith of his parents, but while a student at Dartmouth College he converted to the Episcopal Church. Following graduation in 1795 he married and soon after began his theological studies under a rector at Albany, N.Y. He was ordained deacon in 1798 and priest a year later.

Chase's career began as a missionary in central New York (1799-1805) and continued when he was appointed a rector in New Orleans (1805-1811), and later in Hartford, Conn. (1811-1817). Enthusiasm for westward migration encouraged him to set out on his own in 1817 for Ohio, still largely unsettled. Preaching and organizing parishes as he traveled...