First American Episcopalian Bishop

American Anglican.

Samuel Seabury was a key figure in founding the American Episcopal Church from what was left of colonial Anglicanism after the Revolution. Seabury was born into the family of the Congregational minister in Groton, Connecticut, on 30 November 1729. The next year Seabury's father converted from Congregationalism to Anglicanism, as did several other young ministers drawn by the richness of Anglican sacramental life and the association with English ways. Seabury followed his father into the priesthood in 1753 and became a missionary in New Jersey and New York, sponsored by the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. He continued this work through the pre- Revolutionary years. During this time he became embroiled in the controversy over the ordination of an Anglican bishop for the American colonies, a possibility many Americans feared, however irrationally, as one more sign of British tyranny...