Benjamin B. Smith
Benjamin Bosworth Smith (June 13, 1794 – May 31, 1884) was an American Protestant Episcopal bishop, and the Presiding Bishop of his Church beginning in 1868.
The Most Reverend Benjamin Bosworth Smith D.D., LL.D. | |
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9th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church | |
Church | Episcopal Church |
In office | 1868-1884 |
Predecessor | John Henry Hopkins |
Successor | Alfred Lee |
Other posts | Bishop of Kentucky (1832-1884) |
Orders | |
Ordination | June 24, 1818 by Alexander Viets Griswold |
Consecration | October 31, 1832 by William White |
Personal details | |
Born | Bristol, Rhode Island, United States | June 13, 1794
Died | May 31, 1884 89) New York City, New York, United States | (aged
Buried | Frankfort Cemetery |
Nationality | American |
Denomination | Anglican |
Parents | Stephen Smith & Ruth Bosworth |
Spouse | Elizabeth Bosworth (m. 1818, d. 1833) Harriet L. Staples (m. 1835) |
Alma mater | Brown University |
Early life
Smith was born at Bristol, R. I., and lost his father when he was 5 years old. Nonetheless, he graduated at Brown University in 1816.[1]
Career
The following year he was ordained, beginning his ministry at Marblehead, Mass. He held several pastoral charges and was for a time editor of the Episcopal Recorder at Philadelphia. His last rectorship, in Lexington, Ky., he held until 1837, though in 1832 he had become Bishop of the diocese. While he was presiding Bishop (from 1868), a separatist movement, which became the Reformed Episcopal Church, was organized under the leadership of Bishop Smith's own assistant bishop, George David Cummins. He published Saturday Evening (1876) and Apostolic Succession (1877).
In the late 1860s, he helped establish schools and hire teachers to work with former slaves throughout the south.[2]
In 1874, Presiding Bishop Smith led the consecration of James Theodore Holly, the first African-American to be consecrated a bishop in the Protestant Episcopal church, and who became the missionary bishop for Haiti.
See also
References
- W. Robert Insko, Kentucky Bishop (Frankfort, Kentucky: Kentucky Historical Society 1952)pp. 1-2
- Simmons, William J., and Henry McNeal Turner. Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising. GM Rewell & Company, 1887. p744-751
Sources
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead. Missing or empty
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External links
- Documents by and about B.B. Smith from Project Canterbury
- The Life and Ministry of Benjamin Bosworth Smith, First Bishop of Kentucky: A Memorial Discourse delivered before the Fifty-sixth Annual Council of the Diocese of Kentucky, on the 24th Day of September, A.D., 1884, in Christ Church, Louisville, by Alfred Lee (1884)
Episcopal Church (USA) titles | ||
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Preceded by John Henry Hopkins |
9th Presiding Bishop 1868–1884 |
Succeeded by Alfred Lee |
Preceded by New Diocese |
1st Bishop of Kentucky 1832-1884 |
Succeeded by Thomas U. Dudley |