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Biography of Samuel SeaburyName: Samuel SeaburyBirth Date: November 30, 1729 Death Date: February 25, 1796 Place of Birth: Groton, Connecticut, United States Nationality: American Gender: Male Occupations: theologian Samuel Seabury The American theologian Samuel Seabury (1729-1796) was an important figure in the establishment of the Episcopal Church in the United States.Samuel Seabury was born in Groton, Conn., on Nov. 30, 1729, a son of Samuel Seabury, a minister of the Congregational Church who became a convert to the Church of England and was ordained in its ministry in 1730. Young Seabury graduated from Yale College in 1748, went to England in 1751, studied medicine in Edinburgh, and was ordained in 1753. A year later he returned to America under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and became rector of Christ Church, New Brunswick, N.J. Later he served churches in Jamaica and Westchester, N.Y.Conflict characterized Seabury's life. He was a High Churchman and a royalist. He believed that the establishment of a strong episcopate in America should take precedence over the organization of a national church. An early controversy …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…some opposition to unification; some clergymen condemned him because of his actions in support of the British; others doubted the validity of his consecration. He was strongly supported by most of the New England clergy, however, and Church unity was achieved at the General Convention of 1789 in Philadelphia. Seabury died on Feb. 25, 1796, in New London. Further Reading James Thayer Addison, The Episcopal Church in the United States, 1789-1931 (1951), gives an account of Seabury's activities. Raymond W. Albright, A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church (1964), contains more detail and documentation. The classic biographical sketch of Seabury is in The Episcopate in America by William Stevens Perry (1895).Mitgang, Herbert, The man who rode the tiger: the life of Judge Samuel Seabury and the story of the greatest investigation of city corruption in this century, New York: Norton, 1979, 1963. Seabury, Samuel, Moneygripe's apprentice: the personal narrative of Samuel Seabury III, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. |