Samuel Seabury was born on November 30, 1729, in North Groton, Connecticut (present day Ledyard and near Gales Ferry where Bishop Seabury Anglican Church is located). His father, also known by the same name, was the local Congregational minister. Shortly after Seabury was born, his father resigned his pastorate to pursue Holy Orders in the Church of England. While his father was away, Seabury’s mother, Abigail died. After ordination, his father returned to minister in New London, Connecticut under the banner of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Later, the elder Seabury remarried and moved to an assignment in Hempstead, Long Island where under his father’s tutelage as young boy, Samuel Seabury and his brother Caleb prepared for college. As such, Samuel Seabury grew up in home a life that was greatly shaped church life and the Book of Common Prayer.
The note about the ordination oaths is technically true. but there is more. The English bishops had no difficulty getting Acts of Parliament allowing them to ordain deacons and priests for service outside his Majesty’s dominions 1785 and consecrate bishops 1787. Two Maryland clergy were ordained deacon and priest. One of them Mason Locke Weems later wrote a biography of Washington. The English bishops were supporting a number of exiled American clergy and feared that Seabury would not be accepted in Connecticut and would return to England expecting to be supported like a bishop. Ambassador John Adams wrote on Seabury’s behalf to no result. But another reason was that Seabury was not known to the English bishops. The Scots knew him from his time at Aberdeen. William White had stayed with his English aunts when he went to London to be ordained, and Samuel Provoost was a Cambridge graduate. They were known and had no problem with consecration. And Seabury was endorsed by only one state; White and Provoost in 1787 and Madison in 1790 brought recommendations from a national church General Convention.
Tom Rightmyer, Asheville, NC