Background
He was born on May 25, 1835 in Schenectady, New York, United States, the son of Alonzo and Sarah Maria (Nott) Potter.
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book
Henry Codman Potter: Memorial Addresses Delivered Before the Century Association, December 12, 1908
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Henry Codman Potter
Edit ProfileEducation
He received his early education in Philadelphia. Enrolling at once as a student in the Theological Seminary in Virginia, at Alexandria, he graduated from that institution in 1857.
Career
In his nineteenth year he was an employee in a dry-goods house. In May of 1857 he was ordained deacon by his father, who placed him in charge of the parish of Greensburg in western Pennsylvania. On October 15, 1858, he was advanced to the priesthood by Bishop Samuel Bowman, in Pittsburgh.
He removed to Troy, New York, to become rector of St. John's Church. In his work here he was notably successful. Interested in the welfare of young people, he vigorously supported the Young Men's Christian Association and other means of promoting their interests. In April 1866 he became the assistant minister of Trinity Church, Boston, of which Manton Eastburn, bishop of Massachusetts, was rector.
He was appointed secretary of the House of Bishops of the General Convention, holding this office until his elevation to the episcopate. In 1868 he became rector of Grace Church, New York. Following the lead of Dr. W. A. Muhlenberg, and holding with him that organized religion should minister to the whole man, he made his conventional, fashionable family parish a center of Christian work of every sort. Grace Chapel, Grace House, and other buildings were erected. On September 27, 1883, Potter was elected assistant bishop of New York, and was consecrated the 20th of the following October.
The bishop, Horatio Potter, Henry's uncle, was retired from all active work and left the diocese entirely to the charge of his assistant. His first duty was to deal with serious problems arising out of the development of parties in the Church. First of all, he had to deal with the dispute over the teaching of R. Heber Newton as to the authority and integrity of the Bible. The new bishop persuaded Dr. Newton to discontinue his very popular lectures on the Pentateuch, which were causing an unreasonable commotion; but twice, in 1884 and again in 1891, he refused to allow presentments of Dr. Newton for trial for heresy.
In the matter of the profession of the Rev. J. O. S. Huntington as a member of the Order of the Holy Cross, November 25, 1884, Potter was sharply criticized by bishops and clergy of the Evangelical party. Although not in sympathy with the theology of the new order, Potter believed in its work. Attempts were made to embroil the bishop with the ritualists: on account of ritual irregularities, he declined to "visit" the Church of St. Ignatius in New York; but the rector soon complied with the bishop's directions.
His last serious trouble with partisans was in the case of Prof. Charles A. Briggs who had been found guilty of heresy by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. Briggs applied for orders to Bishop Potter and was ordained by him to the Episcopal ministry on May 14, 1899. This action raised a storm which raged around the head of the bishop for a time, but it passed and Briggs became a distinguished presbyter of the Church and remained professor in Union Theological Seminary.
In 1887 Potter put forth an appeal for the erection of a great cathedral. The matter had been broached by his predecessor in 1871, but nothing had been done. An excellent site was now secured and soon work began on the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the corner stone being laid in 1892. During the Washington Centennial commemorating the inauguration of the first President, a great public service was held, April 30, 1889, at St. Paul's Chapel, New York, where Washington had worshipped immediately after taking the oath of office and where the Bishop of New York had read the prayers. Potter took advantage of this occasion to speak in behalf of civic righteousness and honesty in public administration.
He spent the summer of 1895 in a little mission in Stanton Street, regarded as the worst and most criminal neighborhood in the city. In 1899 the priest in charge of this mission was insulted by the police authorities when he protested to them against the police protection of vice. The matter was brought up in the Diocesan Convention; the bishop wrote directly to Mayor Van Wyck; the public conscience was stirred and an uprising against the corrupt system in vogue drove the party in power out of office.
He died in Cooperstown, New York, in his seventy-fourth year.
Achievements
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Henry Codman Potter was the seventh Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. During his administration the American Colonization Society (ACS) was founded. He became widely known, also, as the impartial friend of every class, and was constantly called upon to act as arbitrator in labor disputes. Thus, he served on the Committee on Conciliation and Mediation of the Civic Federation. Of his many publications the most notable are The Scholar and the State; The Citizen in His Relation to the Industrial Situation; and The Modern Man and His Fellow Man.
Works
book
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Henry Codman Potter: Memorial Addresses Delivered Before the Century Association, December 12, 1908
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
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Henry Codman Potter: Memorial Addresses Delivered Before the Century Association, December 12, 1908
Religion
By training Potter was Evangelical, but had moved toward a moderate Broad Church position; as bishop, however, he was the representative of no party.
Personality
He was well read and thoughtful rather than learned. His bearing was that of an aristocrat, and the English often spoke of his resemblance to the mid-Victorian bishops.
Quotes from others about the person
A July 1908 editorial in The New York Times about Potter included the following words: "He felt profoundly the brotherhood of the race, and he manifested courage, force, independence of judgment, and great unselfishness in the application of the principle to the relations of daily life. Apart from the more specific duties of the Church, nothing engaged more intimately and passionately all the energies of his nature than systematic work for the practical application of the ideal of brotherhood to the aid of those to whom it is usually extended only in pale and ineffectual theory. "
Connections
October 8, 1857, he married Eliza Rogers Jacobs, of Spring Grove, Lancaster County. His first wife died suddenly, June 29, 1901, leaving a son and five daughters; on October 4, 1902, he married Elizabeth (Scriven) Clark, the widow of Alfred Corning Clark.
References
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Born
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Died
July 21, 1908 (aged 73) -
Nationality
American -
Religion
Episcopal Church