Background
James Lloyd Breck was born on June 27, 1818 near Philadelphia. He was the fourth son among the fourteen children of George Breck and Catherine D. Israell.
clergyman educator Missionary priest
James Lloyd Breck was born on June 27, 1818 near Philadelphia. He was the fourth son among the fourteen children of George Breck and Catherine D. Israell.
James Breck was educated at the Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg's academy at Flushing, Long Island, and at the University of Pennsylvania. Then after graduation from the University of Pennsylvania in 1838, he entered the General Theological Seminary in New York.
During Breck's stay in New York, Bishop Jackson Kemper returned there from his first missionary journey through the new territories of the Northwest, and appealed for volunteers. Breck saw here the opportunity for a life of service for which he had been waiting. For some time he had had in his mind the formation of a brotherhood of celibate clergy, thus reviving in the Episcopal Church a type of religious devotion in which little or nothing had been attempted since the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. In this desire he had the support of two other young clergymen, and in 1841 the three set off for Wisconsin.
The next fall found the little society established at Nashotah, where the brethren bought land and built their first house. From this center, Breck worked tirelessly at the three tasks he had set himself: missionary work among the settlers who were swarming into the new territories, the foundation of a theological seminary for the West, and the revival of a disciplined religious community life in the Church. Of the three, the last was probably the dearest to him at this time. It was his inflexible determination to insist on his brotherhood idea, in spite of the growing lukewarmness of his companions, which led him to leave Nashotah after eight years of successful struggle.
Breck was nothing if not masterful, and realizing that the work could not develop on lines which he preferred, he resigned the presidency and went to Minnesota.
He had not failed, for Nashotah Seminary continued to propagate his uncompromising Church principles. After a brief and not too encouraging attempt to found a permanent religious order after his own heart at St. Paul, Breck turned with equal enthusiasm to convert the Indians.
He had already received the earnest commendation of the governor of the territory, when his dreams of a Christianized and civilized Indian population were destroyed by the withdrawal of all United States troops from Minnesota. The Civil War was imminent, and the white missionaries and their converts, now without protection, were in constant danger.
With great reluctance, Breck sought a more settled neighborhood, and made new headquarters at Faribault.
In its outcome, the work at Faribault was the largest of all Breck's labors. In the nine years he spent there, he either founded or prepared the way for the cathedral, the Seabury Divinity School, which is the principal Episcopal seminary west of the Mississippi, and the splendid schools for boys and girls there.
After nine years, Faribault became too solidly established to tempt this "apostle of the wilderness" to remain longer. He was by nature a pioneer, and his last search for the frontier led him to California. In 1867 he moved on to California to build another seminary and settled at Benicia, not far from San Francisco. There he followed his usual plan of founding a theological seminary and schools for boys and girls; but before he had had sufficient time to establish his latest work on a substantially enduring basis.
Breck died in Benicia in 1876. He was buried beneath the altar of the church he served as rector but later his body was removed and reinterred on the grounds of Nashotah House in Nashotah, Wisconsin.
When James Breck went to Wisconsin in 1844, then under the direction of Bishop Kemper he founded the Nashotah House, which was intended as a monastic community, a seminary, and a center for theological work. It still continues today as a seminary and representative of one traditional aspect of Anglican thought and practice. Another Breck's significant achievement was in founding the Seabury Divinity School at Faribault (now part of Seabury-Western Seminary in Chicago) in Minnesota in 1850. He also began mission work among the Chippewa Indians, and laid the foundation for work among them by Christian priests from their own people. During these five years that he spent among the Chippewas, he opened educational, agricultural, and missionary centers at Crow Wing and Leech Lake, which were beginning to exercise a potent influence. His legacy include the Breck School in Golden Valley, Minnesota, which was founded in 1886, and was named for him.
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At the age of sixteen James Breck had already decided to offer himself to a life of hardship in the mission field. At the time when he entered the General Theological Seminary in New York, these were the early days of the Catholic Revival in the Episcopal Church, and in the seminary Breck came under the influence of the Rev. Dr. Whittingham, later Bishop of Maryland, who strengthened in him the High Church principles he had acquired from Dr. Muhlenberg.
During his years with the Indians, the force of circumstances seems to have led him to abandon his cherished ideal of an order of celibate clergy living in community under a religious rule. From the outset of his career he had been convinced of the necessity of church schools and religious education in connection with Christian missions.
Quotations:
In a letter to a friend, Breck described the seminary in his day as follows:
"The students boarding with us are all theological. They are Chiefly young men, sons of the farmers, and all communicants of the Church. Our students, like ourselves, are poor, but not the less worthy for all that. They seek the Ministry, but are unable to attain it without aid. We have a house; for this we pay no rent; it belongs to the Church, and so do we. We have land. They work four hours a day for their board and washing, and we give them their education without cost. Thus their clothing is their only expense, and to enable them to purchase this, we give them six weeks vacation during the harvest, when they can earn the highest wages.
Brother Adams and myself work four hours, except when we Are teaching or doing Missionary labor. We must all work for our board. That is the only way in which they will feel it their duty to labor and to study, and the only way in which our people will feel their duty to the Church, and to ourselves as clergy of the same.
We rise at 5am, Matins at 6. The Morning Service of the Church at 9. On Wednesdays and Fridays, the Litany at 12. On Thursdays, the Holy Eucharist at the same hour of 12. The Evening service of the Church at 3, and Family Prayer or Vespers at 6:30 or 7pm. Our students labor between 7 and 9 in the morning, and 1 and 3 in the afternoon. "
From his boyhood, he showed himself to be of strong character, and was distinguished at school by his industry and perseverance if not by brilliance.
Later in life he was a man of great stature and commanding personality, capable of doing his forty miles a day on foot over the forest trails, dressed invariably in the full clerical attire of the period, never lacking clean linen in spite of the frequent squalor of his surroundings, so that was the reason Breck made a tremendous impression on the Indians.
In 1855 James Breck married Jane Maria Mills, one of his assistants. She died in 1862; and after two years as a widower Breck married his second wife, Sarah Styles, who survived him.
1789–1864
1808–1849
Bishop of Maryland
1825–1894
1812–1885
1823–1862
1819–1877
1856–1920
1816–1891
1810–1880
1828–1900
1784–1869
