James Kemp

Background

James Kemp was born on May 20, 1764 in the parish of Keith Hall, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of Donald and Isabel Kemp.

Education

Kemp attended the local school. Thereafter he entered Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he graduated in 1786 and in April of the following year he came to America. In 1802 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Columbia College.

Career

In 1787 Kemp obtained a position as tutor in a family on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Although brought up in the Presbyterian faith, in his new environment he became interested in the Protestant Episcopal Church. It was at that time working to organize its scattered parishes into an efficient national and diocesan system. He threw in his lot with that church and read for holy orders under the supervision of the Reverend John Bowie, rector of Great Choptank Parish. On December 26, 1789, at Philadelphia, he was ordered deacon and the next day presbyter, by the Right Reverend William White, bishop of Pennsylvania. There was then no bishop in Maryland.

He returned to Great Choptank to become assistant to the rector, whom he succeeded in 1790. Kemp remained at his first parish until 1813, when he became associate rector of St. Paul's Parish, Baltimore, the most important in the state. In the next year he was elected assistant bishop to the Right Reverend Thomas J. Claggett, of Maryland. It was understood at the time that he should succeed the diocesan. His jurisdiction, meanwhile, was to be the Eastern Shore, where he was well known and which included one third of the parishes of the state. He was consecrated bishop September 1, 1814, by Bishop White of Pennsylvania, Bishop John Henry Hobart of New York, and Bishop Richard Channing Moore of Virginia. The election of Kemp was the occasion for a short-lived schism in the Protestant Episcopal Church in Maryland, under the lead of the Reverend Daniel Dashiell. "The Evangelical Episcopal Church, " however, never numbered more than four or five clergymen. Kemp succeeded to the episcopate of Maryland on the death of Bishop Claggett, August 2, 1816.

By his tact and moderation he was able to heal the schism in his diocese. His episcopate was a critical period in the diocese of Maryland. The Church had greatly declined before the Revolution and had as yet made little headway. It was due to Bishop Kemp that the diocese shared in the general revival which had begun in New York under Bishop Hobart and in Virginia under Bishop Moore. Kemp's writings were few: A Tract upon Conversion (1807), one or two other tracts, and occasional sermons separately published. After his death, The Monument: A Small Selection from the Sermons of the Late Right Rev. James Kemp, D. D. (1833), was issued, with a funeral sermon by Dr. W. E. Wyatt and a biographical sketch. He died as the result of an accident at New Castle, Delaware. He had been in Philadelphia, participating in the consecration of Henry U. Onderdonk as assistant bishop of Pennsylvania; on the return journey his coach was overturned and he was so seriously injured internally that he died within three days.

Achievements

• James Kemp was recognized mainly for inviting the African American clergyman William Levington to his diocese and helping him to establish St. James First African American Episcopal Church. It was the third church of this kind in the new country.

Works

• book

  • THE MONUMENT: A Small Selection From the Sermons of the Late Right Rev. James Kemp, D.D...Together with the Address delivered at the Time of His Interment. To Which are Prefixed, Brief Biographical Notices of the Bishop.

Connections

In 1790 Kemp married Elizabeth, the daughter of Captain Edward Noel of Castlehaven, Dorchester County, Maryland, by whom he had three children.

Father:

Donald Kemp

Mother:

Isabel Kemp

Spouse:

Elizabeth Noel

References

• Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of the United States of America Volume 2 Volume 2
• Annals Of The American Pulpit Or Commemorative Notices Of Distinguished American Clergymen Of Various Denominations V5: Episcopalian Part Two