James J. Wilmer was born on January 15, 1750, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the youngest son of Simon Wilmer and Mary Price. His father, a planter and presiding justice of the Kent County court, was a grandson of Simon Wilmer, who settled in Kent County before 1680.
When James was nine years old he was sent to a maternal uncle in England to be educated. He attended St. Paul's School, London, from 1763 to 1768, when he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford.
After eighteen months, however, he returned to America. Recommended by Gov. Robert Eden of Maryland to the Bishop of London, he went back to England for ordination and was licensed, September 25, 1773, for Maryland, but did not obtain a suitable charge at once, and led a rather desultory life for the next few years. The death of his English uncle and Wilmer's mistaken belief that his share of the uncle's estate would make him wealthy seems to have been his undoing; he was unable to settle down seriously and spent most of his time traveling between Maryland and England in search of the fortune which never materialized.
Between 1779 and 1789, however, he was rector successively of four Maryland parishes: St. Paul's in Kent County; Shrewsbury, Kent; St. George's, Harford County; and St Stephen's, Kent. While rector of Shrewsbury, North Sassafras Parish, Kent County, he served as secretary of a convention of the Anglican clergymen of the Eastern Shore, held at Chestertown, November 9, 1780, at which "on motion of the Secretary, it was proposed that the Church known in the province as Protestant, be called the "Protestant Episcopal Church, " and it was so adopted". The name was in a short time in general use.
It seems probable that when Wilmer was in England in 1790 - 1791 in pursuit of his inheritance he was attracted to Swedenborgianism, for on his return he became the leader of a group which in Baltimore founded the first New Church Society in America. It was Wilmer's dream at the time that the New Church should become the established church of the United States, and in the Maryland Gazette (Baltimore) for October 18, 1791, he announced the publication of A Discourse on a Federal Church as Lately First Commenced in the Town of Baltimore. The following year he published A Sermon on the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Church, being the First Promulgated within the United States of America, Delivered on the First Sunday in April 1792 in the Court House of Baltimore.
Established as a distinct religious society in England in 1788, the Church of the New Jerusalem thus came into existence in America four years later. Wilmer served as minister for a time, but after a year or two of struggle became discouraged and sought to support his family by his pen and by conducting a succession of short-lived schools in Baltimore, Charles Town, and Havre de Grace. About 1799 he was reinstated as a clergyman of the Episcopal Church and during the next decade held charges in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.
Wilmer also was a prolific writer and pamphleteer. His style was lively and readable. His frequent newspaper contributions, usually of a political, religious, or personal character, were often controversial and unrestrained.
From 1809 to 1813 he was one of the chaplains of Congress. Appointed in the latter year chaplain in the United States Army, he saw active service in the War of 1812. While attached to the North Western Army he was ship-wrecked on the "Chippaway River, " and died on April 14, 1814, at Detroit, apparently as the result of exposure.
In 1780, he left the Episcopal church to become a Swedenborgian and urged Washington to make the Swedenborgian church the "established church", which wisely was not done. He wrote voluminously and taught in various places to support himself; finally returned to and was reinstated in the Episcopal ministry in 1799.
On May 21, 1783, James Jones Wilmer married Sarah Magee, by whom he had five children. In 1803, he married Letitia Day.
