James Hervey Otey, Christian educator and the first Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee, established the first Anglican church in the state and its first parish churches.
Background
James Hervey Otey was born January 27, 1800 in Bedford County, Virginia to Major Isaac Otey and Elizabeth Mathews. Following his marriage to Elizabeth Davis Pannill, daughter of William Pannill and Martha Mitchell of St. Petersburg, Virginia.
Education
Otey attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Career
Upon his graduation in 1820, he was appointed as a tutor in Greek and Latin at the school. Their children:
Virginia Maury Otey, b. 5 August 1822, Tennessee
Paul Hooker Otey, b.
3 April 1825
Henrietta Coleman Otey, b.
15 July 1826
Reginald Heber Otey, b. 26 February 1829
Sara McGavock Otey, b.
30 June 1830
Mary Fogg Otey, b. 27 October 1832
Eliza Ripley Otey, b.
7 August 1836
Fanny J. Otey, b.
3 September 1838
William Mercer Otey, b. 15 April 1842
In 1821, he moved to Maury County, Tennessee, and became principal at Harpeth Academy. Many years later, Otey asked for and got his former pupil, Maury, to give the cornerstone speech for the University of the South.
He studied for the ordained ministry under Bishop John Stark Ravenscroft of North Carolina.
He became a deacon in 1825 and priest in 1827. He established several other churches and on July 1, 1829, established the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee at Nashville.
He was elected the first bishop in June 1833 and was consecrated at Christ Church, Philadelphia, the following January. Following his election, Otey also took charge of the Diocese of Mississippi and was missionary bishop for Arkansas and the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
He traveled for months at a time across the extensive region, establishing new churches and preaching the Gospel.
Otey was fervently interested in Christian education and helped organize schools at Ashwood, Jackson and Columbia, Tennessee. His dreams for a "Literary and Theological Seminary" for the region were realized when the Rt. Review Leonidas Polk, bishop of Louisiana, his former co-educator at the Columbia Female Institute, took the lead in establishing the University of the South at Sewanee in 1857.
Otey lived at "Mercer Hall" in Columbia from 1835 to 1852, when he relocated to Memphis, Tennessee.
In Memphis, he eventually set up residence at what came to be known as the "Bishop"s House," next door to the mission church of Saint Mary"s (the future Street Mary"s Cathedral). He died in Memphis in 1863.
After the Civil War, he was re-buried at Saint John"s Church at Ashwood in Maury County. One of Otey"s sons-in-law, Daniel Chevilette Covan, married Mary Fogg Otey and became a prominent brigadier general in the Confederate army.
Achievements
Connections
Married Eliza Pannill, October 13, 1821, 9 children.