Background
William Neilson McVickar was born in New York City, where his great-grandfather, John, an emigrant from County Antrim, Ireland, had been a prosperous merchant and long a vestryman of Trinity Church. One of his sons, John, was a prominent Episcopal clergyman and professor in Columbia College. William was the grandson of James and the son of Dr. John Augustus McVickar, a well-known homeopathic practitioner, whose wife was Charlotte, daughter of William Neilson, the first president of the New York Board of Underwriters.
Education
Young McVickar was prepared for college in private schools and graduated from Columbia in 1865. He entered the Philadelphia Divinity School but later transferred to the General Theological Seminary, New York, where he completed his course in 1868.
Career
Ordained deacon in 1867, and priest in 1868, he was for a short time assistant to Dr. Stephen H. Tyng at St. George's Church, New York, but in 1868 became rector of Holy Trinity, Harlem, an infant enterprise with few adherents and no church buildings. During the seven years that McVickar was in charge it became a comparatively large, and well-equipped institution. In 1875 he was called to Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, where he was rector for twenty-two years. When his unexpected death from pneumonia at his summer home, Beverly Farms, Massachussets, was announced, tributes of esteem and affection poured in from people of all classes and faiths.
Personality
Six feet, five inches tall and built on extraordinarily large proportions, of bright and kindly countenance, and possessing a voice of great richness and sweetness, McVickar was impressive in the pulpit and attracted notice and interest wherever he appeared. His breadth of sympathies and largeness of heart corresponded with his physical appearance.
McVickar and Phillips Brooks were intimate friends and kindred spirits, corresponding frequently and traveling abroad together.
His interest in civic and philanthropic affairs and his catholic spirit soon made him in fact as well as in name one of the first citizens of the state. He was a fearless, yet wise and generous fighter in the cause of righteousness, active in the Watch and Ward Society and president of the Rhode Island Anti-Saloon League, and an outspoken opponent of the political corruption then existing.
