William Vesey was born on August 10, 1674, in Braintree, Massachusetts. He was the son of William and Mary Vesey.
His father was evidently a farmer and a Jacobite, for in 1699 Governor Bellomont wrote that he had been sentenced to stand in the pillory for "desperate words" against the king.
Vesey was graduated at Harvard College in 1693, the year the New York Assembly passed the Ministerial Act, which Gov. Benjamin Fletcher interpreted as establishing the Church of England in the colony.
He received an honorary degree of M. A. from Merton College, Oxford.
Following graduation, Vesey preached on Long Island for about two years and then went to Boston to assist at King's Chapel. On November 2, 1696, he was called to New York on condition that he go to London for ordination according to the liturgy of the Church of England. With a loan of 1695 from the wardens and vestrymen, he departed in November 1696. Fletcher's successful efforts to have the law interpreted in favor of the Church of England brought Vesey into many controversies with the royal governors, who held widely divergent views concerning the rights vested in Trinity and its rector.
Disagreements, beginning under Richard, Lord Bellomont, over the King's (later Queen's) Farm and other land grants; struggles over the payment of the rector's salary; differences with Gov. Robert Hunter concerning the rights of the Presbyterians in Jamaica and the use of the fort chapel for services brought stormy times for Vesey, whose extreme conservatism and positive ideas about the church made him resist determinedly and often none too tactfully any attempt to infringe on what he regarded as his prerogatives.
So bitter did feeling become between Vesey and Hunter, who accused the former of being a Jacobite, that Vesey left for England in 1714 to lay his case before the Bishop of London. His exoneration appears to have been complete, for he not only remained rector of Trinity but became the Bishop's commissary in New York and New Jersey, in both of which capacities he served until his death.
His last years were more peaceful, though he was violently opposed to Whitefield's preaching in New York. Vesey enjoyed the respect and confidence of his parishioners, among whom were many of the most prominent citizens politically, financially, and socially. He cooperated with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in providing missionaries and teachers for the poor, and in establishing a charity school in connection with Trinity. He preached at various missions throughout his district and at his death had twenty-two congregations in his charge.
Vesey was ordained a priest, August 2, 1697, by the Bishop of London; and on December 25, having returned to New York was inducted by Fletcher into the parish of Trinity Church, which had meanwhile been granted a charter of incorporation. Vesey and Rector streets in New York City were named for him.
In 1698, Vesey married Mary Reade, daughter of Lawrence Reade. After his death, she became the wife of Judge Daniel Horsmanden.
