History

Church of England in British North America (1497–1775)

The Episcopal Church traces its history from its origins in the Church of England. It stresses its continuity with the early universal Western church and maintains apostolic succession.

When John Cabot led the first English expedition onto North American land on June 24, 1497, he must have had some sort of religious service – it was St. John the Baptist's Day and the day was likely not a coincidence – and yet there is no extant record. In any case, Cabot sailed under the authority of King Henry VII and the English Church was still firmly Roman Catholic.

The first Church of England service recorded on North American soil was a celebration of Holy Communion at Frobisher Bay in the last days of August or early September 1578. The Anglican Church of Canada's Prayer Book fixes the day of commemoration as September 3. The chaplain on Martin Frobisher's voyage was " 'Maister Wolfall (probably Robert Wolfall), minister and preacher', who had been charged by Queen Elizabeth 'to serve God twice a day'."

The first service read from the Book of Common Prayer on American soil occurred on June 19, 1579, in a harbor far north of San Francisco, when the crew of Sir Francis Drake's ship, the Golden Hind, landed. Drake named the new land Nova Albion or New Albion and claimed it for Queen Elizabeth I. The landing site may have been near Astoria, Oregon or, speculatively, much further north in British Columbia. The exact location has never been certain but is variously reported as between 48 degrees and 42 degrees north latitude, a range which includes most of Washington, all of Oregon, and a sliver of California. The harbor was reportedly at either 48, 44, 38½, or 38 degrees. Drake and his crew stayed in this now lost harbor for over five weeks, repairing the Golden Hind.

The Lost Colony of 1587 at Roanoke – the Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island off of North Carolina – and the previous colony of 1585 in the same location may have had recorded Church of England baptisms. Records do not suggest any clergy with the colonists and references are vague. For example, one secondary text says that on August 13, 1587, an aboriginal man called Manteo who lived with the colonists and surrounding people "was christened and declared Lord of Roanoke and Dasamonquepeuc as a reward for his many services."

The propagation of the Church of England occurred in three ways. One way was by officers of ships and lay military and civil officials reading services from the Book of Common Prayer regularly when no clergy were present. For example, in the charter issued by Charles I for Newfoundland in 1633 was this directive: "On Sundays Divine Service to be said by some of the Masters of ships, such prayers as are in the Book of Common Prayer."

A second way was the direct appointing and employing of clergy by the English government on ships and in settlements.

A third way was the employment of clergy by private "merchant adventurer" companies, such as the Merchant Adventurers of London. They held monopolies on trading some products, but also sponsored exploration and settlement. They helped fund the Pilgrims going to Massachusetts, for instance. The first Church of England parish was founded in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 under the charter of the Virginia Company of London.

The Hudson's Bay Company sent out its first chaplain in 1683. Where there was no chaplain, the officers of the company were directed to read prayers from the BCP on Sundays. In 1836, a Church of England chaplain arrived at the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver, now Vancouver, Washington. This was the second-to-last Church of England clergyman on what would become American soil after the Oregon Treaty of 1846. The last Church of England clergyman vacated Fort Yukon when the United States government purchased the Russian territory in 1867.The U.S. government took possession of Fort Yukon in 1869 although the Hudson's Bay post really should not have been in the Russian territory at all. chaplain had evangelized well to the First Nations and they carried on in their new faith autonomously for twenty-five years. When the Episcopal Church in the USA sent a bishop, he found the First Nations were still praying for Queen Victoria and would not stop insisting that "...we shall continue to pray for Queen Victoria."Thus, England and the English colonists brought the church to all the American colonies.

The Church of England was designated the established church in Virginia in 1609, in the lower part of New York in 1693, in Maryland in 1702, in South Carolina in 1706, in North Carolina in 1730, and in Georgia in 1758. All people had to contribute to local taxes for the church. The vestry used the funds to build and operate churches and schools. Virginia attempted to make requirements about attendance, but with a severe shortage of clergy, they were not enforced. From 1635, the vestries and the clergy were loosely under diocesan authority of the Bishop of London. In 1660, the clergy of Virginia petitioned for a bishop to be appointed to the colony; the proposal was vigorously opposed by powerful vestrymen, wealthy planters, who foresaw their interests being curtailed. Subsequent proposals from successive Bishops of London for the appointment of a resident suffragan bishop, or another form of office with delegated authority to perform episcopal functions, met with equally robust local opposition.

Although the Church of England was theoretically established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, in actuality the colony under John Winthrop, who had brought its charter with him, was virtually self-governing civilly and religiously. By the time King's Chapel, the first Anglican Church in Massachusetts was founded in 1686, the Congregational Church had in fact become the established church of the colony. In 1691, religious toleration was extended to members of all Protestant churches. The Congregational Church was not disestablished until 1833.

During the English Civil War, the episcopate was under attack in England. The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, was beheaded in 1645. Thus, the formation of a North American diocesan structure was hampered and hindered.

In 1649, the same year when King Charles I was beheaded, the Commonwealth Parliament in England gave a charter to found a missionary organization called the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England or the New England Society, for short.

The overseas development of the Church of England in British North America challenged the insular view of the Church at home. The editors of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer found that they had to address the spiritual concerns of the contemporary adventurer. In the 1662 Preface, the editors note:

...that it was thought convenient, that some Prayers and Thanksgivings, fitted to special occasions, should be added in their due places; particularly for those at Sea, together with an office for the Baptism of such as are of Riper Years: which, although not so necessary when the former Book was compiled, ...is now become necessary, and may be always useful for the baptizing of Natives in our Plantations, and others converted to the Faith.

fter 1702 the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" (SPG) began missionary activity throughout the colonies. The ministers were few, the glebes small, the salaries inadequate, and the people quite uninterested in religion, as the vestry became in effect a kind of local government. One historian has explained the workings of the parish:

The parish was a local unit concerned with such matters as the conduct and support of the parish church, the supervision of morals, and the care of the poor. Its officers, who made up the vestry, were ordinarily influential and wealthy property holders chosen by a majority of the parishioners. They appointed the parish ministers, made local assessments, and investigated cases of moral offense for referral to the county court, the next higher judicatory. They also selected the church wardens, who audited the parish accounts and prosecuted morals cases. For several decades the system worked in a democratic fashion, but by the 1660s, the vestries had generally become self-perpetuating units made up of well-to-do landowners. This condition was sharply resented by the small farmers and servants.

—Clifton Olmstead, History of Religion in the United States

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Bishop of London, continued to support the petitions of local clergy in seeking a bishop for the colonies; and strong opposition continued to these proposals, especially in the South, where a bishop would threaten the privileges of the lay vestry. Opponents conjured up visions of "episcopal palaces, or pontifical revenues, of spiritual courts, and all the pomp, grandeur, luxury and regalia of an American Lambeth" (New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, March 14, 1768). John Adams later explained, "the apprehension of Episcopacy" contributed to the American Revolution, capturing the attention "not only of the inquiring mind, but of the common people... . The objection was not merely to the office of a bishop, though even that was dreaded, but to the authority of parliament, on which it must be founded".

On the eve of Revolution, about 400 independent congregations were reported throughout the colonies.