Horatio Potter

The Right Reverend                    Horatio Potter
Horatio Potter
Province	The Episcopal Church
Diocese	New York
Orders
Consecration	by Thomas Church Brownell
Personal details
Born	9 February 1802
Died	2 January 1887

Horatio Potter (9 February 1802 – 2 January 1887), was an Episcopal Bishop in the Diocese of New York.

biography

He was born on 9 February 1802 near Beekman (now La Grange), Dutchess County, New York to Quaker farmers Joseph and Anne Potter. He was the youngest brother of Bishop Alonzo Potter.

He graduated at Union College in 1826, was ordained priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1828, was rector for several months in Saco, Maine, and from 1828 to 1833 was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Washington College (now Trinity College), Hartford, Connecticut.

From 1833 to 1854 he was rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany, New York. In November 1854 he was elected provincial bishop of New York in place of Benjamin Treadwell Onderdonk (1791–1861), who had been suspended after a scandal, and upon Onderdonk's death he became Diocesan bishop.

He was married first to Mary Jane Tomlinson, who died in 1847 leaving six children. In 1853 he married Mary Atchison Pollock whom he had met on a tour of Scotland. During his career he traveled to Britain several times.

On March 8, 1864 Bishop Potter laid the cornerstone for the Church of the Incarnation located at 205-209 Madison Avenue.

In 1865 Bishop Potter created the Sisterhood of St. Mary now called the Community of St. Mary; in doing so, he was the first bishop in the Anglican community to constitute a new monastic order in over two centuries.

In 1868 his diocese was divided, the new dioceses of Albany, Central New York and Long Island being separated from it. Bishop Potter attended the Lambeth Conferences of 1867 and 1868. His failing health put an end to his active service in 1883, when his nephew, Alonzo Potter's son the Rt Revd Henry, became his assistant.

Horatio Potter conceived and founded the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the largest cathedral in the Western Hemisphere, though he did not live to see the foundation stone laid. He died in New York City on 2 January 1887 and his body is entombed in a large gothic tomb behind the high altar of the cathedral. The cathedral was constructed under the guidance of his nephew, the Right Reverend Henry Codman Potter, who succeeded Horatio as Bishop of New York.

References

• The Episcopal Church Annual. Morehouse Publishing: New York, NY (2005).

Ten Decades of Praise; The Story of the Community of Saint Mary during Its First Century, by Sister Mary Hilary, CSM, Racine, WI: The DeKoven Foundation for Church Work, 1965. Chapter 3, Genesis.

Sermon: The Light of the World, by Horatio Potter

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 

Legacy

H. Potter Dormitory at Bard College is named after Bishop Potter.

External links

• Documents by Horatio Potter from Project Canterbury

Episcopal Church (USA) titles
Preceded by Jonathan M. Wainwright	Bishop of New York 1854–1887	Succeeded by Henry C. Potter