James Smith Bush
Encyclopedia
Rev. James Smith Bush was an attorney
, Episcopal priest, and religious writer, and an ancestor of the Bush political family
. He was the father of business magnate Samuel Prescott Bush, grandfather of US Senator Prescott Bush
, great-grandfather of former US President
George H. W. Bush
and great-great-grandfather of former US President George W. Bush
.
to Obadiah Newcomb Bush
and Harriet Smith (1800–1867).
in 1841 (class of 1844), the first of what would become a long family tradition, as his grandson Prescott Sheldon Bush, great-grandsons George H.W. Bush, Prescott Sheldon Bush, Jr. and William H.T. Bush
, great great-grandson George W. Bush
, and great-great-great-granddaughter Barbara are all Yale alumni. He is accounted among the over 300 Yale alumni and faculty who supported in 1883 the founding of Wolf's Head Society
. After Yale, he returned to Rochester and studied law, joining the bar in 1847.
This prompted Bush to study divinity with the rector
of the Episcopal church there. Ordained a deacon in 1855, he was appointed rector at the newly organized Grace Church in Orange, New Jersey
.
, Georgia
. Her father is the sixth generation removed to John Fay, immigrant patriarch, born in England abt. 1648, embarking on 30 May 1656 at Gravesend on the ship Speedwell
, & arrived in Boston 27 Jun. 1656.
with Commodore John Rodgers
(a parishioner of his), with international goodwill stops along the way. Officially, he was designated Commodore's Secretary, but was considered "acting chaplain
", giving services on board and even conducting a shipboard wedding for a German American
they encountered in Montevideo
, an incident recounted by Bret Harte
in his dispatches. Coincidentally, the fleet observed the punitive shelling
of a defenseless Valparaíso
, Chile
by the Spanish Navy
during the Chincha Islands War
, after mediation efforts by Rodgers failed.
In 1867-1872 he was called to Grace Church (later Cathedral) in San Francisco, but troubled by family obligations, only stayed five years. His short stay along with that of photographic roll film inventor Hannibal Goodwin
was to be satirized by Mark Twain
in his weekly column in The Californian.
In 1872 he took a call from Church of the Ascension at West Brighton, Staten Island. In 1884, during a dispute over a church raffle
(a gold watch was auctioned, which he considered gambling
), he stepped down.
In 1883 he published a collection of sermons called More Words About the Bible, a response to his colleague Heber Newton
's book Uses of the Bible. In 1885, his book Evidence of Faith was reviewed by The Literary World as "clear, simple, and unpretending", and summarized as an argument against supernatural
explanations for God. According to the same journal, both works fit into the broad church
movement. The Boston Advertiser called the latter work "the best statement of untrammeled spiritual thought" among recent books.
He retired from to Concord, Massachusetts
, and in 1888 left the Episcopal Church altogether and became a Unitarian
. The stress of this separation caused him health problems for the remainder of his life. He moved to Ithaca, New York
where he died suddenly while raking leaves in 1889.
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, Episcopal priest, and religious writer, and an ancestor of the Bush political family
Bush family
The Bush family is a prominent American family. Along with many members who have been successful bankers and businessmen, across three generations the family includes two U.S. Senators, one Supreme Court Justice, two Governors, one Vice President and two Presidents...
. He was the father of business magnate Samuel Prescott Bush, grandfather of US Senator Prescott Bush
Prescott Bush
Prescott Sheldon Bush was a Wall Street executive banker and a United States Senator, representing Connecticut from 1952 until January 1963. He was the father of George H. W. Bush and the grandfather of George W...
, great-grandfather of former US President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
and great-great-grandfather of former US President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
.
Biography
James Smith Bush was born in Rochester, New YorkRochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
to Obadiah Newcomb Bush
Obadiah Bush
Obadiah Newcomb Bush was an ancestor of the Bush political family. Born in Penfield, New York to blacksmith Timothy Bush, Jr. and Lydia Newcomb, he left home during the War of 1812. On November 8, 1821, he married Harriet Smith in Rochester, New York...
and Harriet Smith (1800–1867).
Yale University
Bush entered Yale UniversityYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1841 (class of 1844), the first of what would become a long family tradition, as his grandson Prescott Sheldon Bush, great-grandsons George H.W. Bush, Prescott Sheldon Bush, Jr. and William H.T. Bush
William H.T. Bush
William Henry Trotter "Bucky" Bush is the youngest son of Prescott Sheldon Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush, the younger brother of former President George H.W. Bush, and the uncle of former President George W...
, great great-grandson George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, and great-great-great-granddaughter Barbara are all Yale alumni. He is accounted among the over 300 Yale alumni and faculty who supported in 1883 the founding of Wolf's Head Society
Wolf's Head (secret society)
Wolf's Head Society is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. Membership is recomposed annually of fifteen or sixteen Yale University students, typically juniors from the college...
. After Yale, he returned to Rochester and studied law, joining the bar in 1847.
First marriage
His first wife, Sarah Freeman, lived in Saratoga Springs. They married in 1851, but she died 18 months later during childbirth.This prompted Bush to study divinity with the rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...
of the Episcopal church there. Ordained a deacon in 1855, he was appointed rector at the newly organized Grace Church in Orange, New Jersey
Orange, New Jersey
The City of Orange is a city and township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 30,134...
.
Second marriage
On February 24, 1859, he married Harriet Eleanor [Fay], daughter of Samuel Howard and Susan [Shellman] Fay, at Trinity Church, New York City. Fay was born in SavannahSavannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. Her father is the sixth generation removed to John Fay, immigrant patriarch, born in England abt. 1648, embarking on 30 May 1656 at Gravesend on the ship Speedwell
Speedwell (ship)
The Speedwell was a 60-ton ship, the smaller of the two ships intended to carry the Pilgrim Fathers to North America...
, & arrived in Boston 27 Jun. 1656.
Children
-
- James Freeman, b. 15 Jun 1860, Essex Co., NJ
- Samuel PrescottSamuel P. BushSamuel Prescott Bush was an American industrialist and entrepreneur, and the patriarch of the Bush political family. He was the father of U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, grandfather of former U.S President George H. W. Bush, and great-grandfather of former U.S. President George W...
, b. 4 Oct 1863, Orange., NJ - Harriet Montfort, b. 14 Nov 1871
- Eleanor Howard, b. 7 Nov 1873
- Samuel was named after Harriet Fay's grandfather, Samuel Prescott Phillips Fay.
Career
In 1865-66, having been given a health sabbatical by his church, he traveled to San Francisco via the Straits of Magellan on the ironclad monitorMonitor (warship)
A monitor was a class of relatively small warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns. They were used by some navies from the 1860s until the end of World War II, and saw their final use by the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.The monitors...
with Commodore John Rodgers
John Rodgers (naval officer, Civil War)
John Rodgers was an admiral in the United States Navy.-Early life and career:Rodgers, a son of Commodore John Rodgers, was born near Havre de Grace, Maryland. He received his appointment as a Midshipman in the Navy on 18 April 1828...
(a parishioner of his), with international goodwill stops along the way. Officially, he was designated Commodore's Secretary, but was considered "acting chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
", giving services on board and even conducting a shipboard wedding for a German American
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
they encountered in Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
, an incident recounted by Bret Harte
Bret Harte
Francis Bret Harte was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.- Life and career :...
in his dispatches. Coincidentally, the fleet observed the punitive shelling
Valparaiso bombardment
The Bombardment of Valparaíso on 31 March 1866 happened after the Chincha Islands War, when a Spanish fleet shelled, burned and destroyed the undefended port of Valparaíso.-Background:...
of a defenseless Valparaíso
Valparaíso
Valparaíso is a city and commune of Chile, center of its third largest conurbation and one of the country's most important seaports and an increasing cultural center in the Southwest Pacific hemisphere. The city is the capital of the Valparaíso Province and the Valparaíso Region...
, Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
by the Spanish Navy
Spanish Navy
The Spanish Navy is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces, one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Armada is responsible for notable achievements in world history such as the discovery of Americas, the first world circumnavigation, and the discovery of a maritime path...
during the Chincha Islands War
Chincha Islands War
The Chincha Islands War was a series of coastal and naval battles between Spain and its former colonies of Peru and Chile from 1864 to 1866, that began with Spain's seizure of the guano-rich Chincha Islands, part of a series of attempts by Isabel II of Spain to reassert her country's lost...
, after mediation efforts by Rodgers failed.
In 1867-1872 he was called to Grace Church (later Cathedral) in San Francisco, but troubled by family obligations, only stayed five years. His short stay along with that of photographic roll film inventor Hannibal Goodwin
Hannibal Goodwin
Hannibal Goodwin , was an Episcopal priest at the House of Prayer in Newark, New Jersey, patented a method for making transparent, flexible roll film out of nitrocellulose film base, which was used in Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, an early machine for viewing animation.-Biography:He was born in...
was to be satirized by Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
in his weekly column in The Californian.
In 1872 he took a call from Church of the Ascension at West Brighton, Staten Island. In 1884, during a dispute over a church raffle
Raffle
A raffle is a competition in which people obtain numbered tickets, each ticket having the chance of winning a prize. At a set time, the winners are drawn from a container holding a copy of every number...
(a gold watch was auctioned, which he considered gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
), he stepped down.
In 1883 he published a collection of sermons called More Words About the Bible, a response to his colleague Heber Newton
R. Heber Newton
Richard Heber Newton was a prominent American Episcopalian priest and writer. He was rector of All Souls' Protestant Episcopal Church in New York City from 1869–1902...
's book Uses of the Bible. In 1885, his book Evidence of Faith was reviewed by The Literary World as "clear, simple, and unpretending", and summarized as an argument against supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
explanations for God. According to the same journal, both works fit into the broad church
Broad church
Broad church is a term referring to latitudinarian churchmanship in the Church of England, in particular, and Anglicanism, in general. From this, the term is often used to refer to secular political organisations, meaning that they encompass a broad range of opinion.-Usage:After the terms high...
movement. The Boston Advertiser called the latter work "the best statement of untrammeled spiritual thought" among recent books.
He retired from to Concord, Massachusetts
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...
, and in 1888 left the Episcopal Church altogether and became a Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
. The stress of this separation caused him health problems for the remainder of his life. He moved to Ithaca, New York
Ithaca, New York
The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...
where he died suddenly while raking leaves in 1889.
External links
- http://www.svu2000.org/genealogy/George_W.pdf
- http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_record/1859_1924/1889-90.pdf
- http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/crypt/cry_20010221.shtml