James Smith Bush (June 15, 1825 – November 11, 1889) was an American
attorney,
Episcopal priest, religious writer, and an ancestor of the
Bush political family. He was the father of business magnate
Samuel Prescott Bush, grandfather of former U.S. Senator
Prescott Bush, great-grandfather of former
U.S. President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
George H. W. Bush and great-great-grandfather of former Texas Governor and President
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
and former Florida Governor
Jeb Bush
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. Bush, who grew up in Houston, was the second son of former President George H. W. Bush ...
.
Biography
James Smith Bush was born in
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
, to
Obadiah Newcomb Bush and Harriet Smith (1800–1867). In 1851, his father returned from the
California Gold Rush after two years in order to reclaim his family and bring them west. He died aboard a ship on his return voyage and was presumably buried at sea.
Yale College
Bush entered
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
in 1841 (class of 1844), the first of what would become a long family tradition,
as his grandsons
Prescott Sheldon Bush and James Bush, great-grandsons
George H. W. Bush,
Prescott Sheldon Bush, Jr.,
Jonathan Bush
Jonathan James Bush (May 6, 1931 – May 5, 2021) was an American banker who was the fourth child and third son of U. S. Senator Prescott Bush and his wife Dorothy Bush. He was the brother of former Congressman, CIA Director, Vice President and ...
and William H. T. Bush, great great-grandson
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
, 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 Society is a senior society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The society is one of the reputed "Big Three" societies at Yale, along with Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key. Active undergraduate membership is elected annual ...
. 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
Saratoga Springs is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 28,491 at the 2020 census. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area, which has made Saratoga a popular resort destination for over ...
. They married in 1851, but she died 18 months later during childbirth.
This prompted Bush to study divinity with the
rector
Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to:
Style or title
*Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations
*Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
of the Episcopal church there. Ordained a deacon in 1855, he was appointed rector at the newly organized Grace Church in
Orange, New Jersey
The City of Orange is a township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 30,134, reflecting a decline of 2,734 (−8.3%) from the 32,868 counted in 2000.
Orange was original ...
.
Second marriage
On February 24, 1859, he married Harriet Eleanor
ay daughter of Samuel Howard and Susan
hellman Hellman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Åke Hellman (1915–2017), Finnish centenarian, painter, and art professor
*Bonnie Hellman (born 1950), American actress
*C. Doris Hellman (1910–1973), American historian of scienc ...
Fay, at Trinity Church, New York City. Fay was born in
Savannah,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
. Her father is the sixth generation removed to John Fay, immigrant patriarch, born in England abt. 1648, embarking on May 30, 1656, at Gravesend on the ship
''Speedwell'', and arrived in Boston June 27, 1656.
Children
:# James Freeman, b. June 15, 1860, Essex Co., NJ
:#
Samuel Prescott
Samuel Prescott (August 19, 1751 – ) was an American physician and a Massachusetts Patriot during the American Revolutionary War. He is best known for his role in Paul Revere's "midnight ride" to warn the townspeople of Concord, Massachusetts ...
, b. October 4, 1863, Orange., NJ
:# Harold Montfort, b. November 14, 1871, Dansville, NY
:# Eleanor Howard, b. November 7, 1873, Staten Island, NY
: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
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
via the
Straits of Magellan
The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural pas ...
on the
ironclad monitor
Monitor or monitor may refer to:
Places
* Monitor, Alberta
* Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States
* Monitor, Kentucky
* Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States
* Monitor, Washington
* Monitor, Logan County, West ...
with Commodore
John Rodgers John Rodgers may refer to:
Military
* John Rodgers (1728–1791), colonel during the Revolutionary War and owner of Rodgers Tavern, Perryville, Maryland
* John Rodgers (naval officer, born 1772), U.S. naval officer during the War of 1812, first ...
(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 Bush recounted in dispatches he wrote for ''The Overland Monthly''. Coincidentally, the fleet observed the
punitive shelling of a defenseless
Valparaíso
Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...
,
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
by the
Spanish Navy
The Spanish Navy or officially, the Armada, is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Spanish Navy was responsible for a number of major historic achievements in navigation, ...
during the
Chincha Islands War
The Chincha Islands War, also known as Spanish–South American War ( es, Guerra hispano-sudamericana), was a series of coastal and naval battles between Spain and its former colonies of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and Bolivia from 1865 to 1879. The ...
, after mediation efforts by Rodgers failed.
In 1867–1872, Bush 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 Williston Goodwin (April 21, 1822 – December 31, 1900), 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 mot ...
was to be satirized by
Mark Twain in his weekly column in ''The Californian''.
In 1872, Bush took a call from Church of the Ascension at
West Brighton, Staten Island
West New Brighton (also called West Brighton) is a neighborhood of Staten Island, New York City, situated along the central North Shore. The neighborhood is bordered by New Brighton to the east, Port Richmond to the west, the waters of the Kil ...
. In 1884, during a dispute over a church
raffle
A raffle is a gambling competition in which people obtain numbered tickets, each of which has the chance of winning a prize. At a set time, the winners are drawn at random from a container holding a copy of each number. The drawn tickets are che ...
(a gold watch was auctioned, which he considered
gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...
), he stepped down.
In 1883, Bush published a collection of sermons called ''More Words About the Bible'', a response to his colleague
Heber Newton's book ''Right and Wrong 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.
[ As quoted by publisher.]
Bush retired to
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. At the 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is near where the confl ...
, 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
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named ...
where he died suddenly while raking leaves in 1889.
Published works
Sermons
*
*
*
Books
*
*
*
References
External links
* http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_record/1859_1924/1889-90.pdf
* https://web.archive.org/web/20021006163356/http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/crypt/cry_20010221.shtml
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bush, James Smith
1825 births
1889 deaths
American Episcopal priests
American Unitarians
Bush family
Converts to Unitarianism
Lawyers from San Francisco
Yale College alumni
People from Orange, New Jersey
People from Staten Island
Religious leaders from Rochester, New York
19th-century American politicians
Lawyers from Rochester, New York
Writers from Rochester, New York
Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery