John Croes (June 1, 1762 – July 26, 1832) was a prelate in the Episcopal Church who served as the first Bishop of New Jersey.
Early life and education
Croes was born on June 1, 1762, in
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Elizabeth is a city and the county seat of Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.New J ...
, the son of two German immigrants Jacob Croes and Charlotte Christiana Feigart. He served in the Revolutionary War as a sergeant and quartermaster. He studied for the ministry of the Episcopal Church and was ordained deacon by Bishop William White in Philadelphia, on February 28, 1790, and priest on March 4, 1792.
Career
Croes was uniformly active and zealous in the service of the Church, in both diocesan and general conventions. He first served as rector of Trinity Church,
Swedesboro, New Jersey
Swedesboro is a borough in Gloucester County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the borough's population was 2,584,Christ Church, New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1801, and also served as principal of Rutgers Preparatory School.
Walter Herbert Stowe wrote in 1966, that Croes was symbolic of the Episcopal Church ceasing to be exclusively English, coming from a lower class background, restoring a more democratized and simple Christian character to the episcopate without pomp and circumstance, and rejuvenating the standing of the church in New Jersey.
He was elected bishop of New Jersey in the summer, and was consecrated at St Peter's Church in Philadelphia on November 19, 1815. He is buried beneath the chancel of Christ Church in
New Brunswick, New Jersey
New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat, seat of government of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Succession of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States
This list consists of the bishops in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, an independent province of the Anglican Communion. This shows the historical succession of the episcopate within this church.
Key to chart
The number refe ...
Project Canterbury Project Canterbury (sometimes abbreviated as PC) is an online archive of material related to the history of Anglicanism. It was founded by Richard Mammana, Jr. in 1999 with a grant from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, and is ho ...