John Stark Ravenscroft (May 17, 1772 – March 5, 1830) was the first
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
of the
Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina
The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina is a diocese of the Episcopal Church within Province IV that encompasses central North Carolina. Founded in 1817, the modern boundaries of the diocese roughly corresponds to the portion of North Carolina ...
and helped organize the
Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee
The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America that covers roughly Middle Tennessee. A single diocese spanned the entire state until 1982, when the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee ...
.
Early life
Ravenscroft was born in 1772 on his family plantation near
Petersburg in
Prince George County, Virginia
Prince George County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 43,010. Its county seat is Prince George.
Prince George County is located within the Greater Richmond Region of the U.S. st ...
, to parents (physician John Ravenscroft and the former Lilias Miller) who were both descendants of the powerful Colonel
Robert Bolling
Colonel Robert Bolling (December 26, 1646July 17, 1709), sometimes called Robert Bolling, Sr., after he gave a son his own name, was a wealthy early American settler planter and merchant.
Ancestry and early life
Robert Bolling was the son o ...
. Because their Loyalist sympathies made the political situation unstable, when John was an infant his family moved to Scotland, where he received his earliest education.
Upon his father's death in 1788, Ravenscroft returned to Virginia to manage the family lands, as well as pursue their Loyalist indemnification claims. At age 27, he enrolled at the
College of William & Mary
The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III ...
to prepare for a legal career under the guidance of
George Wythe
George Wythe (; December 3, 1726 – June 8, 1806) was an American academic, scholar and judge who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The first of the seven signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence from ...
and
St. George Tucker. However, the wealthy young man also had extracurricular activities which, with his hot temper, earned him the nickname "Mad Jack". Eventually, he returned to Scotland to finish settling his father's estate.
Returning again to Virginia, Ravenscroft married well, to Ann Spottswood Burwell, in 1792, and gave up his passions for gambling and horse racing. His wife's father (Col. Lewis Burwell) helped finance construction of their estate near his using locally noteworthy craftsmen Jacob Shelor and John Inge). Soon the Ravenscroft began living at
Spring Bank in
Lunenburg County. He later claimed that for eighteen years, he "never bent his knees in prayer, nor did he once open a Bible."
Around 1810 Ravenscroft experienced a religious conversion, and he and Ann joined a group known as
"Republican Methodists". After three years, he was asked to become a leader of the community, but Ann died on August 5, 1815. About a year later, Ravenscroft decided to become a minister, but harbored doubts as to whether every Christian denomination (including the Republican Methodists) were valid and authorized by scriptures, and especially their fitness to perform sacraments. His great grandfather Capt. Samuel Ravenscroft had emigrated to Boston in 1679 and helped found the first Anglican Church in that city. His son (this Ravenscroft's father) Thomas had moved to James City County, and then Prince George County, Virginia where he represented his neighbors in the House of Burgesses as well as acquired land to the south along the
Meherrin River
The Meherrin River is a long 6th order tributary to the Chowan River that joins in Hertford County, North Carolina.
A twenty-foot-high dam on the river creates a reservoir in Emporia. For most of its length, the Meherrin is not large enough f ...
and the North Carolina border. This
old-line Virginian family had been long members of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
. However, its successor in America, the
Episcopal Church was disestablished after the Revolutionary War in both Virginia and North Carolina, and that denomination almost became extinct in the south. Rev. James Craig had retired or left the Meherrin River/Lunenburg County by 1795 and evangelical denominations predominated—Presbyterians led by the Caldwells, Baptists founding the multi-ethnic Meherrin Baptist Church as well as the Cedar Creek Baptist Church, and Methodists visiting the area as part of their Brunswick Circuit included
Francis Asbury
Francis Asbury (August 20 or 21, 1745 – March 31, 1816) was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. During his 45 years in the colonies and the newly independent United States, he devoted his life to ...
and
Thomas Coke. Nonetheless, as the
Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparked a number of reform movements. R ...
began, Virginia's Episcopal Church was reviving.
Richard Channing Moore
Richard Channing Moore (August 21, 1762 – November 11, 1841) was the second bishop of the Diocese of Virginia (1814–1841).
Life and career
Moore was born in Manhattan. His classical education at King's College began at age eight, but ...
become its bishop and happily confirmed Ravenscroft as an Episcopalian.
Ministry
On April 25, 1817, Moore ordained the 45-year-old Ravenscroft as a deacon at the
Monumental Church
Monumental Church is a former Episcopal church at 1224 E. Broad Street between N. 12th and College streets in Richmond, Virginia. Designed by architect Robert Mills, it is one of America's earliest and most distinctive Greek Revival churches. I ...
,
Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
, image_map =
, mapsize = 250 px
, map_caption = Location within Virginia
, pushpin_map = Virginia#USA
, pushpin_label = Richmond
, pushpin_m ...
, and eleven days later advanced him to the priesthood in
St. George's Episcopal Church,
Fredericksburg. Ravenscroft was assigned a parish near his home: St. James Parish in
Boydton, in
Mecklenburg County (split off from Lunenburg County) and the terminus of an important
plank road
A plank road is a road composed of wooden planks or puncheon logs. Plank roads were commonly found in the Canadian province of Ontario as well as the Northeast and Midwest of the United States in the first half of the 19th century. They were oft ...
to
Petersburg. He also remarried, to Sarah, who would also have no children and die on January 15, 1829, about a year before her husband.
Meanwhile, Moore, who was also Monumental Church's rector as well as supervised the Episcopal churches in both Virginia and North Carolina, asked Ravenscroft to become his assistant. Ravenscroft probably needed the additional income, for his plantation (which he had increased from 610 acres to over 2100 acres), was foreclosed upon in 1824. However, future
bishop of Mississippi William Mercer Green
William Mercer Green (May 2, 1798 – February 13, 1887) was the first Episcopal bishop of Mississippi.
Early life
Green was born in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1798.Batterson, 159 He was the son of William Green, a North Carolina rice pla ...
informed Ravenscroft that he had been elected Bishop of the recently re-organized
diocese of North Carolina (which adjoined both Lunenberg and Mecklenburg counties)(Charles Pettigrew had been elected its bishop in 1794 but had never been consecrated due to the cancellations of the General Conventions of 1795 and 1798 due to yellow fever and his subsequent infirmities making travel difficult). Although the annual salary offered was just $750, the offer also included the rectorship of
Christ Church in
Raleigh
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...
. Thus, at the General Convention in Old St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, bishops
William White,
James Kemp and
Alexander Griswold, among others, consecrated Ravenscroft as the 20th bishop in the
Episcopal Church on May 22, 1823.
A dedicated
high church
The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originate ...
man, but with evangelical spirit, Ravenscroft was known for his booming voice and strident promotion of the Episcopal Church, including his own story of knowing sin and being saved by God's grace.
He attended several General Conventions, as well as every diocesan convention. His missionary journeys beginning in 1818 took him over the
Cumberland Gap
The Cumberland Gap is a pass through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains, near the junction of the U.S. states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. It is famous in American colonial history for its rol ...
into Tennessee and Kentucky. He confirmed Tennessee's future first bishop,
James Hervey Otey
James Hervey Otey (January 27, 1800 – April 23, 1863), Christian educator, author, and the first Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee, having established the Anglican church in the state, including its first parish churches and what became the Univer ...
, during his 1824 visitation.
[ During his last such trip, on July 1, 1829, he chaired the organizational convention of what eventually became the ]Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee
The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America that covers roughly Middle Tennessee. A single diocese spanned the entire state until 1982, when the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee ...
. Travel or other circumstances, however, took a toll, and in 1828 he gave up the rectorship in Raleigh in favor of the smaller St. John's Church St. John's Church, Church of St. John, or variants, thereof, (Saint John or St. John usually refers to John the Baptist, but also, sometimes, to John the Apostle or John the Evangelist) may refer to the following churches, former churches or other ...
in Williamsboro where his protege Rev. Green lived.
Ravenscroft mentored several priests who later became pioneering southern bishops, including Green and Otey, although he also unsuccessfully opposed the consecration of William Meade
William Meade (November 11, 1789March 14, 1862) was an American Episcopal bishop, the third Bishop of Virginia.
Early life
His father, Colonel Richard Kidder Meade (1746–1805), one of George Washington's aides during the War of Independence, ...
as Moore's assistant in Virginia in 1829 on the grounds that Meade compromised too much with other Protestant denominations. In December 1824, Ravenscroft gave a sermon to the annual meeting of the Bible Society
A Bible society is a non-profit organization, usually nondenominational in makeup, devoted to translating, publishing, and distributing the Bible at affordable prices. In recent years they also are increasingly involved in advocating its credibi ...
of North Carolina which caused much controversy because he asserted that the Bible could not be properly studied without a qualified teacher. Ravenscroft then engaged in a theological duel of sorts over the content of his sermon with Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
theology professor John Rice. Not one to mince words, spoken or printed, Ravenscroft published a defense of his beliefs and character in 1826 as ''The Doctrines of the Church Vindicated from the Misrepresentations of Dr. John Rice, and the Integrity of Revealed Religion Defended against the "No Comment Principle" of Promiscuous Bible Societies.'' Ravenscroft also criticized Lutheran theology,[ and Baptist theology, as well as the notion that a clean life alone assured salvation.
Three universities awarded him doctorate of divinity degrees: ]Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, the College of William & Mary
The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III ...
, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
.
Death and legacy
After his second wife's death in 1829, Ravenscroft decided to move to Fayetteville, but died at a friend's house in Raleigh en route. He was buried in the chancel of his former church in Raleigh, which was rebuilt several years later. By the time he died, the diocese (which had 3 clergy and 200 laity when organized in 1817 and 7 clergy and 480 communicants when Ravenscroft took office in 1823) had 11 clergymen and 650 lay members.[
His successor Bishop ]Levi Silliman Ives
Levi Silliman Ives (September 16, 1797 – October 13, 1867) was an American theologian and Episcopal bishop of North Carolina. In 1852, he converted to Roman Catholicism. Ives subsequently became a noted professor at colleges in the New York ...
(also a high churchman) worked tirelessly to establish a school for boys in the diocese, which was established at Asheville
Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous cit ...
and named after Ravenscroft. After the American Civil War, the Ravenscroft Institute (which by then had a high school for boys and a school for ministry) was reorganized by bishop Atkinson to concentrate on theological training and competed to become a seminary of the Episcopal Church, but lost the competition to University of the South
The University of the South, familiarly known as Sewanee (), is a private Episcopal liberal arts college in Sewanee, Tennessee. It is owned by 28 southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church, and its School of Theology is an official seminary of ...
at Sewanee, Tennessee
Sewanee () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Franklin County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,535 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Tullahoma, Tennessee Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Sewanee is best known as the home of ...
, although the school for boys was reorganized as a private school with a headmaster in the 1880s.[
His limited papers are held by the ]University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
and at Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
, and many published online by 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 ...
.
References
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ravenscroft, John Stark
1772 births
1830 deaths
College of William & Mary alumni
19th-century Anglican bishops in the United States
Episcopal Church in North Carolina
People from Prince George County, Virginia
People from Mecklenburg County, Virginia
Episcopal bishops of North Carolina