History

A History of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan

[Editor's note: The formal history of the Diocese of Western Michigan begins with the first Bishop of the Diocese of Michigan. Quotations from F.C. Smith, The Diocese of Western Michigan 1948]

Diocese of Michigan

• The convention of 1835 elected the Rev. Henry J. Whitehouse, D.D. of New York as the first Bishop of Michigan but he declined the honor. A special convention in November of the same year "finding itself incompetent by reasons of clerical removals," ...petitioned the General Convention to elect a Bishop for the diocese.

  

• The Rev. Samuel Allen McCoskry, rector of St. Paul's Church, Philadelphia, was chosen and consecrated July 7, 1836, in his parish church by Bishops H.U. Onderdonk, G. W. Doane, and Jackson Kemper. He arrived in Detroit on the 24th of August, 1836, and the Diocese of Michigan embarked on its career....

• The Bishop lost no time in contacting the field and, a month after his arrival, set out on a tour of missionary exploration. The itinerary reached the following places in the present Diocese of Western Michigan: Marshall, Kalamazoo, Allegan, Constantine, White Pigeon, Niles and Edwardsburg....

• From 1829 to 1832 began a rapid extension of the frontier in Michigan and many villages were planted along the Chicago Road and the Territorial Road. Land sales were heavy. The immigration was retarded in 1832 by the Black Hawk War and an epidemic of cholera, but it revived in 1833.... In that year the Grand River Road was surveyed from Detroit to the mouth of the Grand River, encouraging interest and settlement in the Grand River valley.
  Civil War Era

• In the ten years 1840-50 the whole Diocese (of Michigan) doubled in strength and thus its growth kept pace with the average growth of the whole Church in the United States, despite handicaps. The Domestic Committee of the Board of Missions reported in 1856 twenty self-supporting parishes in the Diocese of Michigan. Eight of these were in what is now the Diocese of Western Michigan: Albion, Homer, Kalamazoo, Ionia, Battle Creek, Niles, Marshall, and Grand Rapids. The period marked an emergence from the hardships of pioneer days, and there was a spirit of hopefulness in the air. Then came the Civil War....

• Civil War burst upon the country with the firing on Fort Sumter in 1861. The repercussions of this fratricidal strife could not fail to profoundly affect and did affect the Church in the North as well as in the South.... Michigan furnished 90,747 men to the Northern army, something over twelve percent of its population..... Naturally the minds of the clergy turned to services as chaplains to the armed forces.... During the Civil War one chaplain was authorized for each regiment of volunteers.... The term of service of the Michigan clergy as chaplains was brief, averaging a year.... [Bishop Samuel McCoskry's address to the Convention of 1864 noted:] "We hope and pray that the day is not far distant when war and civil strife shall cease in our land, and when the Church in all her integrity, and the truth as it is in Jesus, with all its simplicity, shall be the great weapon used to subdue the unruly wills of men and bring them into sweet submission to our blessed Lord."
  The Lumbering Era

• The great period of Michigan lumbering days were from 1862 to 1880, which period saw the destruction of Michigan's pine forests without regard to conservation or the rights of future generations... The rush to grasp the wealth of the forests and the carelessness in taking off the growth ruined not only the forests themselves but even the soil cover by which a new growth might have come... A by-product of the industry was the forest fires.... On the same night that the great Chicago fire broke out, October 8, 1871, a forest fire swept across the State of Michigan and cut a swath east from Lake Michigan to the shores of Lake Huron. Holland and Manistee, lumber towns of frame construction, were the hardest hit.

• The lumbering industry gave rise to 'Sawdust Cities," as they were called, of which Muskegon and Manistee were examples.... In Manistee during the lumbering era lumber jacks crowded into town on Sundays with resultant heavy drinking, aided by open barrels of whiskey placed in the streets, and free for all fighting....

• The land grants of 1856 aided construction of railroads in the northern part of the state.... Lake traffic increased. The pioneer steamer "Walk-in-the-Water," built in 1818, had been multiplied to six hundred eleven steamers....

• The Church rose to meet this temporary expansion and growth, was aided by it and shared in it. By 1870 the population of what is now the Diocese of Western Michigan was 474,365, or approximately 40 percent of the entire population of the state.... The number of clergy at work [in the Diocese] grew from ten in 1861 to twenty-three in 1874....
  Call for New Diocese

• A turning point in Michigan Church history came when in June, 1871, at the 37th Annual Convention of the Diocese of Michigan, held at Grace Church, Detroit. Mr. P.R.L. Pierce of Grand Rapids introduced a preamble and resolution calling attention to the vast extent of the episcopal work required within the Diocese and suggesting the reference of the question of expediency of dividing the Diocese to a committee of four clergymen and four laymen to report to the next Annual Convention....

• The committee suggested four tentative lines of division for the formation of the new diocese out of the Diocese of Michigan, all suggestions excluding the Upper Peninsula.... The first was on a north and south line... including practically the same territory as that now included in the Diocese of Western Michigan.... The second proposed division was on an east and west line... throwing Allegan, Barry and the counties of that tier with those north of them into a 'Northern' diocese.... The third proposition contemplated a triple division of the Diocese of Michigan....

• The old Diocese was to be south of the base line, as in proposition two. The northern half of the Diocese thus left was to be divided into a 'Northwest' and a 'Northeast.'.... Suggestion number four contemplated more liberality in territory than allotted to the old diocese in suggestion number two by adding another tier of counties....

• The 40th Convention of the Diocese of Michigan met at Grand Rapids June 10,1874.... [and approved a north/south division and moved to ask General Convention to approve the division. General Convention approved the proposal in October 1874.] The General Convention having thus completed its action, the Bishop of Michigan issued a call, dated the 17th of October 1874, for the meeting of the Primary Convention of the new diocese in St. Mark's Church, Grand Rapids, on Wednesday, December 2nd, 1874....
  First Convention

• Pursuant to a call addressed to the clergy and parishes within certain specified counties of the State of Michigan, the Rt. Rev. Samuel A. McCoskry, Bishop of the Diocese of Michigan, together with a number of the clergy and laity assembled in St. Mark's Church, Grand Rapids, on Wednesday, December 2nd, 1874, for the purpose of organizing a new diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church....

• By direction of the Bishop, a list of the clergy residing within the limits of the new diocese was then read by the Rev. J. W. Clark. There were twenty-eight clergy canonically resident in the new diocese as of December 2, 1874 - twenty-six priests and two deacons.... The Rev. J. W. Brancroft of the committee on Certificates of Lay Delegates presented its report.... The names being called, forty-six answered representing twenty-one parishes, and took their seats; three more answered at the second calling of the roll, making the whole number of parishes represented twenty-two, and the whole number of lay delegates present forty-nine.... Mr. P..L. Pierce [of St. Mark's in Grand Rapids] then moved: "Resolved that the name of the Diocese be 'The Diocese of Western Michigan.' The naming of the infant diocese occasioned much discussion and several ballots. However, only two names appeared as proffered substitutes for 'Western Michigan.' The Rev. John W. Clark of Ionia moved to amend Mr. Pierce's motion by striking out the words 'Western Michigan' and inserting the words 'Grand Rapids.' Evidently the considerable discussion that ensued upon the merits of the two names gave Mr. Clark pause for he moved to amend his own amendment.... to substitute the word 'Kent' for 'Grand Rapids'.... The title 'Kent' did not appeal to the clergy for only three voted for it and sixteen against it.... The sentiment of the clergy on the title 'Grand Rapids' for the new diocese was rather evenly divided. Ten voted for it and nine against it.... But the laity seemed pretty solidly against it... for only two parishes...voted aye.... The question then being on Mr. Pierce's original resolution..., eleven clergy voted aye and eight nay. The title 'Western Michigan' seemed popular with the laity for eighteen parishes voted for it....

• On motion of the Rev. Samuel Earp it was unanimously resolved "that the Diocese of Western Michigan be, and is hereby placed under the Episcopal charge of the Rt. Rev. Samuel A. McCoskry ... until such time as a Bishop be elected and consecrated for the said diocese."