Diocese Fond du Lac Name John Hobart Installed 1875 | Term ended 1888 Consecration December 15, 1875 Predecessor None Province Episcopal Church | |
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See Cathedral Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Fond du Lac Buried Cathedral Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Fond du Lac Died May 2, 1888, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, United States Place of burial St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, United States Alma mater General Theological Seminary | ||
Successor Charles Chapman Grafton | ||
John Henry Hobart Brown (called Hobart; January 1, 1831 – May 2, 1888) was the first Bishop of the Diocese of Fond du Lac in The Episcopal Church.
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Early life
Brown was born on January 1, 1831 in New York City. After theological studies at the General Theological Seminary, New York, he was ordained to the diaconate in Trinity Church, New York on April 2, 1854 by Bishop Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright. The following year he was ordained to the priesthood in the Church of The Holy Communion, New York, on the December 1, 1855 by Bishop Horatio Potter.
In 1854, Brown served as assistant in Grace Church, Brooklyn, Long Island, and while there organized The Church of The Good Angels, (now Emmanuel Church,) Brooklyn, of which he became rector. In 1856 he became rector of The Church of The Evangelists, (old S. George's Chapel,) Beekman Street, New York. In 1863, he became rector of St. John's Church, Cohoes, New York.
During his priesthood, Brown served as Secretary to the Diocesan Convention of Albany and as Archdeacon of the Albany Convocation. He received the Degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology from Racine College in 1874.
Episcopate
Brown was elected bishop of the newly organized Diocese of Fond du Lac, which was covered the northeastern third of Wisconsin and was formerly part of the Diocese of Wisconsin. Brown was consecrated first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac on December 15, 1875 at Cohoes, New York by Bishops Horatio Potter, Henry Augustus Bissell, William Croswell Doane, William Woodruff Mies, Benjamin Henry Paddock, Edward Randolph Welles, and John Scarborough.
Brown lived up to the challenge of serving a diocese that had been carved out of the wilderness. According to a History of the Diocese "The Council addresses of Bishop Brown, read in the light of later years, are wonderful examples of the conceptions he had of his high office. He did not shirk to speak the truth. He seemed to have grasped the needs of his clergy, and the difficulties of his diocese which they had to face."
During his episcopate, Brown established St. Paul's in Fond du Lac as his see city, set the groundwork for the establishment of a diocesan girls school, found a religious order, the Order of St. Moinica, shifting those congregations who still had pew rents to be "free churches", and worked to reach out to some disaffected groups of the Catholic Church, especially in trying to work with one René Villette.
Brown died of typhoid pneumonia in Fond du Lac on May 2, 1888, and is buried in the churchyard of St. Paul's Cathedral.