Potter, Henry Codman

POTTER, HENRY CODMAN: Protestant Episcopal bishop of New York; b. at Schenectady, N. Y., May, 25, 1835; d. at Cooperstown, N. Y., July 21, 1908. He was the son of the preceding, and was educated at the Episcopal Academy, Philadelphia, and the Theological Seminary in Virginia, from which he was graduated in 1857. He was ordered deacon in the same year and priested in 1858. After being curate of Christ Church, Greensburg, Pa. (1857–58), he was rector of St. John's, Troy, N. Y. (1858–66), when he became assistant at Trinity, Boston. Two years later (1868), he accepted a call to New York City as rector of Grace Church, a position which he held until 1883, being also secretary to the House of Bishops from 1863 to 1883, when he was consecrated bishop-coadjutor of New York, assisting his uncle, Bishop Horatio Potter. In 1887 he succeeded to the full administration of the diocese, over which he presided unaided until 1903, when D. H. Greer (q.v.) was consecrated bishop-coadjutor. He was a broadminded man and cultivated the friendliest relations with those outside of his own church. He also had a prominent part in movements for civic reform. He was justly honored and beloved, and will be enrolled among the foremost of American citizens. Among his numerous writings, special mention may be made of his Sisterhoods and Deaconesses at Home arid Abroad (New York 1871); The Gates of the East, a Winter in Egypt and Syria (1877); Sermons of the City (1881); Waymarks (1892); The Scholar and the State (1897); Addresses to Women engaged in Church Work (1898); The East of To-day and To-Morrow (1902); The Citizen in his Relation to Industrial Situation (1902); Law and Loyalty (1903); Modern Man and his Fellow Man (1903); and Reminiscences of Bishops and Archbishops (1906).

Bibliography: Harriette A. Keyser, Bishop Potter, the People's Friend, New York, 1910; W. S. Perry, The Episcopate in America, p. 277, ib. 1895.