St. Peter's 

Anglican Church

Jackson Kemper,

First Missionary Bishop

in the United States,

1870

PRAYER (traditional wording):

Lord God, in whose providence Jackson Kemper was chosen first Missionary bishop in this land, that by his arduous labor and travel congregations might be established in scattered settlements of the West: Grant that the Church may always be faithful to its mission, and have the vision, courage, and perseverance to make known to all peoples the Good News of Jesus Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever.

From Holy Women, Holy Men:

When the General Convention of 1835 made all the members of

the Episcopal Church members also of the Domestic and Foreign

Missionary Society, it provided at the same time for missionary

bishops to serve in the wilderness and in foreign countries. Jackson

Kemper was the first such bishop. Although he was assigned to

Missouri and Indiana, he laid foundations also in Iowa, Wisconsin,

Minnesota, Nebraska, and Kansas, and made extensive missionary

tours in the South and Southwest.

Kemper was born in Pleasant Valley, New York, on December 24,

1789. He graduated from Columbia College in 1809, and was

ordained deacon in 1811, and priest in 1814.

He served Bishop White as Assistant at Christ Church, Philadelphia.

At his urging, Bishop White made his first and only visitation in

western Pennsylvania. In 1835, Kemper was ordained bishop, and

immediately set out on his travels.

Because Episcopal clergymen, mostly from well-to-do Eastern homes,

found it hard to adjust to the harsh life of the frontier—scorching heat,

drenching rains, and winter blizzards—Kemper established Kemper

College in St. Louis, Missouri, the first of many similar attempts to train

clergymen, and in more recent times lay persons as well, for specialized

tasks in the Church. The College failed in 1845 from the usual malady

of such projects in the church—inadequate funding. Nashotah House,

in Wisconsin, which he founded in 1842, with the help of James Lloyd

Breck and his companions, was more successful. So was Racine College,

founded in 1852. Both these institutions reflected Kemper’s devotion to

beauty in ritual and worship.

Kemper pleaded for more attention to the Indians, and encouraged the

translation of services into native languages. He described a service

among Oneida Indians which was marked by “courtesy, reverence,

worship—and obedience to that Great Spirit in whose hands are the

issues of life.”

From 1859 until his death, Kemper was diocesan Bishop of Wisconsin.

He is more justly honored by his unofficial title, “The Bishop of the

Whole Northwest.”

source: https://diobeth.typepad.com/files/holy-women-holy-men.pdf

Click the link below to learn more about Bishop Kemper:

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/166.html