306 – Bishop Philander Chase
Peoria Landmark #306
Two in a row for Msgem… “Bishop Chase founder Jubilee College.”
The 1903 book “The life of Philander Chase” can be read online in its entirety {here}.
What follows is the “Timeline of events concerning Bishop Philander Chase and this Historic Site” from genealogytrails.com:
12-14-1775 …. Philander Chase born in Cornish, New Hampshire
1795 …. (1) When Chase graduated Dartmouth College in 1795, the Episcopal Church in was still in its infancy in the United States, having split from the Church of England during the American Revolution.
1798 …. Chase married Mary Fay of Stockbridge, Vermont, and their first son, George, was born. In 1798, Chase was ordained a deacon and he spent the next year traveling throughout western New York organizing parishes. When admitted to the priesthood in 1799, Chase took charge of Christ Church in Poughkeepsie, New York.
1804 …. (2) In 1804, the year after Ohio was admitted to the Union, St. John’s Church, the first Episcopal church in the new 17th State, was organized at Worthington by a missionary, The Rev. James Kilborn. Other missionary priests, notably Joseph Doddridge, Roger Searle, and especially Philander Chase, began to establish new congregations throughout Ohio. Among the churches Chase alone established prior to 1818 were Trinity Church, Columbus; St. Peter’s Church, Delaware; St. Paul’s Church, Chillicothe; St. James’ Church, Zanesville; and Christ Church, Cincinnati where, among the founding members, was a future U. S. President, William Henry Harrison. On January 5, 1818 a convention of Ohio Episcopal clergy and lay people was held in Columbus for the purpose of organizing the Diocese of Ohio. On June 3 the convention met again and elected The Rev. Philander Chase as the first Bishop of Ohio.
1805 …. In 1805, Chase accepted an invitation to help establish the first Episcopal parish in New Orleans, Louisiana. He hoped that the warmer climate would help alleviate his wife’s consumption (tuberculosis). Mary’s health did not improve, however, and the Chases desperately missed their children, whom they had left with relatives in Vermont. Thus, in 1811, Chase returned to the New England to take over the rectorship of Christ Church in Hartford, Connecticut, and to oversee his sons’ education.
1817 …. (1) In 1817, this urge, coupled with growing tensions between he and John Henry Hobart, bishop of New York, compelled Chase to follow the migration west. He settled in Worthington, Ohio, a small pioneer community established in 1803 by a group of fellow New Englanders. There, Chase purchased a tract of land for a farm and was appointed principal of Worthington Academy. It was also there, in 1818, his wife Mary succumbed to her illness.
1819 …. Chase consecrated in February 1819 and later that year married his second wife, Sophia May Ingraham. He struggled to support his family financially in Worthington and in an attempt to better his finances, he accepted the post of President of Cincinnati College in 1821.
1821 …. Chase realized that since the split with the Church of England, Episcopalian priests were very scarce and not enough attention was being given to the Western expansion of the church.
Quote from Bishop Chase:
“The few clergy we have may keep us alive, under Providence, a little longer; but when they die or move away, we have no means to supply their places…We may think of the privileges at the east, of the means of education there; but this is all; they are out of our reach. Besides, if our young men were there, if we could find the money in our woods, or drag it from our streams, to send and maintain them at the eastern seminaries, who could insure us that they would not be enticed, by the superior offers held out to them, to settle there, and leave us in our wants?
In short, unless we can have some little means of educating our pious men here, and here being secure of their affections, station them in our woods and among our scattered people, to gather in and nourish our wandering lambs, we have no reason to hope in the continuance of the Church in the west.”
1824 …. By July, 1824, Chase had raised nearly $30,000 dollars for his seminary. Donors included the Lords Gambier, Bexley, and Kenyon, Lady Rosse, and Hannah More. In December, the Ohio legislature incorporated Chase’s theological seminary, which he would name Kenyon College, after one of its chief benefactors.
1825 …. (2) Through an aggressive program of fund-raising in England, he was able, by 1825, to establish Bexley Hall Seminary and Kenyon College and locate them in a community he named Gambier after one of the benefactors. He became the President of these schools, and during his tenure, the schools and the Diocese each grew rapidly.
1831 …. In 1831, the Ohio Convention demanded he relinquish some control. Chase, both frustrated and exhausted, instead resigned the presidency of Kenyon College and the episcopacy of Ohio on September 9, 1831.
1835 …. In 1835, without his knowledge, a group of Illinois parishes gathered to form the Diocese of Illinois, and elected Chase its first bishop. As before, Chase received little help from the East, so he quickly formulated plans for a new theological seminary to be established near Peoria. To England again Chase would go to raise the necessary funds.
1839 …. Less successful in raising funds in England the second time, Chase returned to America and began a fundraising tour of the southern United States. This proved successful enough to allow him to lay the cornerstone of Jubilee College in 1839. Chase continued his travel and fundraising and left his cousin, Samuel, in charge of the day-to-day operations of the new college. In 1840-1, the chapel at Jubilee was finished.
As with Kenyon, Chase wanted Jubilee to be a self-sufficient community. Chase’s sons, Henry, Philander, and Dudley, managed the college farm and a large flock of sheep. Chase also built a sawmill and a gristmill on Kickapoo Creek. Chase’s daughter, Mary, ran a small girls’ school. Along with the seminary, there was also a college and a grammar school.
1849 …. In 1849, fire destroyed the Jubilee saw and grist mills, thus eliminating a significant source of income. Three years later, its most important source of income would also be lost.
1852 …. By 1852, Chase, now seventy-seven, had lived a hard pioneer life and as a result, his health was failing.
In September, Chase was pulled from his carriage by his horse. He lingered for a few days, but on September 20, Philander Chase died. Without Chase at the helm, Jubilee had no chance of survival. It struggled on for a few more years and finally closed its doors in 1862.
1862- 1871… Samuel Chase, after serving as chaplain during the Civil War, attempted once more to open Jubilee, but was forced to begin selling the lands in 1871.
August 8th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Bishop Chase founder Jubilee College.