Samuel David Ferguson

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Samuel David Ferguson (January 1, 1842-August 1916) was the first black person to be elected a bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. He was born at Charleston, South Carolina.

Ferguson was consecrated as bishop on June 24, 1885 (Saint John the Baptist's Feast Day) at Grace Church, New York, in ceremony with Bishop Alfred Lee (Bishop of Delaware), who was then the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, as consecrator. As he was the first black Bishop, he was also the first black person to sit in the House of Bishops.

Bishop Ferguson later moved to Liberia, where he founded Cuttington University College and established the Bromley Mission. He remained in the African country until his death in Monrovia in 1916. It is said that Bishop Ferguson paved the way for other black people to become bishops in the Episcopal Church. He married Mary Leonora Montgomery; after her death he re-married, to Sarah Brown.

[edit] References

• Representative Man - A Note on Samuel David Ferguson: America's 1st Black Bishop Seward Montgomery Cooper (2005)
• Handbooks on Missions of the Episcopal Church Number IV Liberia, National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Department of Foreign Missions, New York, 1924, p.50
• History of the Afro-American Group of the Episcopal Church, Baltimore, Maryland: Church Advocate Press, 1922, p.206 by George F. Bragg
• History of the Episcopal Church in Liberia 1821-1980, American Theological Library Association and Scraecrow Press, Inc. London (1992), p.155 by D. Elwood Dunn