Bishop John Henshaw

Rhode Island’s first bishop of the Episcopal Church was called to minister from an early age. One Sunday morning in 1795, three-year-old John Prentiss Henshaw scurried away from his Middletown, Connecticut home and wandered into the town’s Episcopal church service, where a family friend scooped him into their pew for the rest of the service. 

The first son of Daniel and Sarah Prentiss Henshaw, young John was not born into the Episcopal Church. The path he would take to becoming an early leader of that Church was, in fact, quite improbable.

The Henshaws were of Puritan stock, but no one in the family of 12 children was baptized. In 1800, at the age of eight, the Henshaws moved to the remote forests of Middlebury, Vermont, where the entire state could claim only one Episcopal clergyman.

But Daniel Henshaw was a devoted father as well as a scrupulous businessman, and he encouraged his precocious son’s studies from an early age. At 12, John asked his father’s permission to enter college. Mr. Henshaw refused initially, citing John’s age, but the boy’s persistence soon convinced the elder Henshaw to visit an old friend – the Rev. Dr. John Kewley, the priest of the same church John had wandered into nine years earlier.

Afraid of stifling John’s intellectual curiosity and ambition, Kewley convinced Mr. Henshaw to grant his son’s request. That fall, John entered the freshman class of Middlebury College.

Despite his age, John was the typical student at Middlebury, even engaging in pranks with his older classmates. One night, while serving as the lookout for the students’ hi-jinx, a teacher approached. Quickly, John dropped to the floor and, acting as if he thought the teacher was a fellow student, said, “Hush! Hush! I am catching mice!” Convinced, the teacher tiptoed away.

In 1808, at an age when most boys were thinking of entering college, John was graduated from Middlebury. His father, envisioning a lucrative career in the law for the boy, sent him on to Harvard University for graduate studies.

While at Harvard, the 16-year-old Henshaw took a trip to Middletown, Connecticut to visit his first home. While in town, he attended Dr. Kewley’s Episcopal Church service and, much impressed, he stayed in Middletown for some time. He suspended his studies at Harvard and there, under Dr. Kewley, John was baptized. In gratitude to his mentor, John assumed the middle name of Kewley.

When John returned home to Vermont, he could hardly contain his enthusiasm for the Church. The zeal with which he spoke convinced his father to send for Dr. Kewley, who baptized the entire family.

In 1811, the Episcopal Church’s Eastern Diocese, encompassing all of New England, was formed under the leadership of Rt. Rev. Alexander Viets Griswold of Bristol, Rhode Island. He soon visited Vermont and stayed with the Henshaws, a relatively prosperous family. During his stay, he became personally acquainted with 19-year-old John. After visiting the northern parishes of the state, which struggled along without clergy, Bishop Griswold sent John to serve as a lay reader. John served the congregations in Sheldon and Fairfield for the rest of the year and became, for all intents and purposes, their minister, even though Church law prevented him from becoming a deacon until the age of 21.

In December of that year, Rev. Charles Stewart, who was later to become bishop of Quebec, wrote to John and asked for his help at a parish along Vermont’s border with Canada. Again, John obliged and the parish thrived under his guidance.

In 1812, the Diocese provided the parishes in Vermont with clergy and Bishop Griswold invited John to his residence in Bristol to continue his theological studies. Griswold grew to depend on Henshaw; when his duties as bishop took him away from his home parish of St. Michael’s Church in Bristol, Griswold left the 20-year-old Henshaw to read the service and sermon.

On June 13, 1813, his 21st birthday, Griswold admitted Henshaw to the Holy Order of Deacons at St. Michael’s Church.

The following year, John married Bristol’s Mary Gorham and, shortly thereafter, John was assigned to St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn, New York.

Again at the minimum age required by Church law, Henshaw was ordained as priest by Bishop John Henry Hobart of New York on June 13, 1816 – his 24th birthday. “It was a most solemn and interesting occasion,” Henshaw wrote to a friend. “My heart was humbled to the dust at the thought of this great dignity, and awful responsibility of the office to which so unworthy a sinner had been raised by the mercy of God.” 

In July, Henshaw was instituted as rector of St. Ann’s, but his tenure was short. In the spring of 1817, he accepted a call to St. Peter’s Church in Baltimore, Maryland, a parish he would call home for the next 26 years. 

St. Ann’s Church was left in better shape than he found it, with a robust 150 parishioners. At St. Peter’s, however, Henshaw had a fresh challenge; in financial straits, the parish counted only 50 members. 

In Baltimore, Henshaw’s reputation within the community, and the entire Episcopal Church, continued to spread. Somewhat of a celebrity there, people of all denominations flocked to hear Henshaw’s sermons, always delivered extemporaneously. Philadelphia Presbyterian minister Rev. Dr. Bedell once wrote, “With a portly figure and pre-possessing countenance, Dr. Henshaw combines a fine voice and fluent utterance.”

A short but stout man, Dr. Henshaw looked august in his priestly vestments. He wore flowing black robes and a high white collar with two fingers of lace decorating his neck like a tie. His dark hair fit his personality – energetic and wavy locks were loosely swept from left to right. His long, hawkish nose and face belied his family’s English, Puritan heritage.

While at St. Peter’s Church, Henshaw finished his graduate studies and received a Doctorate in Divinity.

In 1827, at the age of 35, he placed second in a vote to succeed Dr. William Miller Kemp as Maryland’s next bishop. He had amassed an enviable record at St. Peter’s: in 1837, after 20 years at the parish, the free school had educated over 6,000 children; 10,000 children had passed through the Sunday school and 14 of his parishioners were preparing for ministry. 

By 1843, Henshaw had baptized more than 1,000 people and confirmed another 500. His congregation had grown tenfold, to 500 parishioners, and there was a brand new church for them to worship in. 

When Henshaw’s mentor, Bishop Griswold, passed away that year, the Eastern Diocese he oversaw had grown considerably. The New England states were divided into statewide dioceses. Soon, one of those states would call upon Henshaw to be its leader. 

On April 6, 1843, representatives from all 19 of Rhode Island’s parishes convened at George Street’s St. Stephen’s Church on the East Side of Providence to select the new diocese’s first bishop. In all, 80 persons met – 21 members of the clergy along with 59 lay persons. Wakefield’s Church of the Ascension was represented by the Rev. James H. Eames and his wife Jane. In later years, she remembered Henshaw’s name as the only candidate put forward. 

After a short discussion, the clergy retired to vote on Henshaw. Nineteen voted, and of these, 17 approved Henshaw’s candidacy. The laity agreed when the parishes voted 16-2 in favor of Henshaw. The Rev. Henry Waterman and Mr. William T. Grinneil, forming a committee representing the clergy and laity, were dispatched to Baltimore that night to solicit Henshaw. A representative from Providence’s Grace Church also accompanied them to offer Henshaw the newly vacant position of rector with an annual salary of $400. Unlike today, bishops customarily served an individual parish within their diocese, usually, one of the larger parishes. The bishop was thus considered first among the clergy.

In an April 11, 1843 letter to a friend, Henshaw described the night he learned of his election: “In the Saturday-night train of cars, three gentlemen from Rhode Island arrived here; two of them, a committee appointed by the convention to inform me of my election, present me a certificate, signed by all the members, and urge my acceptance. The other, a delegate from Grace Church, Providence, bringing with him the certificate of my election as rector.” 

Henshaw was torn. After 26 years in Baltimore, he was like a father to his parishioners. He told friends that moving was the most difficult decision of his ministerial life. But the assurances of Rhode Island’s faithful convinced him. “It has so much the aspect of a Divine call,” Henshaw wrote one friend. This was all he needed. He accepted, and the new Diocese of Rhode Island had its first bishop. 

Henshaw had hoped to assume his new office on June 13, his birthday and the date of his induction into the Order of Deacons and the Order of Priests. The date always commanded a certain reverential attitude in Henshaw; but there was too much to do to prepare for his new ministry. 

The day after his birthday, however, Henshaw made his first appearance in Rhode Island at the annual state Episcopal Church Convention in St. Stephen’s Church. As he walked up the stairs and through the thick, daunting wooden doors with Rev. Silas A. Crane, a murmur swept through the crowd. 

“There’s our new bishop,” heads turned to whisper. 

Soon enough, the rumor was confirmed. Crane introduced Henshaw and the bishop-elect took a seat to the right of the Convention President, the Rev. Dr. John Crocker. That Wednesday evening, the church was filled for Henshaw’s first sermon at Low Mass. He preached from Ephesians 4:15 and Jane Eames remarked: “Such zeal and earnestness and flow of language, and vigor of thought and happiness of expression are rarely so well combined.”

Finally, on Thursday, August 10, in the presence of three bishops and a church full of parishioners, Henshaw was officially installed as the new rector of Providence’s Grace Church. In a most unusual turn of events, Henshaw was called upon to deliver his own institutional sermon when his friend, Bishop John Johns of Virginia, was delayed in his journey to Providence. With little time to prepare, Henshaw delivered an impassioned sermon on 1 Corinthians 3: 12-15, without the aid of any notes, as was his custom. 

The next morning, over 50 clergymen and six bishops gathered at St. John’s Church in Providence to consecrate him bishop. The Rev. Dr. Crocker led morning prayers. Connecticut’s Bishop Thomas Brownell led the ante-communion service. Bishop Johns read the Epistle, and Vermont’s Bishop John Henry Hopkins recited the Gospel. 

Bishop William Rollinson Whittingham of Maryland assumed the pulpit to preach Luke 27:5, “And the Apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.” 

Johns then joined Whittingham in presenting Henshaw to Brownell for consecration. A testimonial was read; Henshaw swore conformity with the Church; and the bishop-elect was commended to the prayers of the congregation. 

All six bishops, including New York’s Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk and New Jersey’s George Washington Doane, then laid hands on Henshaw, conferring the apostolic succession unto him for the Diocese of Rhode Island. The Episcopal Church claims succession back to the Christian Church’s first bishop, St. Peter. 

In his first official act, the Rt. Rev. Dr. John Prentiss Kewley Henshaw joined his fellow bishops in serving communion to the congregation. He was now the leader of an Episcopal community that could trace its origin in Rhode Island back to Newport’s Trinity Church in 1698. 

In his first year as bishop, Henshaw confirmed 266 persons; 53 of them belonged to the Diocese of Maine. Henshaw oversaw that state’s diocese until October of 1847, when it was large enough to support its own bishop. 

Bishop Henshaw’s demeanor was well suited to his role as teacher and father. He had always been most 

scrupulous with Church Services, once describing himself as a “sound Churchman free from ultraisms and novelties of every sort.” Confronted with remote parishes devoid of today’s instant communications, Henshaw gently pushed each parish – which had adopted local adaptations on the Church Service – back into conformity. 

He had written several books while rector of St. Peter’s, originally intended solely for use within his parish, which were eventually published and relied upon as catechisms for the entire church. His 575-page tome entitled Theology for the People, published in 1840, contained 153 pages on just the Apostles’ Creed. But far from being an aloof academic, Henshaw was concerned first with imparting practical Christian knowledge to every individual. 

“Most of the systems of theology extant, being written for the benefit of the clergy and candidates for sacred office, are too scholastic and technical to suit the taste and be adapted to the taste of the needs of the great body of Laity. At the present period, therefore, when the public mind is so much awakened to the paramount importance of Christian Education, a plain and popular work containing a systematic view of the doctrines and duties of our holy religion, which may aid parents and teachers in the performance of their duty, seems to be considered by all as a desideratum in the religious literature of the day,” Henshaw wrote in the preface to his 1840 work.

In his 1834 work Henshaw’s Sheridan: Lessons on Elocution; Accompanied by Instructions and Criticisms on the Reading of the Church Service, Rhode Island’s first bishop spent 200 pages outlining the proper reading of the Episcopal Church Service. He also wrote 109 pages just on articulation and accent.

While Henshaw was fastidious regarding his holy church, he was gentle in coaxing the changes from his flock of clergy. Jane Eames once said: “If any of his clergy read the service differently from the way in which he thought it right to read, he would say: ‘I see you read that passage so and so. Now I have been accustomed to read it differently,’ and then he would turn to someone else and say: ‘What is your opinion on this subject,’ thus drawing out each one to express himself fully and freely on the matter, and in the end leading them on to see and to know the true way of reading the service effectively.”

Henshaw also employed humor to deliver his message gently. He once took a member of his clergy aside and said, “Brother, have you and the letter g had a quarrel, for I notice you have nothing to do with it, as you do not pronounce it at all at the end of a word.”

Henshaw was widely regarded as a most fascinating conversationalist. More than one contemporary remarked on his uncanny ability to tell a humorous anecdote at just the right time, and with just the right intonation. “The expression of his face in repose was sad,” a friend once said, “but when he talked, his countenance lit up with animation, while his voice and eyes and every feature told of his interest in the subject.”

But nothing defined Henshaw more than his missionary zeal. His mind was always fixed on the greater glory of God, and especially the care of the souls under his charge. In a statewide circular calling for money and men for missionary work, Henshaw wrote that the missionary committee he chaired “will never feel that its duty is discharged until all the inhabitants of our State can have access to those means of grace through which they may obtain the hope of glory and lay hold of everlasting life.”

Ever the teacher, Henshaw often took students into his home, Grace Church’s rectory on Mathewson Street, to oversee their ministerial studies. One such student, who resided with Henshaw for nearly three years, recalled a time when the bishop visited a man on his deathbed. When he arrived, the delirious man told Henshaw that he hoped to see paradise. Then he closed his eyes; he appeared dead. The bishop took some woolen cloth and began to rub the man’s temples. Eventually, the man opened his eyes, looked around in wide-eyed wonder, and exclaimed, “What! Is it possible that I have come back again into this world?” He recovered and lived several more years. 

On another occasion, the student reported that the bishop had gone to visit a woman who had not walked in 12 years. On one of his visits, she expressed a desire to be confirmed. He promised to return and, at his next visit, he told her she could be confirmed but with one stipulation: she must walk to the church. She protested over the course of his next several visits, but Henshaw remained steadfast. Some time later, his resolve paid off: she reported walking across the room. She later walked to church for confirmation, where Bishop Henshaw laid hands on her in unction. She walked for the rest of her days. 

On April 8, 1845, Henshaw rejoiced as he delivered the address at the laying of the cornerstone of the new Grace Church, for which he had lobbied as a glorification of God. In an unusual – and visionary – move, Henshaw had insisted that the new church include 40 pews that would remain forever free. At that time, churches were built and supported by families who would either purchase or rent pews. Combating the perception of the Episcopal Church as “aristocratic,” Henshaw declared in his address “her portals are alike open – and her precious gifts alike offered to the poor and the rich, to the humble and the eternal.”

Just two months later on June 29, 1845, one of Bishop Henshaw’s most fervent wishes was fulfilled when he admitted his son Daniel to the Holy Order of Deacons. Daniel, who later ministered at All Saints’ Memorial Church on Westminster Street in Providence, recalled: “Among my earliest recollections is that of my father’s frequent answer to the question, ‘What do you intend to make of this boy?’ (meaning me), he always replied – he trusted that I would live to be a faithful minister of the Gospel. … Yet my father never pressed the subject upon me. He seemed to take for granted that I would be a minister, and I cannot remember the time when I did not look forward to being one.” 

Not long after Daniel was ordained, the elder Henshaw’s health began to fail. The bishop had enjoyed good health most of his life, but in the summer of 1848 he had a mild heart attack, the same malady that had killed 

his father in 1825. Henshaw recovered, but his heart continued to plague him. He was struck again in 1850 – and again he recovered. 

Two years later, Maryland’s Bishop Whittingham was forced to sail for England to seek medical care for a serious ailment. Henshaw agreed to travel to Maryland to perform some of Whittingham’s duties. On July 4, 1852, the Henshaws held a festive family gathering. The bishop was looking forward to visiting familiar friends and places. On July 5, he headed south with his 18-year-old son Richmond. 

On Sunday, July 11, Henshaw held confirmation and preached at two churches in Georgetown, D.C. The following Sunday, July 18, he confirmed and preached in Poolesville, Maryland. On Monday, he set out for Urbana, Maryland, but his trip was cut short when one of the wheels of his carriage broke. The bishop and his son were guests at a private mansion about six miles outside Frederick that night. 

At 4:30 Tuesday morning, Dr. Henshaw woke his son complaining of numbness on his right side. Richmond tried to comfort him, but by dawn it was clear the bishop needed a doctor. Henshaw faded rapidly; the doctor could do nothing. By 1:30 p.m., Henshaw passed from this world at 60 years of age. 

On Wednesday, the bishop’s body was taken to Frederick, then on to his former parish in Baltimore. At St. Peter’s Church, a memorial service was held; some commented that the entire city seemed to mourn Henshaw’s passing. 

By Sunday, the bishop had been transported back to Providence for burial. Grace Church was closed to the public as the bishop’s body lay in state before the altar all that day and night. Rhode Island’s other Episcopal churches were draped in black. 

On Monday, July 26, a crowd gathered at Grace Church for the funeral, including many Rhode Islanders who were unaffiliated with the church. The procession then moved to Grace Church cemetery at Broad Street and Elmwood Avenue. The procession was headed by the clergy, eight of whom served as pallbearers, followed by the hearse, the bishops, the Standing Committee of the Diocese, the bishop’s family and friends, the wardens of the vestry and congregation of Grace Church, members of other churches of the diocese, and finally the general citizens of the state.

Rhode Island’s bishop was survived by his widow, Mary, and four children – three sons and one daughter. 

In his nine years at the helm of the Rhode Island Episcopal Diocese, Henshaw confirmed 1,148 persons, ordained 13 deacons and 13 priests, laid the cornerstone of five new churches, instituted three Rectors, and consecrated nine churches.

In honor of his service, Grace Church erected a memorial which still stands today as the tallest in the cemetery. It reads: “As a theologian, he was sound; as a preacher, clear and earnest; as a pastor, faithful to the best interests of his flock; as a bishop, wise in counsel, and an example in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in piety.”