Jackson Kemper

Jackson Kemper was born 24 December 1789 in Pleasant Valley, New York, attended Columbia College, and was ordained a priest in 1814. In 1835, the Episcopal Church undertook to consecrate missionary bishops to preach the Gospel west of the settled areas, and Kemper was the first to be chosen. He promptly headed west. Having found that clergy who had lived all their lives in the settled East were slow to respond to his call to join him on the frontier, he determined to recruit priests from among men who were already in the West, and established a college in St. Louis, Missouri, for that purpose. He went on to found Nashotah House and Racine College in Wisconsin, and founded the mission parish that became the Cathedral Church of All Saints. He constantly urged a more extensive outreach to the Native American peoples, and translations of the Scriptures and the services of the Church into their languages. From 1859 till his death in 1870, he was bishop of Wisconsin, but the effect of his labors covered a far wider area.

From the Episcopal Calendar