Samuel Provoost

Samuel Provoost (1742 – September 6, 1815) was the third Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA, as well as the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. He was consecrated as bishop of New York in 1787 with Bishop William White. He was born in New York City, of Huguenot descent, in 1742, and educated at King's (now Columbia) College. In England he continued his studies at St. Peter's College, Cambridge, and was ordained priest in 1766. Samuel Provoost also matriculated at the University of Leiden, 28 July 1764. He returned to New York and became an assistant minister of Trinity parish, a post he retained until 1774, when he withdrew. He declined to serve as delegate to the Continental Congress, though his patriotic impulses led him to join his neighbors in their pursuit of the British after the burning of the town of Esopus. He did not resume the active ministry until the close of the war, when, in 1784, he became rector of Trinity Church, New York, and in 1785 chaplain of the Continental Congress, then meeting in New York. Elected in 1786 first Bishop of New York at the Diocesan Convention, he was consecrated in England. In 1800 he resigned the rectorship of Trinity and the following year sought to relinquish his episcopal office, but the House of Bishops, declining to accept his resignation, appointed instead an Assistant Bishop. Bishop Provoost died in 1815.