John Barrett Kerfoot (March 1, 1816 – July 10, 1881) served as Rector of the College of St. James near Hagerstown, Maryland, as President of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and as the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Early life
John Barrett Kerfoot was born on March 1, 1816, in Dublin, Ireland. His parents, Richard Kerfoot and Christiana Barrett, were Scotch-Irish, by descent, brought up in the Church of Ireland, but afterwards connected with the Wesleyans. Richard Kerfoot and his family moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1819, where he was successful in business. However, he "lost a considerable sum of money from endorsing notes for his friends".Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 1.
Richard Kerfoot died of "inflammatory fever" in 1825. His son John said that he remembered his father as he was dying "blessing him and giving him his dying counsels," such as "to be a good boy, to say his prayers regularly, to read his Bible, and to obey and take care of his mother." The children "loved and reverenced" their mother who died in the summer of 1858.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 2.
Education
John Kerfoot's "earliest secular education" began in a school in Lancaster that used the "Lancastrian" or Monitorial System, in which older students taught the younger ones.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 3.
From age six until Kerfoot began his theological studies in 1833, the Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg was "a major influence" in Kerfoot's life and the primary factor in his education. Muhlenberg was "unequalled in some respects as an educator of youth." He came to Lancaster in 1820 as associate rector of St. James's Church, Lancaster and opened a Church Sunday-School. Kerfoot began attending the school when he was six years old.The Church Review, Volume 48:165, "John Barrett Kerfoot," 370-371.
In 1826, Muhlenberg moved from Lancaster to Flushing, on Long Island. Two years later he opened the "Flushing Institute." By the generosity of Miss Yeates, Kerfoot's Sunday School teacher in Lancaster, the twelve-year-old Kerfoot was enabled to attend the Flushing Institute, where he was again "under the care and instruction" of Muhlenberg.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 4, 14. At age 14, on February 24, 1830, Kerfoot wrote about his gratefulness for being in Flushing Institute under the influence of Dr. Muhlenberg.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 7. In March 1832, Kerfoot wrote about spending his seventeenth birthday at the Flushing Institute and about having a paper on "Private Prayer" he had written published in The Churchman.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 10.
Kerfoot was confirmed on April 19, 1832, by the Rt. Rev. Benjamin T. Onderdonk, Bishop of Episcopal Diocese of New York.
Theological education
Kerfoot's goal had always been the holy ministry. In 1833, he became a candidate for Holy Orders and began his theological studies. During his first year of theological studies, he had an essay published in the Churchman.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 4, 12.
Kerfoot was ordained to the diaconate on March 1, 1837 (Kerfoot's twenty-first birthday) by Bishop Onderdonk.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 14.
Kerfoot stayed on at the Flushing Institute after completing his studies as Muhlenberg's "principal assistant" until he left to become Rector of the College of St. James in Maryland in 1843.Hall Harrison, "The College of St. James", 259.
Ministry in New York
On March 5, 1837, after having been ordained Deacon, Kerfoot described his "first Sunday in the ministry. I have read the service and preached twice to-day, morning and evening, in St. John's Church, York, Pennsylvania."Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 15. In March 1838, Kerfoot wrote that, while remaining at the Flushing Institute, he would do "ministerial" work at Zion Church, Little Neck, near College Point.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 21. Kerfoot was ordained to the Priesthood on March 1, 1840, by Bishop Onderdonk.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 27.
In February 1841, Kerfoot was offered the position as head of Nashotah House, a new "religious house". However, he turned down the offer.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 29.
The Rt. Rev. William Rollinson Whittingham, bishop of the Episcopal Church's Diocese of Maryland, called Kerfoot to head the College of St. James in Maryland. Kerfoot accepted this offer and, thus, he moved from the Flushing Institute to Maryland.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 30.
In June 1841, before his move to Maryland, Kerfoot was offered the position of President of Kemper College, Missouri. Having already accepted the call to head the College of St. James, he declined this offer.
In the summer of 1841, Kerfoot and Miss Eliza M. Anderson became engaged. In September 1842, they were married in St. John's Chapel, New York. One week later, the couple moved to "Fountain Rock" near Hagerstown, Maryland, the site purchased for the construction of the College of St. James. This became "the scene of his educational labors and happy married life for the next twenty-two years." However, the Kerfoots' marriage was vitiated by the death of four children.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 43.
The Diocese of Maryland, to which Kerfoot was about to transfer his educational labors, was at that time presided over by Bishop Whittingham William Rollinson Whittingham.
College of St. James
Kerfoot spent twenty-three years of his ordained ministry as Rector of the College of St. James. Kerfoot himself called them "happy years of my life" and added that his heart was bound to the college "by sorrows as well as by joys, by disappointment as well as by success."Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 358.
The college "owed its origin to the Rt. Rev. William Rollinson Whittingham, " bishop of the Episcopal Church's Diocese of Maryland. The purpose of the college was to "give a high grade of education under the influences of the Episcopal Church."Hall Harrison, "The College of St. James", 258.
After property had been purchased, Whittingham needed to find a head for the school. He looked to the Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg who headed a school in College Point, NY. Muhlenberg refused the offer, but suggested and offered his "principal assistant" the Rev. John Barrett Kerfoot who had been educated by him. The school was incorporated as the College of St. James in 1843 with Kerfoot as its head.
"The Rector and his assistant teachers were obliged to work without salaries at first, receiving only their board and lodging from the Institution."Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 55.
Under Kerfoot, the college and its preparatory school were an almost immediate success. Kerfoot followed Muhlenberg's example that "combined thorough religious instruction with the usual secular education." He hired "a small, largely northern, faculty, and soon attracted students from wealthy families all over the South." In the college chapel, Kerfoot was "an able and successful preacher." In his preaching, "his statements of truth and duty . . . ; the illustrations and examples were most pertinent."Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 347.
The first year, in spite of the financial difficulties, the college was doing well "until the health of the Rector completely broke down." It was a recurrence of Bronchitis that made preaching and teaching impossible, It was hoped that a voyage to England would remedy the condition.
The return voyage was stormy and when near land the ship ran aground. All on board the ship were for thirteen hours in danger of death until their rescue. After their rescue, the captain and passengers spoke of the "help given them" by Kerfoot.Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 66. The trip did not serve its purpose, because on December 14, 1843, having returned from England, Kerfoot wrote, "my health generally is much improved; my throat is not any better. I am forbidden preaching or teaching for nearly a year."Hall Harrison, Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, First Bishop of Pittsburgh: With Selections from His Diaries and Correspondence, Volume 1 (J. Pott & Company, 1886), 95.
The college and preparatory school attracted students. In 1848, St. James had 98 students and in 1857 it had 117. By the end of term in June 1861, there were "almost 175 students." Civil War Diary of Joseph H. Coit, 247. The college had "every prospect of permanence" until the Civil War was declared.
In spite of the war, Kerfoot and his staff were determined to keep the college going and opened the October 1862 session with "between forty and fifty students." However, by June 25, 1863, there were only 12 students and all from Washington County in which the college was located. Civil War Diary of Joseph H. Coit, 247, 257.