Christopher Edwards Gadsden

Gadsden was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1785, the son of Philip Gadsden and his wife, Catherine Edwards.Sprague, 510 He was a grandson of Christopher Gadsden, the South Carolina Revolutionary leader. One of his brothers, John Gadsden, served two terms as the Mayor of Charleston, and another brother, James Gadsden, was the namesake of the Gadsden Purchase.{{Cite web|url=https://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/gabaldon-gafney.html|title=The Political Graveyard: Index to Politicians: Gaa to Gagan|website=politicalgraveyard.com}}

As a youth, he attended both the Episcopal Church of his father and his mother's Congregational Church. Beginning in his junior year, Gadsden attended Yale University, graduating in 1804.Sprague, 511 He was ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church in 1807 by Bishop Moore, and in 1810 was ordained priest by Bishop Madison.

File:The Rt. Rev. Christopher Edwards Gadsden.jpg

Soon thereafter, he became rector of St. John's Church in Berkeley County, South Carolina.Dexter, 656 In 1814, Gadsden became rector of St. Philip's Church in Charleston, the oldest congregation in the diocese. He received a doctorate of divinity the following year from South Carolina College.

In 1840, after the death of Bishop Bowen, a dispute arose in the diocese over who would succeed him. Gadsden was elected, and was consecrated bishop in Trinity Church in Boston.Sprague, 512 Gadsden was the 35th bishop in the ECUSA, and was consecrated by Alexander Viets Griswold, George Washington Doane, and Samuel Allen McCoskry. Gadsden was active in expanding the membership of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, usually visiting each congregation once a year. In 1852, at the diocese convention, he announced that ill health would prevent him from continuing his ministry, and he died shortly thereafter, in June of that year.

He married Eliza Bowman in 1816.Sprague, 513 She died in 1826, and Gadsden remarried in 1830 to Jane Dewees, the youngest daughter of William Dewees. He had no children by his first marriage, but had eight with his second wife.

{{reflist}}

• {{Cite book |title=Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History: With Annals of the College History |last=Dexter |first=Franklin Bowditch |year=1911 |publisher=H. Holt and Company|url=https://archive.org/details/biographicalske01dextgoog}}
• {{cite book |title=Annals of the American Pulpit Or Commemorative Notices of Distinguished American Clergymen of Various Denominations (Vol. 5: Episcopalian, Part Two) |last=Sprague |first=William B. |year=2006 |publisher=Kessinger Publishing |isbn=1-4286-4505-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A-90GHBlWP8C }}

• [http://www.episcopalchurch.org Web site of the Episcopal Church]
• [http://www.dioceseofsc.org/ Web site of the Diocese of South Carolina]

{{s-start}}

{{s-rel|ep}}

{{succession box|title=4th Bishop of South Carolina|before=Nathaniel Bowen|after=Thomas F. Davis|years=June 21, 1840 – June 24, 1852}}

{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gadsden, Christopher Edwards}}

Category:1785 births

Category:1852 deaths

Category:Clergy from Charleston, South Carolina

Category:Episcopal bishops of South Carolina

Category:Yale University alumni

Category:19th-century American Episcopalians