An Apostle of the Western Church

Bishop (David) Jackson Kemper (1789-1870) was the first missionary bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. He was made a deacon of the Episcopal Church in 1811 and was ordained as 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 respo