In area nearly 12,000 miles, the Diocese of Central New York includes fourteen counties and is one of six Episcopal dioceses in the state. The diocese is bounded on the east by the counties of St. Lawrence, Herkimer, Otsego and Delaware, to the south by Pennsylvania, on the west by Steuben, Schuyler, Yates, and Wayne counties, and to the north by the St Lawrence River.

Now with considerable variation in population density among its cities and rural communities, the diocese was originally a sparsely settled wilderness when Anglicans first worshipped here at the end of the eighteenth century. The diocese traces its roots even earlier, to the activities of the Church of England in the colonies in the pre-Revolutionary War years, when central New York was little more than a geographic expression.

A permanent foothold
With the establishment of Trinity Church, Wall Street in 1697, the Church of England planted a permanent foothold in the American colony. The steady trickle of clergy into New York continued into the eighteenth century, and the church expanded along the Hudson River Valley to Albany and west to Schenectady. Missionary work was promote by gifts of prayer books, altar furnishing, and communion vessels to the Indians by Queen Anne. In 1710, the Reverend William Andrews preached amongst the Oneidas; the first clergyman to labor in what is now the Diocese of Central New York.

During the Revolution, many Anglicans fled to Canada and England. In disarray after hostilities ceased, state conventions of clergy and laity after 1780 took up issues of organization and authority, since the tie with the Church of England was now broken. The Reverend Samuel Seabury of Connecticut, consecrated in Scotland in 1783, became the first American bishop. Because many central New York settlers emigrated from Connecticut, the strength of the church there contributed to its early establishment in the upstate wilderness, and in 1786, the Diocese of New York--encompassing the entire state--was officially organized.

Like pioneers of all faiths in central New York. the first Episcopalians were largely of English stock and emigrated from New England and the eastern counties of New York. But the prospect of free homesteads and land speculation lured thousands of others into the area. In particular, the Erie Canal and its many feeders soon carried settlers throughout the region.

Progress and problems
Although not always the first, the Episcopal Church was established early in many communities. The missionary efforts were slowed in the early nineteenth century by a lack of well-trained clergy, since the Episcopal church demanded a standard of education often far above that of other denominations: a bachelor's degree and then a divinity degree, which required another two years of theological education. In addition, the laity were more accustomed to a state-supported religion and slow to realize the degree of financial support they would need to contribute. The lingering anti-British sentiment following the Revolution hampered growth and many of the recent emigrants to upstate New York were farmers and members of other Protestant denominations. Finally, neither the first nor second Bishop of New York traveled much to the upstate area, and missionary clergymen often labored without a strong sense of physical support from their bishop.

With the consecration of John Henry Hobart as Assistant Bishop of New York in 1811 and Bishop in 1816, the pace of Episcopal expansion increased dramatically. Bishop Hobart made his first trip upstate in 1812, an arduous journey repeated eleven times before his death in 1830. He established the General Theological Seminary in New York City, with a branch in Geneva, and these efforts enlarged the number of ministers from five to twenty-eight during his tenure.  A confirmed high churchman, Hobart saw the church as descended by means of bishops from the days of the first apostles, and in his teaching role, took great care to explain feasts and fasts and instruct people how to observe them, and to encourage regular reading of the Gospel and more frequent celebrations of Holy Communion (which during his time occurred at most four times a year).

Doubling clergy and communicants
Following Hobart's death in 1830, Benjamin Onderdonk became bishop. Between 1830 and 1840 the number of clergy doubled and communicants grew to nearly twice the 1830 total. In 1838, this growth finally required the diocese to be divided, with a new bishop to oversee the new Diocese of Western New York.

Church buildings in this period (roughly 1786 to 1840) were a demonstration of faith amongst the increasing population. The results of growth, they were also contributors to growth, by fostering community, sheltering the local ministry, and providing a locus for spiritual needs. Often when the church itself was completed, a further sum was devoted to building a rectory and horse sheds, and to maintaining a cemetery. Funds for the churches were raised by subscription, the sale or rent of pews, and occasionally  by application to the wealthy parish of Trinity Church, New York, for aid.

Enlarged between 1835 and 1862, the Erie Canal promoted growth in Utica, Rome, and Syracuse and other communities along its length. The Black River Canal, built from 1836 to 1855, promoted growth to the north just as the Oswego and Chenango Canals encouraged development in southern state. The Syracuse and Utica Railroad, completed in 1839, introduced rail transportation to central New York State. Bishop William Heathcote De Lancey, the first Bishop of Western New York, continued the high church practices of his predecessors, and the new diocese grew in parishes and members towards mid-century.

The advent of the Civil War caused internal division within the Episcopal Church, but the central New York region continued to flourish and prosper. Just after the war, the dramatic increase in population throughout all of New York State caused a radical redivision of the two dioceses into six: in 1868, the dioceses of Central New York, Albany, and Long Island were formed and the area we now term the Diocese of Central New York formally came into being.

The Bishops of Central New York
The first Bishop of Central New York, Frederic Dan Huntington, of an old-line Unitarian Boston family. A professor of ethics at Harvard University, his dramatic conversion to the Episcopal Church in the 1850s made headlines. Shortly thereafter, he was ordained an Episcopal priest and began his parish ministry in Boston. His scholarship and commitment to social justice proved a forceful combination. In 1868, he was elected first Bishop of Central New York. Until his death in 1904, he was a tireless, if occasionally cranky, spiritual head of the diocese who saw it go from strength to strength.

In 1904 the diocese chose Charles Tyler Olmstead (1904-1921) as its new bishop, and his careful administrative oversight and calm demeanor were something of a contrast to Bishop Huntington. Not a young man when elected, he labored faithfully until his death in 1921.

The Depression years were a difficult time for small farms and shops, the main pursuits of many Episcopalians in the diocese. A number of mission parishes closed or merged, as once flourishing towns and villages lost numbers. The third bishop of Central New York, Charles Fiske (1921-1936), was an energetic and sanguine personality whose optimism helped carry the diocese through these trying years.

M.E. Peabody

Edward Coley, who served as assistant bishop since 1924, was recognized for his abilities and loyalties and elected the fourth Bishop of Central New York in 1936. His attentiveness and long knowledge of people and parishes proved to be good gifts, and the diocese began slowly to recover from the effects of the depression.

The post-World War Two boom saw Malcolm Endicott Peabody leading the diocese until 1964. Oldest son of an old New England family (his father founded Groton School), Bishop Peabody was active in the national church and forged a number of international ties for the diocese as well. During the 1950s, steady growth in childbirth and the societal expectation of church-going led the diocese into a complacency that the turbulent 1960s would shatter.

Ned Cole

Ned Cole, a rising young clergyman from Missouri, in 1964 became the sixth bishop. His passion for civil rights and social justice moved the diocese into more progressive arenas; in fact, one of the first women to be ordained in the Episcopal Church, Betty Bone Schiess, was a parishioner in the diocese.

Since the rollercoaster decades of the 1960s and 1970s, the diocese has been served by two bishops, O'Kelley Whittaker of Virginia (eight bishop, 1983-1992), and David Joslin (ninth bishop, 1992-1999), called from Minnesota. In a secular society, where church-going is no longer the norm, the 1980s and 1990s have been a period of stock taking, parish building up, and alliance forming among smaller parishes unable to maintain full-time priests. Bishop Joslin's interest in ecumenism proved refreshing to a diocese that can occasionally become focussed on its own concerns.

Although the numbers of Episcopalians and parishes may be smaller now than in mid-century, the steady and loyal support and love for the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Central New York remain strong amongst its clergy and people.

(Much of this material was adapted from Christine Lozner's Historic Churches of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York.)

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