EPISCOPAL CHURCH. DIOCESE OF MINNESOTA:

An Inventory of Its Records

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HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE OF MINNESOTA

The ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the area of present-day Minnesota began with the appointment of a chaplain (Clement F. Jones) to Fort Snelling in 1828. By 1838 the settlement surrounding the fort had grown so much that Ezekiel Gear's appointment as chaplain included the settlement. With the temporary abandonment of Fort Snelling in 1858, however, Gear was transferred to Fort Ripley, and the settlers of the area were once again without an Episcopal mission.

The next Episcopal missionary, James Lloyd Breck, arrived in 1849. In 1850, he and two other missionaries, Timothy Wilcoxson and J. Austin Merrick, were appointed to establish an Associate Mission in St. Paul. This mission was to be a training ground for new clergy. By 1852, however, Breck had left for the Chippewa mission field in northern Minnesota, and the Associate Mission virtually ceased operation. Although the Mission never fulfilled its true purpose, the three men did establish the first parish in St. Paul, Christ Church, and a number of missions up the St. Croix River to Taylors Falls and up the Mississippi River to Sauk Rapids.

In 1852 the first attempt was made to organize the various mission areas under the Church Missionary Society of Minnesota. It was suspended, however, when the Associate Mission was dissolved. In 1856 a second attempt at a union was made when a convention to form a diocese was called. It ended in a disagreement over the constitution, but a renewed effort in 1857 proved successful, with the adoption of a constitution and canons and the founding of the Diocese of Minnesota.

In 1859 Henry B. Whipple was elected as the first Bishop of Minnesota. He established his residence in Faribault, where in 1858 Breck and Solon W. Manney had begun the Bishop Seabury Mission. During Whipple's years as bishop, the church established parishes throughout the state. Whipple was aided in his work by the bishop coadjutor, Mahlon N. Gilbert, who was elected in 1886.

Because the diocese covered such a large area, the northern two-thirds was separated in 1895 and became the Missionary Diocese of Duluth. Originally under the supervision of Bishop Coadjutor Gilbert, in 1896 it elected its own bishop, James Dow Morrison. In 1907 it officially became the Diocese of Duluth.

Following the death of Bishop Coadjutor Gilbert in 1900, Samuel Cook Edsall was elected early in 1901 to fill the position. Bishop Whipple died later in 1901, and Edsall moved into the bishopric. Upon becoming bishop, Edsall moved his residence, and thus the center of the church, to Minneapolis.

Frank Arthur McElwain was elected suffragan bishop in 1912, and bishop following Edsall's death in 1917. One of the major developments during his bishopric was the formation in 1920 of the Bishop and Directorate as the executive body for the diocese. (In 1934 its name was changed to Bishop and Council.) McElwain served alone until the election of Stephen Edwards Keeler as bishop coadjutor in 1931. Upon McElwain's retirement in 1943, Keeler became bishop.

In 1920 Granville Gaylord Bennett was elected the bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of Duluth, and in 1921 he succeeded Bishop Morrison. Bennett in turn resigned in 1933 and was followed by his bishop coadjutor, Benjamin Tibbets Kemerer, who had been elected to that position in 1930.

Due to financial difficulties in the Diocese of Duluth, in 1943 the two dioceses voted to reunite under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Minnesota. Although the ecclesiastical organizations were merged in 1944, it was not until 1955-1956 that transfer of the Diocese of Duluth's property holdings was legalized. With the merger, Bishop Kemerer was made the suffragan bishop of Minnesota. Following his retirement in 1948, Hamilton Hyde Kellogg was elected bishop coadjutor in 1949.

In 1954 the diocese hosted the Anglican Congress, a meeting of delegates and church officials from Episcopal parishes and missions throughout the world. Bishop Keeler and Bishop Coadjutor Kellogg served as honorary officials for the congress. In 1956, following the death of Keeler, Kellogg moved into the bishopric. The position of suffragan bishop was filled in 1958 by Philip Frederick McNairy. He became bishop coadjutor in 1968, and bishop in 1970 upon Kellogg's retirement. He served until his retirement in 1978, at which time Robert Marshall Anderson was elected as the seventh bishop of Minnesota. Upon Anderson's retirement in 1993, James Jelinek was elected as the eight bishop of Minnesota.

Historical information was taken from George Clinton Tanner, History of the Diocese of Minnesota, 1857-1907 (St. Paul, 1909); Edward Lee Sheppard, The Second Fifty Years (Minneapolis: Diocese of Minnesota, 1972); and the diocesan records.

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SCOPE AND CONTENTS OF THE COLLECTION

The records of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Diocese of Minnesota, are divided into a number of major series. Comprising the general records of the diocese are separate series consisting of correspondence and related records (1841-1957); executive and administrative records (1863-1961) of the Bishop and Directorate/Bishop and Council (1934-1954), the Diocese of Minnesota, Inc. (1885-1961), and the Minnesota Church Foundation (1863-1939); related subject files (1858-1956); sermons and lectures (1823-1904); and other miscellaneous records including parish histories, and papers of early church leaders. A major portion of the diocesan records are the records of bishops and other major leaders of the diocese. The files and records of bishops Henry B. Whipple (1859-1899), Stephen E. Keeler (1878-1957), Hamilton Hyde Kellogg (1950-1971), Philip Frederick McNairy (1939-1979), and Robert M. Anderson (1965-1993) as well as Bishop Coadjutor Mahlon N. Gilbert (1886-1900), Archdeacon Frederick F. Kramer (1951-1966), and diocesan registrar George C. Tanner (1854-1919) are each organized as a separate series. The diocesan correspondence contains a few letters and other papers of the other bishops of Minnesota and Duluth, but the location of the bulk of their files (if extant) is unknown. The remainder of the diocesan records consists primarily of parish records for closed parishes and records of the Diocese of Duluth.

The records include correspondence, printed materials, financial and organizational records, sermons and lectures, histories and historical data, minutes, manuscripts and drafts, property records, diaries, newspaper and magazine clippings, biographical data, reports, and scrapbooks. Materials are, for the most part, arranged chronologically or alphabetically within each series or sub-series.

Through these records are documented the history and development of the diocese, including its domestic and Indian missionary policies and activities, its clergy and parishes, its diocesan and clerical structure and organizations, and its affiliated schools and hospitals. The history of the Diocese of Duluth from its inception in 1895 through its 1944 merger with the Diocese of Minnesota is also documented. Many of these files, particularly the diocesan correspondence prior to the 1940s, are fragmentary and discontinuous.

Minutes of several diocesan organizations are fairly complete for varying periods of time, notably those of the Bishop and Directorate/Bishop and Council (1920-1954), the Diocese of Minnesota, Inc. (1863-1961), the Minnesota Church Foundation (1863-1939) - which later merged with the Diocese of Minnesota, Inc. - the Board of Missions (1870-1920), the City Mission Society - later Church Extension Society - of St. Paul (1887-1937), the Church Club of the Diocese of Minnesota (1891-1936), the Church Sunday School Association (1889-1920), the St. Paul and Minneapolis Clericus (1883-1906), and the Southern Convocation (1886-1905). Minutes for some of the organizations are supplemented by financial records and correspondence files. Also included are letterpress books (1896-1915) and ledgers and cash books (1900-1951) of the Diocese of Minnesota, and the proceedings of its Standing Committee (1854-1938).

Much data on individual parishes, as well as on general diocesan history, is to be found in the notes and manuscripts of diocesan historian George Clinton Tanner (George C. Tanner papers, boxes 19-26), letters to him from clergy and laymen during the 1880s through the early 1900s (boxes 2 and 3), and his parish history files (boxes 26-32). The latter contain, in addition to Tanner's notes, scattered letters, financial and legal records, printed histories, programs and brochures, minutes, and communicant records. Additional information on parishes in northern Minnesota is contained in the property files of the Diocese of Duluth (Diocese of Duluth records, boxes 38-41). Baptismal registers and account books for a number parishes, particularly the Church of the Good Shepherd in St. Paul (1866-1917), are among the series of Parish records. (Most parish registers, however, remain in the custody of the parishes.) The correspondence files, record books, and subject files of the Diocese of Minnesota and of Bishop Keeler also include occasional references to churches, missions, and church services. Parochial reports are present for the years 1877-1884.

Also among the diocesan files - correspondence and miscellaneous papers, subject files, volumes, and Keeler papers - are a variety of records of the Bishop Seabury Mission and of Seabury Divinity School. They include the mission's articles of incorporation and statutes (1860, 1869), financial records of mission and school (1874-1930), records of students and faculty (1858-1933), printed materials, and a few items relating to Shattuck School. Bishop Keeler's correspondence regarding divinity school affairs continues through its merger in 1933 with Western Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois.

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DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE COLLECTION

Note to Researchers: Please see the separate inventories for the individual series listed below for more detailed information on the contents of each box.

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