Today in Wheeling History: February 21—James Allen Latané, former rector of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Wheeling who, while serving there, resigned from the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1874 before later becoming Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church, dies in Baltimore, Maryland (1902).
James Allen Latané was born January 15, 1831, in Essex County, Virginia, to planter Henry Waring Latané and Susanna Allen, in a slaveholding household typical of Virginia’s antebellum elite. Privately educated, he attended the University of Virginia and then Virginia Theological Seminary, preparing for ordained ministry in the Protestant Episcopal Church. After early parish work in Virginia, he accepted a call to St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Wheeling, then a growing industrial city and Episcopal center for the Upper Ohio Valley. St. Matthew’s, founded in 1819, was one of Wheeling’s oldest congregations and an influential downtown parish.
From Wheeling, on January 12, 1874, Latané wrote his famous letter to Bishop John Johns, resigning his orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He cited deep theological and ecclesiological disagreements, a decision he described as made “with sincere grief” yet compelled by conscience. Soon afterward he entered the Reformed Episcopal Church, a new denomination formed amid post–Civil War disputes over ritualism and authority. Consecrated bishop in 1879, he eventually served as Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church and bishop of the New York and Philadelphia Synod, shaping its identity in its formative decades. Latané died February 21, 1902, in Baltimore and was buried in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, closing a career that linked Virginia’s planter world, Wheeling’s Episcopal life, and the wider story of American Protestant division and realignment.
To learn more: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV (https://tinyurl.com/3mtb7zkt); Wikipedia (https://tinyurl.com/2tsekf2f), Internet Archive (https://tinyurl.com/4f63zxh7), Open Library (https://tinyurl.com/42s8yser), FamilySearch (https://tinyurl.com/mr3n9372)
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; Wikimedia Commons
James Allen Latané was born January 15, 1831, in Essex County, Virginia, to planter Henry Waring Latané and Susanna Allen, in a slaveholding household typical of Virginia’s antebellum elite. Privately educated, he attended the University of Virginia and then Virginia Theological Seminary, preparing for ordained ministry in the Protestant Episcopal Church. After early parish work in Virginia, he accepted a call to St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Wheeling, then a growing industrial city and Episcopal center for the Upper Ohio Valley. St. Matthew’s, founded in 1819, was one of Wheeling’s oldest congregations and an influential downtown parish.
From Wheeling, on January 12, 1874, Latané wrote his famous letter to Bishop John Johns, resigning his orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He cited deep theological and ecclesiological disagreements, a decision he described as made “with sincere grief” yet compelled by conscience. Soon afterward he entered the Reformed Episcopal Church, a new denomination formed amid post–Civil War disputes over ritualism and authority. Consecrated bishop in 1879, he eventually served as Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church and bishop of the New York and Philadelphia Synod, shaping its identity in its formative decades. Latané died February 21, 1902, in Baltimore and was buried in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, closing a career that linked Virginia’s planter world, Wheeling’s Episcopal life, and the wider story of American Protestant division and realignment.
To learn more: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV (https://tinyurl.com/3mtb7zkt); Wikipedia (https://tinyurl.com/2tsekf2f), Internet Archive (https://tinyurl.com/4f63zxh7), Open Library (https://tinyurl.com/42s8yser), FamilySearch (https://tinyurl.com/mr3n9372)
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; Wikimedia Commons
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