At the founding of The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, all of New England was considered one diocese under the see of Samuel Seabury. In 1811, the congregations in Massachusetts petitioned the General Convention to form a separate diocese consisting of the states of Massachusetts (including Maine), Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Titled the Eastern Diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, its first bishop was Alexander Viets Griswold.
Vermont elected its own bishop in 1832, and separated from the Eastern Diocese. New Hampshire also separated in 1832. The Eastern Diocese ceased to exist in 1843, when Rhode Island and Maine also elected bishops, following the death of Bishop Griswold.
Famous quotes containing the word eastern:
“Midway the lake we took on board two manly-looking middle-aged men.... I talked with one of them, telling him that I had come all this distance partly to see where the white pine, the Eastern stuff of which our houses are built, grew, but that on this and a previous excursion into another part of Maine I had found it a scarce tree; and I asked him where I must look for it. With a smile, he answered that he could hardly tell me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)