Seminary Service
In 1882 during his first year at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts (now the Episcopal Divinity School) Peabody, a seminarian not yet a priest, was invited to take charge of a little Episcopal congregation in Tombstone, Arizona (now St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Tombstone). After a long seven-day train ride from Boston, he arrived in Benson, Arizona and took the Sandy Bob stagecoach to Tombstone, arriving on January 29, 1882, three months after the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral". He had words of praise for Wyatt Earp.
The last church had burned down six months previously, and no attempt had been made to replace it. Peabody held his first services in the Miner's Exchange Building on February 5, 1882. Though he spent no more than six months in Tombstone he succeeded in getting the church built, St Paul's Episcopal Church. This church building today is the oldest in the state not belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. He was impressive physically, never losing a boxing match. He began a baseball team in Tombstone. He left Tombstone after only six months, and many were saddened that he had to go. George Whitwell Parson noted in his diary that day, “We will not easily fill Peabody’s place.” He returned to the east coast and completed his studies at the Episcopalian Theological School, graduating in the spring of 1884.
Due to the nature of his service during his six months of service in Tombstone, he afterward came to be called the patron saint of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona.
Read more about this topic: Endicott Peabody (educator)
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