"Being a man of excellent fitness for the office, as well as possessed of large private means," Claggett was elected the first Bishop of Maryland, and consecrated during the triennial
General Convention (
synod) of the Episcopal Church at
Trinity Church on
Wall Street in
New York City on 17 September 1792. Thomas J. Claggett thus became the first bishop of
The Episcopal Church ordained and consecrated in North America and the
fifth Bishop consecrated for the Episcopal (formerly Anglican) Church in the United States. Claggett was consecrated by four men who had been consecrated by the
Bishop of London, and later presiding bishops of the Episcopal Church. They were: •
Samuel Seabury, second Presiding Bishop and first Bishop of
Connecticut. Seabury had received his
episcopal orders from the
non-juring Scottish bishops of the
Anglican Church in Scotland who consecrated him in
Aberdeen on November 14, 1784. •
William White, first and fourth
Presiding Bishop (term used in lieu of "
archbishop") and first Bishop of
Pennsylvania. •
Samuel Provoost, third
Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and first Bishop of
New York. •
Bishop James Madison of
Virginia also assisted with the consecration. Traditionally only three bishops are required, but Provoost objected to Seabury's consecration by
Scottish non-jurors, so no further consecrations took place in the United States until Madison went to England and was consecrated again by the prelates of the
Church of England as a
bishop.
New capital city The first priest (
presbyter) that Bishop Claggett ordained was the Rev.
Walter Dulaney Addison, who first served in
Queen Anne Parish in
Upper Marlboro, Maryland from 1793 to 1795 (succeeding his Tory uncle, Rev.
Jonathan Boucher who had returned to England as well as financed his nephew's education), then became rector of
King George's Parish succeeding Rev. Henry T. Addison. This parish included not only the Addison family's traditional estates near
Oxon Hill, Maryland and much of
Prince George's County, Maryland but also a few Episcopalian families the new
District of Columbia. Thus, Rev. Walter D. Addison periodically held services in what soon became
Rock Creek Church as well as in the local
Presbyterian Church on "M" Street through the hospitality of the minister, the Rev. Stephen B. Balch. From this, Georgetown Parish formed in 1809 and
St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square in 1815. Bishop Claggett and Rev. Walter Addison also became mentors of several important Episcopal priests in the new capital area, including Rev.
William Holland Wilmer and future bishop
William Meade in
Alexandria, Virginia. Bishop Claggett was among the first to envision the need for a national Episcopal Church in the nation's new capital and "Federal City", now often being referred to as
"Washington City", after the first new president in 1793, as the town was being laid out. While presiding over his Diocesan convention that year, Claggett appointed a committee to study the idea. He had an ally in
Joseph Nourse, the country's First
Registrar of the Treasury. However, Nourse did not want the cathedral in downtown Washington, but even then foresaw the beautiful dominating hill-top of Mount Alban to the northwest overlooking the new rough city and the
Potomac River valley. After years of controversy and discussion with debates about its location, construction of the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, the
Washington National Cathedral on Mount Saint Alban was eventually begun in 1897, and mostly completed by the 1980s, testifying to its founders' and visionaries' original conceptions. Memorial slabs recognizing Bishop Claggett and his wife are mounted in the basement outside the chapel dedicated to St. Joseph of Arimathea.
United States Senate chaplain On November 27, 1800, the
United States Senate at its first session in the new north (Senate) wing, of a barely serviceable
Capitol building selected the Right Reverend Claggett as its third
chaplain. He gave the opening prayer, the first offered in the new Capitol in Washington D.C. He served through the end of the session. His first group of confirmations, a class of forty-four, took place in 1793 at
St. John's Church at Broad Creek, near today's
Fort Washington overlooking the
Potomac River, in
Prince George's County a few months after his consecration, and were presented by the then third rector, the Rev. Joseph Messenger.
Trinity Episcopal Church to Thomas John Claggett. In 1810, members of the church in
Upper Marlboro, Maryland founded Trinity Episcopal Church so they could worship near their homes. The nearest existing Anglican churches were
St. Thomas Church in
Upper Marlboro and
St. Barnabas' Church in
Leeland, both long carriage rides over rough and often impassible roads. On August 13, 1810, the newly formed Trinity Church Vestry elected the Right Rev. Thomas John Claggett as the first
rector. He organized the congregation in an abandoned wooden
Presbyterian building built 106 years earlier in 1704. During the
War of 1812, notes from the vestry minutes of May 1814 describe British troops camping in the church and preventing the
Vestry from meeting. Rev. Clagget served as the congregation's rector until his death on August 3, 1816.
Other congregations On October 16, 1811, Rt. Rev. Claggett consecrated the replacement structure at
Christ Church, also known as the "Old Brick Church", in Queen Caroline Parish, western
Anne Arundel County (now town/city of
Columbia in
Howard County). On January 9, 1814, due to Bishop Madison's death without a successor, Bishop Claggett consecrated a rebuilt
Christ Church in
Alexandria, Virginia (home parish of General and President
George Washington, (1732-1799)). An assistant bishop,
James Kemp was appointed to assist Bishop Claggett in 1814, and succeeded him two years later. Bishop Claggett published a few sermons, pastoral letters, and addresses to his convention. == Death and burial ==