William Cabell Brown
| Right Rev. William Cabell Brown D.D., L.L.D. | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Virginia | |
 |
|
| Church | Episcopal Church |
| See | Virginia |
| In office | 1919-1927 |
| Predecessor | Robert Atkinson Gibson |
| Successor | Henry St. George Tucker |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 1870 by Bishop Francis McNeece Whittle |
| Consecration | 1897 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | November 22, 1861 Lynchburg, Virginia |
| Died |
July 25, 1927 (aged 65) London, England |
| Previous post | Assistant Bishop of Virginia (1914–1919) |
William Cabell Brown (November 22, 1861 – July 25, 1927) was an Episcopal missionary in Brazil who returned to his native Virginia to become the seventh bishop of Virginia.
William Cabell Brown was born in Nelson County, Virginia, his father's fourth son and mother's third child; both parents his parents descended from the First Families of Virginia. His grandfather Alexander Brown emigrated from Scotland to Williamsburg, Virginia at age 15 and studied at the College of William and Mary before moving to Nelson County and marrying Lucy Shands Rives, of a long prominent family. Their only son (together with several daughters), Robert Lawrence Brown (1820-1880) likewise married women from prominent families: first Sarah Cabell Calloway (1820-1849, who bore him two sons and a daughter before her death), and then William's mother Margaret Baldwin Cabell (1826-1877). Robert Brown, a teacher as well as farmer and merchant, supervised young William's education at Norwood high school, as well as the Nelson County schools. William then moved to Alexandria, Virginia where he taught at the Episcopal High School, as well as attended Virginia Theological Seminary, but his father died shortly before his graduation in 1891.
He married Ida Mason Dorsey (1866- ) of Baltimore, granddaughter of U.S. Senator James Murray Mason, and they had three surviving sons and two daughters (their first son dying at age three in Brazil).
After graduation, Brown was ordained as a deacon by bishop Francis McNeece Whittle on June 26, 1891, and advanced to the priesthood on August 2, 1891. He then sailed as a missionary to Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. During his early years in Brazil's southernmost state, Rev. Brown translated the Bible and Book of Common Prayer into Portuguese. He also re-established a theological school to train Brazilians for the priesthood, as well as served many missionary congregations and established several parish schools under the leadership of fellow Virginian and VTS graduate, Rt.Rev. Lucien Lee Kinsolving. After Brazil's formal establishment as a missionary district in 1907, Rev. Brown also expanded the Anglican presence in the country's then capital, Rio de Janeiro, where he had previously occasionally served at chapels permitted under an 1810 English/Portuguese treaty under the guidance of the Anglican Bishop of the Falkland Islands. In 1908 Rev. Brown helped found that state's first Brazilian congregation, the Church of the Redeemer, and soon established Trinity Chapel in Méier (then suburb, now a neighborhood). (the Anglican and Episcopalian congregations would only merge near 1965, when the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil or Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil became an independent member of the Anglican Communion)
...
Wikipedia