The Reverend James Nelson Deaver
Twelfth Rector (1926 – 1931)...

James Nelson Deaver was reared in St. James Episcopal Church, Baltimore, MD. After graduating high school he attended Pinn Hall Seminary in Washington, D.C. In May 1989, he was made a deacon and was ordained in the priesthood by Bishop Peterkin, November 11th the same year. He served as St. Thomas’ 12th rector at the inception of the Great Depression and is credited with holding the congregation together in the early phases. No doubt that St. Thomas congregation called on his strength as the nation entered the era of the Great Depression. Reverend Deaver was known as a self-made man with an “endurance to hardness” that enabled him, with his wife and children to serve in the “backwoods of Maryland”, Ocala, FL and West Virginia before coming to St. Thomas at 12th and Walnut Streets. He left St. Thomas in 1931.