Reverend William Douglass
Second Rector (1834-1862)...

“It is more in accordance with [my] natural promptings, to identify [myself] with the praiseworthy deeds of [my] predecessors – to travel back to those events with which they were intimately connected, and which transpired before [I] was born, simply addressing [myself] to the whole train of those past occurrences, which, under a wise and inscrutable Providence have led to results of incalculable good….”
 

Reverend William Douglass Second Rector

In this way in 1862, St. Thomas’ 2nd rector – The Rev. William Douglass – explained his personal impetus for compiling the parish’s first history title Annals of the First African Church in the United States of America now styled “The African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas. Fr. Douglass had access to primary sources such as minutes of the Free African Society and the congregation’s vestry minutes. Some of these materials are in the AECST archives and others have not yet been located. Two original copies of the Annals are in the AECST archives. The copy of the Annals in the possession of the Library Company of Philadelphia bears the signatures of several of St. Thomas’ most prominent lay leaders.

William Douglass, described as being of “unmixed [African] blood,” was born in Baltimore, MD in 1805. He became proficient in Latin, Greek and Hebrew studying under the Rev. Daniel Coker who worked with the Rev. Richard Allen in founding the African Methodist Episcopal denomination. Douglass sought ordination in the AME Church and he married Elizabeth Grice, the daughter of prominent black Baltimore businessman and leader Hezekiah Grice. The young Rev. William Douglass became an outspoken opponent of slavery and African colonization.

In 1833, with his father-in-law who was an delegate to the first National Negro Convention in 1830, Rev. Douglass came to Philadelphia as a delegate to the convention. He attracted the attention of AECST leaders James Forten, James Needham, John Bowers and Robert Gordon who had not been able to fill St. Thomas’ pulpit with a black priest since the death of Rev. Absalom Jones in 1818. They convinced Douglass to leave the AME Church and in 1836 he was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church. Fr. Douglass published a book of sermons and was sought-after on the anti-slavery lecture circuit. In 1852, his speaking itinerary took him to England and letters he sent the congregation are in the AECST archives. The Rev. Douglass died in 1862.

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