OTEY, James Hervey, P. E. bishop, b. in Liberty, Bedford co., Va., 27 Jan., 1800; d. in
Memphis, Tenn., 23 April. 1863. His father, Isaac Otey, was a farmer in easy
circumstances, and frequently represented his count in the house of Burgesses.
James was one of the younger children in a family of twelve. He early evinced a
love of study and of general reading, and after attending an excellent school
in his native county, was sent in his seventeenth year to the University of
North Carolina, where he was graduated in 1820. He received honors in
belles-lettres, and was immediately appointed tutor in Latin and Greek. In 1823
he took charge of a school in Warrenton, N. C. There his attention was turned
to the ministry, and he was ordained both deacon and priest in the Protestant
Episcopal church by Bishop Ravenscroft. In 1827 he removed to Tennessee and
settled in the town of Franklin, but he changed his residence to Columbia in
1835, and finally to Memphis. On 14 Jan., 1834. he was consecrated bishop of
Tennessee. Next to the duties of his episcopate the bishop’s heart was most
engaged with the work of Christian education. It seemed to be a passionate
desire with him to establish in the southwest a large institution in which
religion should go hand-in-hand with every lesson of a secular character, and
young men he prepared for the ministry. Accordingly, after establishing with
the assistance of Rev. Leonidas Polk, a school for girls, called the “Columbia
Institute,” he devoted a great part of his laborious life to the realization of
his ideal. For full thirty years (1827-’57) he failed not, in public and in
private, by night and by day, to keep this subject before the people of the
southern states, until the successful establishment of the University of the
south at Suwanee, Tenn., in which he was also aided by Bishop Leonidas Polk.
The life of Bishop Otey was one of hard and unceasing labor. He lived to see
the few scattered members of his church in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Florida, as well as Tennessee, organized into dioceses and in successful
operation. He was known throughout the south and southwest as the Good Bishop.
Though he was strongly opposed to secession, he wrote a letter to the secretary
of state, remonstrating1 against coercion. The reply to this letter change his
views on the subject. and he declined to attend the general convention of his
church in the seceding states that was held in Georgia soon afterward. In
person the bishop was of a commanding stature, being six feet and two inches in
height, and of fitting proportions. He published many addresses, sermons, and
charges, and a volume containing the “Unity of the Church” and other discourses
(Vicksburg, 1852).
SOURCE: James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, Editors, Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography,
Volume 4, p. 604
