Wilmer, Richard Hooker
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Wilmer, Richard Hooker
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Richard Hooker Wilmer, second Bishop of Alabama, was a supporter of the Confederacy and the "Lost Cause" throughout his life.
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Richard Hooker Wilmer was not a founder of the University of the South, but associated with several of them as the second Bishop of Alabama. Wilmer was descended from a line of Episcopal priests and enslaved as many as 6 persons as personal servants. Born the son of William Holland Wilmer, a prominent priest in Virginia and Maryland, he attended Yale University and then studied at Virginia Theological Seminary. Shortly after his graduation in 1840, he was ordained as a priest by William Meade, Bishop of Virginia. He served in several parishes in Virginia and North Carolina (Goochland, Fluvanna, New Hanover, Clarke, Loudoun, Fauquier, Bedford, and Henrico counties) until the beginning of the American Civil War.
Following the outbreak of the American Civil War, Wilmer joined with many others in the formation of the Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America (PECCSA). Wilmer resigned from his position at Emmanuel Church in Henrico County, Virginia, to assist this new Confederate church. On March 6, 1862, Wilmer was consecrated as Bishop of Alabama, filling the position left by the late Nicholas Cobbs. After the war's end, Wilmer was accepted back into the Episcopal Church of the United States but used his station to support a "southern nationalist" social and political order. For instance, he created an order of deaconesses to care for Confederate widows and orphans. When he died in 1900, Wilmer was the longest-serving Episcopal bishop.
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1816
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1900
Position: 782 (8 views)
