JAMES SMITH BUSH

'James Smith Bush' (June 15, 1825 – November 11, 1889) was an attorney and Episcopal priest and an ancestor of the Bush political family. He was the father of business magnate Samuel Prescott Bush, grandfather of US Senator Prescott Bush, great-grandfather of former US President George H. W. Bush and great-great-grandfather of current US President George W. Bush.

Contents

Biography

Yale University

First Marriage

Second Marriage

Children

Career

Death

External links

Biography

James Smith Bush was born in Rochester, New York to Obadiah Newcomb Bush and Harriet Smith (1800–1867).

Yale University

Bush entered Yale University in 1841, the first of what would become a long family tradition, as his grandson, Prescott Sheldon Bush, great-grandson, George H.W. Bush, great great-grandson, George W. Bush, and great great great-granddaughter Barbara are all Yale alumni.
Bush supported the founding of Wolf's Head Society, known originally as The Third Society, along with over three hundred other Yale alumni, Charles Phelps Taft among them, in 1883.
Bush took the bar in 1847 after law studies at The University of Rochester.

First Marriage

His first wife, Sarah Freeman, lived in nearby Saratoga Springs. They married in 1851, but she died 18 months later during childbirth.
This prompted Bush to study divinity with the rector of the Episcopal church there. Ordained a deacon in 1855, he was appointed rector at the newly organized Grace Church in Orange, New Jersey.

Second Marriage

On February 24, 1859, he married Harriet Fay in Trinity Church, New York City. Fay was born in Savannah, Georgia.

Children

:# James Freeman, b. 15 Jun 1860, Essex Co., NJ
:# Samuel Prescott, b. 4 Oct 1863, Ocean Co., NJ
:# Harriet Montfort, b. 14 Nov 1871
:# Eleanor Howard, b. 7 Nov 1873
:Samuel was named after Harriet Fay's grandfather, Samuel Prescott Phillips Fay.

Career

In 1865-66 he traveled to San Francisco via the Straits of Magellan on the ironclad monitor USS Monadnock with Commodore John Rodgers, with international goodwill stops along the way. In 1867 he was called to Grace Church (later Cathedral) in San Francisco, but troubled by family obligations, only stayed five years. In 1872 he took a call from Church of the Ascenscion in Staten Island. In 1884 he retired from leading churches to Concord, Massachusetts, and in 1888 left the Episcopal Church altogether and became a Unitarian. The stress of this separation caused him health problems for the remainder of his life. He moved to Ithaca, New York.

Death

James Smith Bush died on November 11th 1889 in Ithaca, at the age of 64.

External links

★ http://www.svu2000.org/genealogy/George_W.pdf

★ http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_record/1859_1924/1889-90.pdf

★ http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/crypt/cry_20010221.shtml