Henry Melville Jackson


Henry Melville Jackson was an assistant bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama from 1891 till 1900.

Education

Jackson was born on July 28, 1900 in Leesburg, Virginia, the son of Samuel Keerl Jackson and Anna Maria Calvert. He was educated at the Virginia Military Institute and later studied at the Virginia Theological Seminary from where he graduated in 1873. He received a Doctor of Divinity from Randolph–Macon College in 1885 and another from in 1891.

Ordained Ministry

He was ordained deacon in the Immanuel Chapel, Alexandria, Virginia on June 27, 1873, and priest in St John's Church, Wytheville, Virginia on July 15, 1874 on both occasions by Bishop John Johns of Virginia. He then served in the Montgomery parish, in the county of the same name and at Christ Church in Greenville, South Carolina. In October 1876, he became rector of Grace Church in Richmond, Virginia, a post he retained till his elevation to the episcopate in 1891.

Bishop

Jackson was elected Assistant Bishop of Alabama on October 29, 1890 in Selma, Alabama. He was then consecrated on January 21, 1891 by Richard Hooker Wilmer of Alabama in St Paul's Church, Selma, Alabama. He had to resign his bishopric in April 1900 due to failing health and in fact he died less than a month later on May 4, 1900.

Family

On July 24, 1873, Jackson married Rebecca Janney Lloyd and together had a child who died in infancy. After her death he remarried on April 21, 1880 to Violet Lee Pace, who died in 1893. They had four children together, two of whom died young. On April 17, 1895 he married again, this time to Caroline Toney Cochrane and had two children together.