James Smith Bush was born on June 15, 1825 in Rochester, New York, to Obadiah Newcomb Bush and Harriet Smith (1800–1867). In 1851, his father returned from the California Gold Rush after two years in order to reclaim his family and bring them west. He died on Veterans Day 1889 aboard a ship while on his return voyage in Itcha, New York and was presumably buried at sea. He was 64 years old.[1]
His first wife, Sarah Freeman, lived in 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 Eleanor [Fay], daughter of Samuel Howard and Susan [Shellman] Fay, at Trinity Church, New York City. Fay was born in Savannah, Georgia. Her father is the sixth generation removed to John Fay, immigrant patriarch, born in England abt. 1648, embarking on May 30, 1656, at Gravesend on the ship Speedwell, and arrived in Boston June 27, 1656.[6][non-primary source needed][page needed]
In 1867–1872, Bush was called to Grace Church (later Cathedral) in San Francisco, but troubled by family obligations, only stayed five years. His short stay along with that of photographic roll film inventor Hannibal Goodwin was to be satirized by Mark Twain in his weekly column in The Californian.[10]
In 1872, Bush took a call from Church of the Ascension at West Brighton, Staten Island. In 1884, during a dispute over a church raffle (a gold watch was auctioned, which he considered gambling[11]), he stepped down.[12]
In 1883, Bush published a collection of sermons called More Words About the Bible, a response to his colleague Heber Newton's book Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible. In 1885, his book Evidence of Faith was reviewed by The Literary World as "clear, simple, and unpretending", and summarized as an argument against supernatural explanations for God.[13] According to the same journal, both works fit into the broad church movement.[14] The Boston Advertiser called the latter work "the best statement of untrammeled spiritual thought" among recent books.[15]
Bush retired 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 where he died suddenly while raking leaves in 1889.
Published works
Sermons
The Atonement. A sermon, preached before the convention of the Diocese of New Jersey, on Wednesday, the 27th day of May, A.D. 1863. 1863. OCLC31430725.
^"Resigned Because of a Raffle". The New York Times. December 30, 1883. Retrieved January 6, 2008. The Rev. James S. Bush has resigned as Pastor of the Church of the Ascension, at West Brighton. A short time ago a fair was held in the church, when a gold watch was put up for chances and won by Erastus Brooks. The Rev. Mr. Bush was opposed to the raffle, which he considered gambling. There was considerable feeling in the church on account of the Pastor's wishes not being respected.
