William H. Wilmer
William H. Wilmer [1]
a Protestant Episcopal clergyman- was born in Kent County, Md., Oct. 29,1782. He graduated at Washington College, Md., and immediately engaged in mercantile pursuits, but eventually abandoned them to study theology. In 1808 he was ordained, and, then appointed to Chester Parish, Md. The convention of the diocese named him one of the standing committee in 181l. The following year he received a call to St. Paul's Church, Alexandria, Va., and, after his removal to this charge, became one of the standing. committee of the diocese of Virginia. He was one of the originators in 1818 of the Education Society of the District of Columbia, designed to aid theological students at the seminary in Fairfax County. Until his removal from Alexandria he was president of this association. When St. John's Church in Washington, D.C., was erected in 1816 he was chosen its first minister, but did not accept the office though he supplied the Church until a rector: was secured. Of the Washington Theological Repertory, a periodical begun in 1819, he was one of the editors until 1826. After removing to Virginia, until the close of his life, he was a delegate of every general convention; and was president of the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies in 1820, 1821, 1823, and 1826. When the Theological Seminary of Virginia opened its sessions in Alexandria in 1823 he became professor of systematic theology, ecclesiastical history, and church polity. In the spring of1826 he was chosen assistant rector to bishop Moore, in the Monumental Church at Richmond, Va., but was induced by the friends of the seminary to decline the call. A few months after, however, he was elected president of William and Mary College, and rector of the Church at Williamsburg. Before the expiration of a year from the time of his entrance upon these duties he died there July 24, 1827. His preaching was characterized by great simplicity; and although his manner was not considered oratorical, it was fervent. See Sprague, — Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 5, 515.
