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James Smith Bush
James Smith Bush (June 15, 1825 – November 11, 1889) was an American attorney, Episcopal priest, religious writer, and the direct ancestor of the Bush political family. He was the father of business magnate Samuel P. Bush, grandfather of former U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, great-grandfather of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush and great-great-grandfather of George W. Bush and Jeb Bush.
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 February 9, 1851 aboard a ship while on his return voyage and was presumably buried at sea. He was 54 years old.
Bush entered Yale College in 1841 (class of 1844), the first of what would become a long family tradition, as his grandsons Prescott Sheldon Bush and James Bush, great-grandsons George H. W. Bush, Prescott Sheldon Bush, Jr., Jonathan Bush and William H. T. Bush, great great-grandson George W. Bush, and great-great-great-granddaughter Barbara are all Yale alumni. He is accounted among the over 300 Yale alumni and faculty who supported in 1883 the founding of Wolf's Head Society. After Yale, he returned to Rochester and studied law, joining the bar in 1847.[non-primary source needed][unreliable source?]
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.
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.[non-primary source needed][page needed]
In 1865–66, having been given a health sabbatical by his church, he traveled to San Francisco via the Straits of Magellan on the ironclad monitor USS Monadnock with Commodore John Rodgers (a parishioner of his), with international goodwill stops along the way. Officially, he was designated Commodore's Secretary, but was considered "acting chaplain", giving services on board and even conducting a shipboard wedding for a German American they encountered in Montevideo, an incident Bush recounted in dispatches he wrote for The Overland Monthly. Coincidentally, the fleet observed the punitive shelling of a defenseless Valparaíso, Chile by the Spanish Navy during the Chincha Islands War, after mediation efforts by Rodgers failed.
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.
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James Smith Bush
James Smith Bush (June 15, 1825 – November 11, 1889) was an American attorney, Episcopal priest, religious writer, and the direct ancestor of the Bush political family. He was the father of business magnate Samuel P. Bush, grandfather of former U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, great-grandfather of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush and great-great-grandfather of George W. Bush and Jeb Bush.
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 February 9, 1851 aboard a ship while on his return voyage and was presumably buried at sea. He was 54 years old.
Bush entered Yale College in 1841 (class of 1844), the first of what would become a long family tradition, as his grandsons Prescott Sheldon Bush and James Bush, great-grandsons George H. W. Bush, Prescott Sheldon Bush, Jr., Jonathan Bush and William H. T. Bush, great great-grandson George W. Bush, and great-great-great-granddaughter Barbara are all Yale alumni. He is accounted among the over 300 Yale alumni and faculty who supported in 1883 the founding of Wolf's Head Society. After Yale, he returned to Rochester and studied law, joining the bar in 1847.[non-primary source needed][unreliable source?]
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.
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.[non-primary source needed][page needed]
In 1865–66, having been given a health sabbatical by his church, he traveled to San Francisco via the Straits of Magellan on the ironclad monitor USS Monadnock with Commodore John Rodgers (a parishioner of his), with international goodwill stops along the way. Officially, he was designated Commodore's Secretary, but was considered "acting chaplain", giving services on board and even conducting a shipboard wedding for a German American they encountered in Montevideo, an incident Bush recounted in dispatches he wrote for The Overland Monthly. Coincidentally, the fleet observed the punitive shelling of a defenseless Valparaíso, Chile by the Spanish Navy during the Chincha Islands War, after mediation efforts by Rodgers failed.
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.