William Andrew Leonard

(1848-1930)

   William Andrew Leonard was an active minister and writer in the Episcopal Church during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. William Leonard was born in Connecticut in 1848. He was educated in Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, but spent part of his early youth in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Here he worked in a clothing store owned by a relative. William attended St. Stephens College in Anandale, New York and Berkeley Divinity School in Middletown, Connecticut. In 1873 he was elected a deacon in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and two years later became a priest.

   Leonard had an extensive active ministry in the Church, mostly in the east and mid-west. In 1889 he was consecrated Bishop of Ohio. At that time he was living in Cleveland, but spending much time in Gambier. Bishop Leonard was honored in many ways for his effective ministry. He was awarded honorary degrees by St. Stephens College and Washington and Lee University. In 1919 Kenyon College conferred on him the Doctor of Laws degree. He died in Gambier, Ohio in 1930.

PUBLICATIONS

Via Sacra or The Footprints of Christ (1875)

A Brief History of the Christian Church (1883)

A Faithful Life (1888)

The Story of the Prayer Book (1898)

A Biography of Stephen Banks Leonard (1909) [William’s grandfather]