Woodbury, Connecticut: Birthplace of American Episcopacy

Woodbury was founded in sixteen seventy-three by settlers from Stratford, and today it calls itself the Antiques Capital of Connecticut, with dozens of antique shops lining its historic Main Street. But Woodbury's deeper claim to American history is ecclesiastical. On March twenty-fifth, seventeen eighty-three, a group of clergy gathered at the Glebe House here and elected Samuel Seabury as a candidate for Bishop of Connecticut.

Seabury was consecrated the following year in Scotland, becoming the first Episcopal bishop in the United States and the first Anglican bishop outside the British Isles. The Glebe House where that election took place is preserved and open to visitors. The church that grew from that meeting is St.

Paul's, still standing on Main Street, its exterior completed in seventeen eighty-six.