I am pleased to announce the publication of my latest article, "A Southern White Clergyman, the Freed People, and the Nineteenth-Century Episcopal Church," Journal of Anglican Studies (JAS) 22, no. 1 (May 2024): 290-309. I co-authored the article with my late uncle, the Rev. Loren B. Mead. The article first appeared online in August 2023, but it is now officially published in the May 2024 print edition of the journal.
Back in 2015, Loren, a retired Episcopal priest, began researching a book about three white clergymen in the nineteenth-century Episcopal Church of South Carolina: Peter Fayssoux Stevens, A. Toomer Porter, and William Porcher DuBose. He was interested in learning why the views of these men with similar backgrounds on race in the church eventually diverged after the Civil War.
Loren died in 2018, before he could finish his book. Shortly before his death, I agreed to take over the project if it remained unfinished. As of this writing (April 2024), I have co-authored one previous article on the three ministers. Titled "Three Episcopal Ministers, Black Communicants, and the Civil War Era," the article appeared in Anglican and Episcopal History in September 2023. This new JAS article focuses exclusively on one of the men, Peter Fayssoux Stevens.
As I promised Loren, I still plan to publish a book on these three men. I currently have a proposal under review at a book publisher. Stay tuned for future updates.
Thank you Michael for your dedication and finishing Loren’s work. He was my first cousin 18 years my senior and one of the finest men and ministers I have ever known. We share the love of early South Carolina and its history with respect to the early church here. He had many connections to the low country personally Berkeley County where his first Parrish was located. We spoke of his wish to learn more and share what he knew. As a child we visited he and Polly and children in Pinoplas near Monks Corner. Bless you Michael for doing this for him and all of us. Benjamin S Nauss Jr.