THE TOWN QF MAMARONECK. 489 



in Ontario County, a town nearly in the centre of the new Diocese 

 the same year. 



After a long, distinguished and successful episcopate of twenty-seven 

 years, Bishop de Lancey died in his own house in Geneva, on the 5th 

 of April, 1865, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. "In him," said a 

 writer in the Church Journal, " the Church in America loses the further 

 services of one of her oldest and wisest Bishops. Descended from one of 

 the oldest and best families in this country — which dates far back in our 

 colonial history, and was from the first one of the staunchest pillars of 

 the Church — Bishop de Lancey had also the good fortune to be person- 

 ally connected with the leading minds in our American branch of the 

 Church Catholic. After studying for holy orders under Bishop Hobart, 

 and being ordained by him both Deacon and Priest, he became assistant to 

 the venerable Bishop White, and continued in the closest and most con- 

 fidential intercourse with him to his death in 1836. * * * Dur- 

 ing his connection with the Diocese of Pennsylvania, he filled numerous 

 posts of dignity and useful service, among which were the Provostship 

 of the University of Pennsylvania, the Secretaryship of the House of 

 Bishops, and of the Pennsylvania Convention ; his activity, high charac- 

 ter and living influence, were inferior to those of no other Priest in the 

 Diocese. This early promise was not disappointed, but abundantly ful- 

 filled, in his career as the first Bishop of Western New York. He was 

 one of the men whom nature had marked out for a ruler among his fel- 

 lows. With sound principles, earnest devotion, personal gravity, and 

 spotless purity of life, he possessed a clearness of head, a keen know- 

 ledge of human nature, and a coolness, caution, readiness, and boldness, 

 which all combined in making him a successful Bishop. His skill in 

 debate was remarkable, and was fully equalled by his mastery of all the 

 resources of parliamentary tactics, either for carrying a measure which he 

 favored, or defeating one to which he was opposed. His vigilance and 

 unflinching tenacity were fully on a par with his other qualities ; and 

 yet his courtesy and gentlemanly bearing, together with a pleasant touch 

 of humor, so lubricated the friction of every contest, that no undue heat 

 remained on either side when the struggle was over. No higher testi- 

 mony could be given to the manner in which he discharged his high 

 office, than the fact of great and steady growth in his Diocese, together 

 with the maintenance of an internal harmony, unity and peace, such as 

 no one of our great Dioceses has been able to equal, much less surpass ; 

 nor was he ever the subject of systematic attack from outside of his own 

 jurisdiction. • But his care was not limited to his own immediate charge. 

 While Hobart College, and De Veaux College, and the Theological 



