Southwest, Missionary District of the

The 1835 General Convention nominated the Rev. Francis Lister Hawks to exercise episcopal functions in the State of Louisiana and in the Territories of Arkansas and Florida. Hawks declined the election and was never consecrated. On Dec. 9, 1838, Leonidas Polk was consecrated Missionary Bishop of Arkansas and the Indian Territory with Provisional Charge in Alabama, Mississippi, and the Republic of Texas. This carried on the work in the Southwest, until Polk was elected Bishop of Louisiana in 1841. The 1859 General Convention created the Missionary District of the Southwest, which included all parts of the country not yet organized in dioceses or included in missionary districts, south of the northern border of Cherokee Country and New Mexico, as far as the eastern border of California. Henry Chaplin Lay was consecrated Bishop of the Southwest on Oct. 23, 1859, and served until Apr. 1, 1869, when he was translated to the Diocese of Easton.