Cadle, Richard Fish

(Apr. 17, 1796-Nov. 9, 1857). One of the Episcopal Church's earliest and most active missionaries. Bishop Kemper called him “the real pioneer in the West.” Cadle was born in New York City and graduated from Columbia College with a B.A. degree in 1813. He was influenced by Bishop John Henry Hobart. Cadle was ordained deacon on Apr. 27, 1817, and served St. James' Church, Goshen, New York, from 1817 until 1819. He was ordained priest before 1820 and was the rector of St. John's Church, Salem, New Jersey, from 1820 until 1823. On May 20, 1824, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society appointed its first three domestic missionaries, one of whom was Cadle. He was sent to Detroit, where he organized the first Episcopal church, St. Paul's Church, on Nov. 22, 1824. In 1829 he was made the superintendent of the Indian mission school at Green Bay, Wisconsin, then in the territory of Michigan. Disputes over his leadership led to his resignation in 1834. He later entered upon extensive missionary work in Wisconsin. In 1841 Bishop Jackson Kemper named Cadle superior of the religious brotherhood proposed by James Lloyd Breck and his companions. This brotherhood resulted in the Nashotah mission and Nashotah House. Finding himself unsuited to this task, he soon resumed his mission labors. Cadle retired from the western field in 1844. He became a missionary in Sodus, Pultneyville, and Point Sodus, New York. In 1849 he became the rector of Trinity Church, Shelburne, Vermont. In 1853 he became the rector of the parishes in Sussex County, Delaware. He died in Seaford, Delaware.