Chandler, Thomas Bradbury

(Apr. 26, 1726-Apr. 20, 1790). An Anglican parson in New Jersey and a Loyalist at a time when adherence to the Church of England and the British Crown were increasingly attacked in the American Colonies. Chandler was a leading advocate of an American episcopacy. He memorialized the English archbishops on behalf of an American episcopacy at the request of the clergy of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The events of July 1775 drove him to leave his parish, St. John's, Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and move to England. He returned to St. John's a decade later and served there for forty-three years in all. He was the first American chosen bishop by the English church (Nova Scotia in 1786), but he declined due to failing health.