Elected 1877, Day 1; served to 1880

The Rev. Alexander Burgess was born in Provincetown, Rhode Island, on October 31, 1819, to a family deeply involved in the Church. He graduated from Brown University and the General Theological Seminary, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1843. That same year, he accepted the call to St. Stephen’s Church in Augusta, Maine, where he stayed for eleven years, after which he became rector of St. Luke’s Church in Portland, Maine, from 1854 until 1867. Rev. Burgess represented the dioceses of Maine, Long Island and Massachusetts as a deputy from 1844 to 1877, being elected as President of the House of Deputies in 1877. His brother George was the first Bishop of Maine, and Alexander was offered that office in 1866, but declined. He later became the first bishop of Quincy, Illinois in 1878. The Burgess family gave the Church three bishops (Frederick Burgess was bishop of Long Island) and several generations of clergy, including Alexander’s son, grandson, and two great-nephews. Alexander Burgess died in 1901.