Note Type
Historical NoteNote
James Hervey Otey was born on January 27, 1800 in Bedford County, Virginia, to Major Isaac Otey and Elizabeth Mathews Otey. James was the youngest son, educated at New London Academy in present-day Bedford, Virginia. He then attended and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1820. After graduation, he tutored college students in Latin and Greek. In 1821, he married Elizabeth Davis Pannill. Otey and his wife moved to Maury County in about 1824 to open a boys' school. SOon thereafter, Otey moved back to North Carolina to become president of Warrenton Academy, where he was baptized into the Episcopal Church, becoming a deacon in 1825 and priest in 1827. He returned to Tennessee to organize Tennessee's first Episcopal Church in Franklin, Tennessee. In 1829, he established the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee, and was elected the diocese's first bishop in 1833. He kept busy with his vast charge across Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and present-day Oklahoma. Otey helped establish a number of schools including the University of the South at Sewanee in 1857. He died in Memphis in 1863 and is buried at St. John's Church in Maury County.