Kewley, John Dd

Kewley, John. D.D., a Roman Catholic priest, was by birth an Englishman, and of Roman Catholic parentage. He was educated at St. Omar's, and was in early life a Jesuit. He afterwards renounced the doctrines and communion of the Church of Rome, joined " Lady Huntingdon's persuasion," preached somewhat among that body and the Methodists, and, coming to the United States, was admitted to holy orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church by bishop Claggett (about 1804); in 1809 became rector of an Episcopal Church in Middletown, Conn., and in 1813 of the parish of St. George's, New York, where he continued till he sailed for Europe in 1816. He afterwards became reconciled to the Church of Rome, and returned to his original ecclesiastical connection, in which he continued till his death. Kewley was a man of great meekness and gentleness, always untiring in the discharge of his holy functions, and fervent and effective in his preaching. He published a Sermon delivered at the opening of the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Maryland in 1806; also a sermon entitled Messiah the Physician of Souls, preached at Middletown and Cheshire in 1811. See Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 5:545. (J. L. S.)