Coleman, John

Coleman, John a Protestant Episcopal minister, was a native of Bath Parish, Dinwiddie County,Virginia. He was educated and prepared for the ministry principally by the Reverend Devereux Jarratt; but the war of the Revolution prevented his obtaining orders in England. In 1780 he became a Methodist local preacher, but left that Church in 1784. In 1787 he was admitted to holy orders, and became minister of St. John's and St. James's parishes, in Baltimore County, Maryland. For four years (1799-1803) he was rector of St. Thomas's Parish, in the same county, and then returned to that of St. James. He died in Baltimore County, January 21, 1816, aged fifty-eight years. Mr. Jarratt committed to Mr. Coleman the publication of his Autobiography. For seventeen years the latter was a member of the Standing Committee, and five times was a delegate to the General Convention. In 1804 he was named as a candidate for the suffragan episcopate of Maryland, but failing health prevented his election. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 5:220.