PRESTON, THOMAS SCOTT. - Priest, b. 23 July 1824 at Hartford, in the State of Connecticut (U.S.A.), d. 4 Nov. 1891 at New York. Of strong character and great piety, he studied at the General Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Having received the diaconate in 1846, he was strongly influenced by the Oxford Tractarian movement, nor did he conceal his ideas, for which reason his bishop refused to ordain him priest: he in fact received priestly Orders in 1847 from Bishop Delancey of Western New York. Convinced that he belonged to the communion of the Catholic Church, of which he regarded the Church of England, and hence the Protestant Episcopal Church, as a branch, he abjured the confession he had hitherto professed and converted to Catholicism, also under the influence of reading books and conversing with Catholic priests. Baptized in November 1849, he was ordained a priest the following year and carried out his pastoral ministry in the cathedral of New York. Secretary to Archbishop Hughes and chancellor of the diocese in 1853, he became vicar general in 1872. In 1890, during the absence of Archbishop Corrigan, he governed the diocese. Principal works: The Protestant Reformation (1879); Protestantism and the Church (1882); Protestantism and the Bible (1888).