For almost two centuries, Bexley Hall has been preparing leaders for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

We started out as a seminary on the frontier in Ohio and today we are still on the frontier, the cutting edge of the Church. We believe that God is always calling the Church to reform while remaining true to the essentials of two thousand years of tradition.

Most of our graduates have served as parish priests; some have gone on to become primates, bishops, deans, and professors. Their spirit, no matter where they are, carries with them a bit of the frontier. After all, it’s our heritage.

It all started with Philander Chase.
  Philander Chase, the Bishop of Ohio was sometimes intransigent and impatient, yet he was ultimately moved by pastoral concern for the people of the frontier. In 1823, despite pressure from bishops in the east to let General Theological be the one official seminary, he was determined to prove that his cabin in the Ohio wilderness had something different to offer the Church.

Ignoring the nay-sayers, he decided to head to England for some fundraising. Before the voyage he flooded key people with letters, pamphlets, and brochures about the necessity of frontier seminary. The gamble succeeded brilliantly,key English church people gave generously to this non-English project simply out of conviction, and a triumphant Bishop Chase sailed back to the States—and Bexley Hall was born. One of the key benefactors to Chase’s frontier project was the just-retired Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nicholas Vansittart, ennobled by George IV as Lord Bexley.

The seminary's first classes met in temporary quarters in Chase's rectory office at St. John's Church in Worthington, Ohio.

Eventually, the seminary moved to Gambier and the campus of Kenyon College, founded by Chase as the undergraduate “feeder college” to the seminary.

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