My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM HEAKES, Episcopal clergyman, Wilkinsburg, was born September 29, 1851, in Toronto, Canada. His parents, Samuel and Martha Louisa (Payn) Heakes, were born and bred in London, England, where Mr. Heakes was a member of the choir in Rowland Hill’s church, both during and after its connection with the mother Church of England. In 1848 they visited Pittsburgh, and after spending a short time in New Orleans, settled at Toronto, where the mother died in October, 1851. The father afterward married again. He was engaged in a mercantile business, from which he has recently retired. William Heakes attended private schools on Staten island and Trinity Church school, New York city. He graduated, from St. Stephen’s College at Annandale, N. Y., in 1877, and entered the General Theological Seminary of New York city. After two years of successful study he abandoned the course on account of failing health. A year’s rest enabled him to engage in teaching at St. John’s Military Academy at Haddonfield, N. J., and while there he finished his course in theology, and was ordained in 1882; was rector of Trinity Church, Cranford, N. J., for five years, during the last three of which he also ministered to the parish of Westfield. He went to Trenton in January, 1887, and remained a year, taking charge, in 1888, of St. Stephen’s chapel, under the auspices of Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church, East Liberty.