St Tikhon in 1900 (from the San Francisco Call, 4/22/1900)
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the number of Orthodox in America had not reached 50,000, but it already had several distinguished converts to the Orthodox Faith from Protestantism and Roman Catholicism: William Hoskins, an eighty-nine-year-old Civil War veteran who was a Baptist from Los Angeles, who traveled to San Francisco to meet a living Orthodox Bishop (Tikhon) and to become acquainted with the True Faith he had discovered in books; Father Nathaniel Ingram Irvine (a convert from the Protestant Episcopal Church) and Father Nicholas Bjerring, a Roman Catholic theologian, ordained a priest in Russia (May 17, 1870), the first Orthodox priest of the first parish in New York City (1870-1883).
That brief, tantalizing mention comes from an undated essay on early Russian Orthodoxy in America, written by Fr Vladimir Borichevsky (who died in 1990). I’ve wondered for years what the story is — because there must be an amazing story here, a 89-year-old Civil War veteran who converted to Orthodoxy! — but I’ve never tracked down any details. Until now — and it wasn’t me who did the tracking down.
Last week, I posted a note about this on X/Twitter, asking for help from my audience in uncovering the rest of the William Hoskins story. The next day, I was rather dumbfounded to receive an email from Kelly Johanna Carter, full of details about Hoskins’s life. Here’s what Kelly sent me:
William A. Hoskins, also Hoskin, was born on July 1, 1812, in Sheffield, Massachusetts. He was the oldest son of Noah Hoskins and Olive Hickock. When William was an infant, the family (along with his maternal grandparents) moved to Jefferson, Ashtabula County, Ohio. Olive’s brother Ezra wrote of the move: “It was exceedingly gloomy when we moved into Jefferson. Not a bushel of grain could be had in the township. A few bushels of potatoes were all that could be purchased. In the winter of 1812-13 my father went to Vernon, Hartford, and Brookfield to buy provisions and other necessaries. The first inhabitants suffered severely for the lack of food and clothing ; sheep would die, and it seemed useless to try to raise them. Entire flocks would run out in three years. Wolves took off many, but the greatest destruction it is supposed was occasioned by their drinking muddy water from deer-licks. The early settlers suffered not a little from apprehensions of another sort. They feared the aggressions of the British, and even in 1813 they supposed if Perry should be conquered the frontier would be left to the mercy of the enemy. However, when he proved conqueror, as the Yankees always do, there was a general time of rejoicing among us. Then we could pass the winter quite comfortably in linen pants, which many of us were glad to wear in lieu of something warmer.” [History of Ashtabula County]
William married Sophronia/Sofrona Young in Geauga County, Ohio, on September 27, 1837. They had six children: Ozro, Carlos, Alida, Cortez, Julius, and Alice, and lived in Perry, Lake County, Ohio. Their youngest daughter Alice was born in Madison, Lake County, Ohio, in or around December 1855. Around this time, or shortly thereafter, William left his family. For what reason, I don’t know; there are no news articles, family recollections, historical sketches, etc. that shed any light on this. Perhaps he intended to send for his family once he reached his new destination, or they refused to come with him, or they thought he was dead. Both William and Sofrona listed themselves as widowed on subsequent censuses that asked for marital status, although surely William, at least, knew his wife was still living, as he lists his son Ozro as a contact on one of his military records. His name is engraved on a joint monument with Sofrona in Madison; based on the Find a Grave photos, it looks to be on the opposite side of his daughter and son-in-law’s monument [x]. Maybe they held out hope he would return?
At any rate, by 1857, William was living in Newaygo County, Michigan. He built the first home, a log cabin, in what is now Hesperia. In January 1858, he helped found the First Baptist Church of Hesperia, and was its first pastor. [x] He was the county surveyor from 1859 to 1862. [x] On July 13, 1863, he enlisted in the Army and was assigned to Company A, 10th Michigan Cavalry. (A regiment history can be found here; though it does not mention William by name, he is possibly pictured on page 45.) He was discharged on November 1, 1865, at Memphis, due to “senile debility.” At this point he returned to Michigan, and in 1866 he and Thaddeus L. Waters laid out the village of Hesperia. William lived in Newaygo/Oceana Counties through 1880, and possibly as late as 1889.
William applied to live at the Washington Soldiers Home in Orting, Washington, in December 1891, stating he had been living in Gilman (now Issaquah) since May 1889, though it’s possible he had been living in Seattle as early as 1883 (see newspaper clipping attached on FS). It’s unclear if he lived in King County through 1900; on March 23, 1900, he was admitted to the Sawtelle Veterans Home in Los Angeles. His religion was listed P for Protestant. He died on April 9 or 10, 1902, at Providence Hospital in Washington, DC. He had been a patient at the hospital for two months and had been living in DC for seven. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on April 12.
The one thing Kelly didn’t find was information on Hoskins’s conversion to Orthodoxy. But shortly after this email, I got a message from OSI’s Director of Operations, Maggie Wissink, who had uncovered a January 1901 article from the Russian Orthodox American Messenger, the periodical of the old Russian diocese in North America. No author is credited, but I strongly suspect that it was written by St Sebastian Dabovich, who was serving as dean of the San Francisco cathedral at the time. The article is in Russian, but Google Translate gives us the gist:
St Sebastian Dabovich preaching in San Francisco, 1900.
From San Francisco.
On December 12, 1900, in the Cathedral, Hieromonk Sebastian received William A. Hoskins, a veteran of the American Civil War, from the Baptist sect. He was baptized as John. The newly consecrated member of the Church is nearly the oldest member of our young American Church: he is 89 years old. More than 20 years ago, he began to become familiar with the truth of Orthodox doctrine. He read a lot on this subject. He read about the history of the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church, which is inextricably linked with it, and of its significance for Russia. He read the history of religions, various newspaper articles about the Russian Church and special publications about this. The elderly Hoskins was looking for information about the Orthodox faith, and by the grace of God, he found it.
“I felt its truth and purity immediately,” he says, “and, inexplicably to me, I burned with the desire to become a member of the Orthodox Church, for I saw salvation only in belonging to it.”
“The dry, contradictory teaching of the Baptist religion always evoked in me a feeling of regret for the errors of people,” Hoskins says.
With such thoughts nad feelings, Hoskins lived in a home for elderly soldiers near Los Angeles for more than 20 years, until he learned (by chance) that there was a Russian Orthodox church in San Francisco. Despite the long distance (more than 600 miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco), the almost 90-year-old Hoskins asked for a 2-week vacation and safely arrived in San Francisco. The elderly Hoskins’s desire to receive holy baptism was reported to His Grace Tikhon, and the bishop entrusted Hieromonk Sebastian with the preliminary instruction of Hoskins in the truths of the Orthodox Faith. It turned out that the old man was almost ready to receive holy baptism, and therefore he was baptized three days later. One had to see his joy when the Holy Sacrament was performed over him to understand how happy he was to have found the truth. He himself read the Symbol of Faith [the Creed] and clearly and firmly gave answers to the questions put to him.
“I am unspeakably glad,” he said, “that the Lord has enabled me to know the truth and to be a member of the Holy Apostolic Church. If I had not gone to church here, I would have gone to Moscow.”
His Grace, the Right Reverend Tikhon, deigned to be present during the performance of the Sacrament of Baptism and presented [sponsored?] the newly illumined. The neophyte received a cross and the book Explanation of God — 10 Ministries of the Orthodox Church in English. The next day, the newly baptized was honored to receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ and after two days he went back, carrying with him the light of history to the dark corner of elderly soldiers.
May this be a sign of the bright future of our Orthodox Church in America in the coming century!
I haven’t been able to find the book that Hoskins received at his baptism. St Sebastian himself published some books in English during this period, but I can’t find one that matches the title given. It could be a lost-in-translation issue.
Although the article says that Hoskins had been in the old soldiers’ home in Los Angeles for twenty years, we know from Kelly Carter’s research that he actually was only admitted to the home in Los Angeles in March of 1900, so about nine months before his baptism in December 1900.
Also from Kelly’s research, we know that Hoskins moved from Los Angeles to Washington, DC in roughly September 1901, and he died on April 9 or 10, 1902. It seems likely that Hoskins only received the Eucharist once in his life, the day after his baptism.
We haven’t been able to find a picture of Hoskins himself, but here are pictures of his estranged wife Sofronia and his eldest son Ozro (who lived from 1837 to 1901):
Sofronia Hoskins, the estranged wife of William Hoskins
Ozro Hoskins, eldest son of William Hoskins