William Tyler

Who was William Tyler?

William Tyler was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the first Bishop of Hartford.

One of eight children, Tyler was born in Derby, Vermont; his father was a farmer, and his mother was the sister of Daniel Barber and aunt of Virgil Horace Barber, both Protestant ministers who converted to the Catholic Church. The family moved to Claremont, New Hampshire, when William was a child. He converted to Catholicism at age fifteen or sixteen. He completed his classical course at the academy founded by his cousin Virgil in Claremont, and became a member of the household of Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick, S.J., in 1826 at Boston, Massachusetts, where he studied theology.

Tyler was ordained to the priesthood by Fenwick on June 3, 1829. He then served as a curate at Holy Cross Cathedral and did missionary work in Aroostook, Maine, before becoming vicar general of the Diocese of Boston.

On November 28, 1843, Tyler was appointed the first Bishop of the newly erected Diocese of Hartford by Pope Gregory XVI. He received his episcopal consecration on March 17, 1844 from Bishop Fenwick, with Bishops Richard Vincent Whelan and Andrew Byrne serving as co-consecrators, at Assumption Cathedral in Baltimore, Maryland. Upon Tyler's arrival in Hartford the following April, the diocese included the entire states of Connecticut and Rhode Island, containing nearly 10,000 Catholics. Since there were only 600 Catholics in Hartford, he soon moved his residence to Providence, which had 2,000 Catholics. He designated Sts. Peter and Paul Church as his cathedral.