Leonidas Polk Family Papers

Mr. Toastmaster, Bishop Donegan, Bishop Boynton, Dr. McCrady, Right Reverend, Very Reverend and Reverend Sirs, General Crittenberger, Mr. Duncan, Members of the John H.P. Hodgson Chapter of the Associated Alumni of the University of the South, Gentlemen of Sewanee, and distinguished guests:

I have always known that my brother, the Suffragan Bishop of New York, was a man of wide experience but I had never realized until this evening the extent and the intimacy of his contacts in Ireland!

In the year 1839 when Bishop Polk was making his first episcopal visitation as Missionary Bishop of the Southwest, it is recorded that he had some rough experiences. The Republic of Texas had at that time a reputation for being a place of refuge for insolvent debtors and fugitives from justice, and the Bishop was suspected of belonging to one or the other of those classes. A rough and ready Texan, hearing that the Bishop was one of the Polks of Tennessee, said to him, "Well, stranger, if it is a fair question, I would give a heap to know what brought you here!"