[2]: p.14 His maternal grandfather Senator Thomas Morris left Virginia because he opposed slavery to help settle Ohio.
[3]: p.2 When his father got into financial difficulty, Crapsey quit school at age eleven and took a job in a dry good store.
After a co-worker called him "worthless," in August 1862, at age fourteen, Crapsey joined the army during the American Civil War.
He then attended the General Theological Seminary in New York City for three years, graduating with a degree in divinity.
[3]: p.3 During his time in St. Paul's Chapel of Trinity Church, Crapsey married Adelaide Trowbridge, whose father was a Catskill, New York newspaper man.
[3]: pp.4–5 In addition to his work with the Brotherhood and traditional parish duties, Crapsey led retreats for the Sisters of St. Mary, an Episcopal religious order in Peekskill, NY.
In Rochester, Crapsey was one of the founders and the first president of the Citizens Political Reform Association, which worked for civic improvement in the face of the poverty caused by the Depression of 1893.
[3]: pp.9–10 3 In 1901, Crapsey published a tractate with the title "The Law of Liberty: The Nature and Limit of Religious Thought."
"[11] In December 1904, Crapsey began a series of Sunday evening lectures at St. Andrew's, which ended on February 18, 1905.
Because Crapsey believed in his "own merit," he did not need "the redemptive atonement of Christ," which orthodoxy held to be required.
[10]: pp.328–330 [3]: pp.15–16 After the lectures ended, Crapsey continued to promulgate his views by publishing them the following summer in a book entitled Religion and Politics.
In it, Crapsey quoted the Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops issued after its meeting at the Episcopal Church's General Convention of October 5–25, 1904.
In Crapsey's quotation, the Bishops said that any person in the Church "who has lost his hold on eternal verities" should "in the name of common honesty, .
Crapsey replied that he would meet with the committee if he could bring two or three of his "friends among the Clergy" who believed and felt as he did about the matter in hand.
The committee rejected Crapsey's request on the basis that its mission was "to ascertain facts," not to engage in "a theological debate.
"[10]: pp.341–342 [2]: p.264 An editorial in The Outlook, Volume 81 (September 30, 1905) on "The Liberty of Prophesying"[12] suggested that Crapsey might keep quiet about his disagreements.
The editorial pointed out that many a clergyman in Crapsey's situation "remains in the Church and keeps silent upon the uncertain doctrines."
But Crapsey would not stop publicly promulgating his views because, for him, "silence constituted acquiescence" and he refused to "compromise."
Bishop Walker's message stressed the ordination vows to "hold and teach the doctrine of God as this Church has received the same."
[10]: p.3451 There has been a broad agreement in the literature on the subject that the action against Crapsey was the work of "a strong-willed bishop and conservatives."
"[2]: pp.288–289 Soon after the presentment had been delivered to Crapsey, fifteen prominent members of the diocese (seven lay and eight clergy) wrote Walker "urging him to postpone the trial until after the election of the new diocesan council in May.
Crapsey's heresy trial and the events leading up to it were reported and discussed by the press and the religious journals of the Episcopal Church.
Walker commanded Crapsey to appear before an ecclesiastical court held in St. James Church, Batavia, New York.
The "presentment charge" was that Crapsey "did openly, advisedly, publicly and privately utter, avow, declare, and teach doctrines contrary to those held and received by the church.
"[3]: pp.16–17 Besides witnesses from St. Andrews for Crapsey's defense, clergy came from other parishes in the diocese, as well as a large delegation from Boston.
[3]: p.18 Among the people who came to the trial were "experts on theology" and "eminent churchmen" whom Crapsey had lined up as witnesses for his defense, but none of them were allowed to testify.
[2]: pp.304, 311 Closing arguments began on April 27, 1906: On May 9, 1906, the five-member Ecclesiastical Court met and by a four to one vote decided Crapsey was guilty.
"[2]: p.376 Mrs. Crapsey contributed to the family's income with her business of designing, making, and selling dresses for young girls.
[2]: p.386 Crapsey suffered poor health in his late seventies, but for his eightieth birthday on June 28, 1927, many friends visited him.
One account recalled that Crapsey had taken coal and food to a needy family, that he read to blind workers, that he counseled prisoners and bereaved relatives, and admitted hoodlums into his night school classes.