His parents, Richard Kerfoot and Christiana Barrett, were Scotch-Irish, by descent, brought up in the Church of Ireland, but afterwards connected with the Wesleyans.

[2] John Kerfoot's "earliest secular education" began in a school in Lancaster that used the "Lancastrian" or Monitorial System, in which older students taught the younger ones.

William Augustus Muhlenberg was "a major influence" in Kerfoot's life and the primary factor in his education.

[6] In March 1832, Kerfoot wrote about spending his seventeenth birthday at the Flushing Institute and about having a paper on "Private Prayer" he had written published in The Churchman.

[9] Kerfoot stayed on at the Flushing Institute after completing his studies as Muhlenberg's "principal assistant" until he left to become Rector of the College of St. James in Maryland in 1843.

I have read the service and preached twice to-day, morning and evening, in St. John's Church, York, Pennsylvania.

"[11] In March 1838, Kerfoot wrote that, while remaining at the Flushing Institute, he would do "ministerial" work at Zion Church, Little Neck, near College Point.

[15] In June 1841, before his move to Maryland, Kerfoot was offered the position of President of Kemper College, Missouri.

One week later, the couple moved to "Fountain Rock" near Hagerstown, Maryland, the site purchased for the construction of the College of St. James.

Kerfoot himself called them "happy years of my life" and added that his heart was bound to the college "by sorrows as well as by joys, by disappointment as well as by success.

[10] "The Rector and his assistant teachers were obliged to work without salaries at first, receiving only their board and lodging from the Institution.

It was a recurrence of Bronchitis that made preaching and teaching impossible, It was hoped that a voyage to England would remedy the condition.

[21] The trip did not serve its purpose, because on December 14, 1843, having returned from England, Kerfoot wrote, "my health generally is much improved; my throat is not any better.

[10] In spite of the war, Kerfoot and his staff were determined to keep the college going and opened the October 1862 session with "between forty and fifty students."

The college was sacked several times by the retreating Confederate troops who were like a "vagabond mob of a beaten army.

Even though Kerfoot's time as president was brief, the effectiveness of his administration was demonstrated by fact that the college moved "forward so strongly and well in the years" after he left.

[33] When Kerfoot was elected Bishop of Pittsburgh, the trustees, the students, the alumni, and the clergy of Connecticut wanted him to remain at the college "whose prospects were just then becoming very bright."

However, Kerfoot believed that it was "his duty to accept" his call to the episcopacy and to end "his long, arduous academical career.

[33] The consecration in Trinity Church, Pittsburgh, of which the Presiding Bishop John Henry Hopkins had once been the rector.

His first official act that day was to receive his son, Abel Anderson Kerfoot, as a candidate for Holy Orders.

[40] On Easter Tuesday, April 3, 1866, Kerfoot participated in the service at Trinity Church by reading the ante-Communion.

He said that he "broke down utterly; body feeble, mind and memory confused," so he had to stop work and cancel a visit to Meadville.

One of Kerfoot's last official acts was laying the cornerstone of an addition that contained a chapel, rooms for old women, and an infirmary.

[46] By his seventh year as bishop, Kerfoot noted the diocese had increased the number of working-class parishioners by two-thirds.

However, he opposed doctrines connected with Ritualism about the Holy Eucharist and "sacramental confession" as contrary to the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion.

[55] Surviving correspondence between Hill Burgwin of the diocesan standing committee shows leaders blocked the appointment of a Low Churchman because his views were not "harmonious" with Kerfoot's High Church practices.

Although he lived and worked seven more years after this severe attack, his strong constitution had received a shock which left its mark upon him.

"[61] On August 21, 1874, before Kerfoot left England, Archbishop Tait wrote him asking that he ascertain from the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops "their wishes" regarding a second Lambeth Conference.

At the General Convention of October 1874, the House of Bishops met in secret session to consider a memorial from "Members of the Synod of the Church of Jesus in Mexico."

The opening words of the Minute were"In the simplicity and godly sincerity of his walk and conversation, in the quick and ready sympathy which he showed toward the sorrowful, the suffering and the sinful, and in the devout spirit of his public services and private life, he was a pattern to his clergy and his flock.