Thomas Claggett, born October 2, 1743, was the son of the Reverend Samuel Clagett, an Anglican priest of the Church of England from Charles County, Maryland, and Elizabeth Gantt.

He was the great-grandson of Captain Thomas Clagett who emigrated from England and settled on St. Leonard's Creek in Calvert County, Maryland in 1671.

[2] Captain Clagett at one time owned more than 3,700 acres (15 km2) in central and northeastern Maryland in Calvert, Prince George's, Baltimore and Kent Counties.

Eversfield was the "historically conspicuous"[citation needed] rector of St. Paul's Parish Church in Prince George's County, Maryland.

[4] In 1787 Princeton conferred on him the "Master of Arts" degree, and in 1792, after he was ordained and consecrated as the first American Episcopal Bishop, he was awarded the Doctor of Divinity from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland on the state's Eastern Shore, where the Diocese had been formed twelve years before in 1780.

[1] On 20 September 1767, while visiting in Great Britain, Claggett was made an ordained deacon in the chapel of Fulham Palace, by the then Bishop of London, Dr. Richard Terrick.

[6]: 30  Nine of the clergy gave up their congregations and returned to England, six moved to Virginia, one to Pennsylvania, one to Delaware, five retired to their estates, and two or three others took up teaching.

Starting July 4, 1776, Congress and several newly independent states passed laws making prayers for the king and British Parliament acts of treason.

[8] Claggett avoided the conflict, retiring as rector and living on his estate of Croom in Prince George's County for two years.

In 1778, he began officiating in his local home parish at St. Paul's, in Baden, of Prince George's County where he became rector on August 7, 1780, succeeding to the office after the death of his uncle, Rev.

Walter Dulaney Addison, who first served in Queen Anne Parish in Upper Marlboro, Maryland from 1793 to 1795 (succeeding his Tory uncle, Rev.

Jonathan Boucher who had returned to England as well as financed his nephew's education), then became rector of King George's Parish succeeding Rev.

However, Nourse did not want the cathedral in downtown Washington, but even then foresaw the beautiful dominating hill-top of Mount Alban to the northwest overlooking the new rough city and the Potomac River valley.

Memorial slabs recognizing Bishop Claggett and his wife are mounted in the basement outside the chapel dedicated to St. Joseph of Arimathea.

[9] His first group of confirmations, a class of forty-four, took place in 1793 at St. John's Church at Broad Creek, near today's Fort Washington overlooking the Potomac River, in Prince George's County a few months after his consecration, and were presented by the then third rector, the Rev.

Originally interred in the family plot on the property, his remains were moved in 1898 to the Washington National Cathedral, then beginning construction the year before where a wood carving of his consecration was added to the bishop's stall.

There is a marker and memorial bell tower at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, in Croom, of Prince George's County, Maryland.

[15] Claggett's epitaph, which includes the dates of his ordinations, was penned by his friend and fellow churchman, lawyer-poet Francis Scott Key, (1779-1843), author of the "Star Spangled Banner".

[16] St. James School outside Hagerstown in Washington County, built a large boys dormitory they named "Claggett Hall".