[1] He was educated at the high school of Nyack, New York, before studying at Columbia University from where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1906.
Following education at Columbia University, he studied at the General Theological Seminary, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1911.
[3] Essex married Charlotte Josephine Nason on June 11, 1914.
In 1918 he became rector of Trinity Church in Rock Island, Illinois, while in 1925 became rector of St Paul's Church in Peoria, Illinois, where he remained till 1936.
He died a few months later, on February 26, 1959, at the St Francis Hospital in Peoria, Illinois.