James Augustine Healy, the 1st Black Roman Catholic Bishop in America

James Augustine Healy (April 6, 1830 – August 5, 1900) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the first known African American to serve as a Catholic priest or bishop. With his predominantly European ancestry, Healy passed for a white man and identified as such.

Born into slavery in the Healy family of Georgia, James Healy was the son of a White plantation owner and a mixed-race enslaved woman. He was later freed, educated overseas, and ordained a priest in 1854. He served as Bishop of Portland in Maine from 1875 until his death in 1900.

James Healy was born in Jones County, Georgia, on April 6, 1830. His father, Michael Morris Healy (1796–1850), was a native of County Roscommon, Ireland who became a wealthy cotton planter after settling in Georgia.

Healy owned more than 1,500 acres of land near the Ocmulgee River as well as 49 to 60 enslaved people. James’s mother was a mixed-race enslaved woman named Mary Eliza (c. 1813–1850), whom Michael had purchased for $3,700 along with her family. He took Mary Eliza as his common-law wife in 1829.

Family

James was the eldest of their ten children.

His siblings were:

• Hugh Clark Healy (1832–1853)
• Patrick Francis Healy (1834–1910), the first African American Jesuit and president of Georgetown - University in Washington, D.C.
• Alexander Sherwood Healy (1836–1875), a priest and rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston
• Martha Ann Healy (1838–1920)
• Michael Augustine Healy (1839–1904), a captain in the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and the first African - American to command a ship of the U.S. government
• Eugene Healy (1842), who died in infancy
• Amanda Josephine Healy (1845–1879), a member of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph
• Eliza Dunamore Healy (1846–1919), a member of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal and the first African American abbess
• Eugene Healy (1849–1914)