On August 27, 2013, in a special service held at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Romney, WV, the Episcopal Bishop of West Virginia will celebrate two clergymen instrumental in the spiritual lives of the deaf.

A common historical thread ties together Romney, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, and the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind.

The mid-to-late part of the 19th Century saw a lot of progress in the education and treatment of deaf people in this country, with Episcopal Ministers Revs. Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle acting as early pioneers in ministry to the deaf in the Episcopal Church.

Following his marriage to Elizabeth Budd, a deaf-mute woman, Gallaudet was ordained a priest in 1851, and shortly thereafter developed a plan to create a church that would serve as a spiritual home for deaf people.

Gallaudet held his first service in Sign Language on Oct. 3, 1852, in the chapel of New York University, which led to the official formation of St. Ann’s Church for Deaf-Mutes in 1854. Today, St. Ann’s, on East 16th Street in New York City, is the oldest Episcopal Church for the deaf in the United States.

Henry Winter Syle was a protégé of Gallaudet, and following his ordination in 1876, he became the first deaf person to receive Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church. Later, in 1888, Syle built the first Episcopal Church specifically for deaf persons.

About the same time these two men were active in New York, the newly-formed state of West Virginia was establishing its own Schools for the Deaf and the Blind in Romney, which opened its doors on Sept. 29, 1870. One of the school’s earliest and most prominent principals was Major John Covell, CSA.

After just a short period serving for the Confederacy, the State of Virginia recalled Maj. Covell in 1862 to serve as principal at their School for the Deaf and Blind. He held this position until his resignation in 1872. Having by this time distinguished himself nationally as an administrator, teacher, and leader in the education of the deaf and blind, Covell accepted the position of Principal (the school’s second) for the relatively new West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind in 1874.

Under Covell’s leadership, the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind saw major facility improvements, leading to the installation of running water and gas lighting, as well as many educational reforms.

Oral tradition at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church holds that Maj. Covell’s wife, Anne, told her husband that she would not move to Romney until it had an Episcopal church. Covell himself was the son of an Episcopal minister and ordained as a deacon in the Episcopal Church.

The location of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church across the street from the school is no coincidence, as Covell provided the property, as well as a significant cash donation, for the construction of the current facility. Upon his death in 1888, Covell was recognized by both the National Conference of Superintendents and Principals of Institutions for Deaf Mutes and the Anglican academic journal, The Churchman, for his many contributions to both the deaf mute community and the Episcopal Church. Both Major Covell and his wife Annie are buried in Indian Mound Cemetery.

In celebration of the above events, the community at large is invited to join the Rt. Rev. W. Michie Klusmeyer, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia, in a Holy Eucharist service upon the occasion of the feast day of two clergymen instrumental in championing ministry with the deaf, Revs. Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle.

The service will be held at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 27, at St. Stephen’s, 316 E. Main St., Romney, and will be followed immediately by an ice cream social sponsored by St. Stephen’s across the street on the historic front porch of the Schools for the Deaf and Blind administration building. The community is invited to attend that also.