Episcopal clergyman, educator, missionary, b. Philadelphia, Pa. He was educated at Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg's Academy, Flushing, N.Y., and graduated from the Univ. of Pennsylvania (1838) and the General Theological Seminary, New York City (1841). In 1841, with two classmates, J. H. Hobart and William Adams (q.v.), he came to Wisconsin as a missionary. In his work Breck hoped to revive the monastic ideal, to establish a theological seminary, and to do missionary work among the settlers. Under the direction of Bishop Jackson Kemper (q.v.), the three men founded Nashotah House, a theological seminary located 30 miles west of Milwaukee. In addition to training men for the clergy, Nashotah House also became a center of missionary and evangelistic work. After a few years Breck grew dissatisfied when it became apparent that sentiment at Nashotah did not favor his ideal of a semimonastic, celibate institution, and in 1850 he resigned and went to Minnesota. There he devoted himself to active missionary work, eventually discarded his monastic ideal, and was twice married. He did missionary work among the Indians and at Faribault, Minn., founded a seminary, a cathedral, and a school. In 1867 he moved to California and at Bernicia founded the Missionary College of St. Augustine, and later St. Mary's of the Pacific, a school for girls. Dict. Amer. Biog.; C. Breck, comp., Life of ... J. L. Breck (New York, 1883); J. H. Egar, Story of Nashotah (Milwaukee, 1874); WPA MS.

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