Born: May 27, 1799, Trenton, New Jersey. Named after American president George Washington, he was born the year Washington died.
Died: April, 1859, Burlington, New Jersey.
Buried: St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Burlington, New Jersey.
George is the father of hymn writer William Doane.
After graduating from Union College, Schenectady, New York (BA 1818), he studied law for a while in New York City, but soon became interested in theology.
In 1821, he was ordained a deacon and became assistant rector at Trinity Church in New York, where he was ordained a priest two years later.
He went on to become professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut; assistant rector at Trinity Church, Boston, Massachusetts (1828), and rector (1830) (hymnist Phillips Brooks was pastor there later); and Episcopal bishop of New Jersey (1832).
Doane also helped found Burlington College and St. Mary’s Hall Doane Academy in Burlington, New Jersey.
The Banyan of the Indian Isles
Strikes deeply down, its massive root;
And spreads its branching life, abroad,
And bends to earth with scarlet fruit:
And when the branches reach the ground,
They firmly plant themselves again:
Then rise, and spread, and drop, and root;
An ever green, and endless chain.
And, so, the Church of Jesus Christ,
The blessed Banyan of our God,
Fast rooted upon Sion’s Mount,
Has sent its sheltering arms abroad;
And every branch that from it springs,
In sacred beauty spreading wide,
As low it bends to bless the earth,
Still plants another by its side.
Long as the world itself shall last,
The sacred Banyan still shall spread;
From clime to clime, from age to age,
Its sheltering shadow shall be shed;
As nations seek its pillared shade,
Its leaves shall for their healing be:
The circling flood that feeds its life,
The blood that crimsoned Calvary.
Adapted from George Washington Doane
Riverside, 2nd Sunday after Easter, 1851
Written for the third Jubilee of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.