Henry Bidleman Bascom, D. D., LL. D., an American clergyman, bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church South, born May 27, 1796, in Hancock, Delaware co., N. Y., died in Louisville, Sept. 8, 1850. Before the age of 18 he received license to preach, and was admitted to the Ohio conference. After several years of hard work on frontier circuits, he was transferred to the Tennessee conference in 1816, returned to the Ohio conference in 1822, and in 1823, through the influence of Henry Clay, was elected chaplain of the house of representatives at Washington. In 1824 he was stationed at Pittsburgh, in 1825 was made conference missionary, and from 1827 to 1828 was president of Madison college, Uniontown, Penn. From 1829 to 1831 he served as agent of the colonization society, and then was appointed to the chair of moral science and belles-lettres in Augusta college, Kentucky, where he remained till 1841. He declined the presidency of Louisiana college and of the Missouri university to accept that of Transylvania college, Kentucky (1842). He was the author of the celebrated protest of the southern delegates to the general conference against the action of the majority in the case of Bishop Andrew (1844), was also a member of the convention of southern delegates held in Louisville, Ky., in May, 1845, and drew up the report of the committee on the organization of the church South. After serving as editor of the "Quarterly Review " of the M. E. church South (1846-'50), and chairman of the board of commissioners to settle the controversy between the northern and southern divisions of the church, he was elected to the episcopal office a short time before his death.

His works (4 vols. 8vo, Nashville, 1850 and 1856) comprise sermons, addresses, lectures, and essays on infidelity, mental and moral science, moral and political philosophy, etc, and "Methodism and Slavery," a defence of the southern branch of the church. As a pulpit orator, Dr. Bascom was singularly fervid and powerful, and the fame of his eloquence was scarcely surpassed by that of any other public speaker in church or state. His biography has been written by the Rev. M. M. Henkle (12mo, Nashville, 1854).