Levi Silliman Ives, an American bishop, born in Meriden, Conn., Sept. 16, 1797, died in New York, Oct. 13, 1867. He was brought up on a farm in Turin, Lewis co., N. Y., to which his father had removed. When 15 years old he was sent to the academy at Lowville, where his studies were interrupted nearly a year by his service in the war with England, under Gen. Pike. He entered Hamilton college in the summer of 1816 to prepare for the ministry of the Presbyterian church; but from impaired health he left college before the close of his senior year. Having changed his religious views, he joined the Protestant Episcopal church in 1819, studied theology in New York, and received deacon's orders in August, 1822. His first services were rendered at Batavia, N. Y., then a missionary station. Thence he went the next year to the charge of Trinity church, Philadelphia, and was ordained to the priesthood. In 1827 he took charge of Christ church, Lancaster, Pa.; at the end of the year he became assistant minister of Christ church, New York, and about six months after was made rector of St. Luke's church in the same city.

He served in this place till September, 1831, when he was consecrated bishop of North Carolina. To promote the cause of education in the church, he established an institution at Valle Crucis, among the mountains of that state, which finally exposed him to great pecuniary loss. Soon after his settlement in his diocese he prepared a catechism for slaves, which was successfully introduced under his own supervision on some of the large plantations. He published a volume of discourses on the " Apostles' Doctrine and Fellowship," and another on the "Obedience of Faith " (New York, 1849). During the excitement in the Episcopal church caused by the Oxford tracts, he sided strongly with the tractarian movement; and though his diocese was eminently high church, his language and acts touching this movement excited distrust, and the result was alienation. In December, 1852, he visited Rome, and was there admitted into the Roman Catholic church. He was consequently deposed from his bishopric, Oct. 14, 1853, and published "The Trials of a Mind in its Progress to Catholicism" (London and Boston, 1854). After his return he became professor of rhetoric in St. Joseph's theological seminary at Ford-ham, and lecturer on rhetoric and the English language in the convents of the Sacred Heart and the sisters of charity.

His last years were devoted to establishing the protectories for destitute Roman Catholic children at West Chester, N. Y., and to teaching in Manhattanville college, New York, which he aided in founding.