VAIL, Thomas Hubbard, P. E. bishop, born in Richmond, Virginia, 21 October, 1812. His parents were from New England, and on the death of his father in 1817 his mother returned to the north. The son was graduated at Washington (now Trinity) college in 1831, and at the General theological seminary in New York in 1835, was ordered deacon by Bishop Brownell in St. Mark's church, New Canaan, Connecticut. 29 June, 1835, and priest in Grace church, Boston, by Bishop Griswold, 6 January, 1837. During his diaconate he served for a short time as assistant minister in St. James's church, Philadelphia, and he was afterward assistant to Dr. Jonathan M. Wainwright in St. Paul's church, Boston. He organized the parish of All Saints, Worcester, Massachusetts, became rector of Christ church, Cambridge, in 1837, and in 1839 of St. John's church, Essex, in 1844 he removed to Rhode Island and was made rector of Christ church, Westerly, where he remained fourteen years, serving as deputy to the General convention during part of that time. In 1857 he returned to Massachusetts as rector of St. John's, Taunton. In 1863 he went to Iowa, taking the rectorship of Trinity church, Muscatine. The degree of S. T. D. was given him by Brown in 1858, and that of LL.D. by the University of Kansas in 1875. He was consecrated first bishop of Kansas, 15 December, 1864, in Trinity church, Muscatine, Iowa. Bishop Vail is the author of " Hannah," a sacred drama, published anonymously (Bostoff, 1839) . "The Comprehensive Church " (1841; 3d ed., New York, 1883)" and numerous reports of school committees, charges, addresses, and pastoral letters. He has edited, with a memoir of the author, Reverend Augustus F. Lyte's " Buds of Spring," poems (Boston, 1838).