Clergyman
Centurion, 1921–1953
Born 23 July 1869 in Castlequarter, Antrim, Northern Ireland
Died 13 January 1953 in Olean, New York
Buried Saint John in the Wilderness Cemetery
, Lake Clear, New York
Proposed by George E. Brewer and Arthur Lyman Fisk
Elected 5 March 1921 at age fifty-one
Century Memorial
William B. Lusk was born in County Antrim in North Ireland, educated at Queens College, Belfast, and came to this country in 1894 to attend Princeton Theological Seminary. He graduated in 1897 and was appointed Superintendent of the Adirondack Mission, which consisted of fifteen small and scattered Presbyterian churches in northern New York. With this consecrated enterprise he was involved for ten years, but in 1907 he was received into the Episcopal Church and became assistant rector at Tuxedo Park. In 1915 he was called to be rector of St. Stephen’s Church in Ridgefield; and there he lived and labored the rest of his life.
Lusk was a very engaging person. He was naturally gregarious, always expecting to be welcome, and he had a friendly and disarming approach which got him, unharmed, in and out of places and positions that might have been alarming to angels. His early life in the Adirondacks had brought him in touch with some rich and reasonably important people who, at the turn of the century, used to go to St. Regis, Paul Smith’s, and Saranac in the summer and “camp.” These gentry were much entertained by Lusk, they liked him immensely, and they stuck by him all through the years. At Ridgefield, also, he found an ancient civilization of pleasant, friendly people of his own age who came to his church and were congenial and sympathetic with the things he stood for.
Although Lusk had been trained at Princeton Theological Seminary, he was anything but a fundamentalist; nor was he interested in theology or creeds. His sermons were encouragements to the practice of brotherly love, and he never strayed for long from that theme. He gave the impression that ideas were occurring to him for the first time in the pulpit as he talked, and this imparted a vitality to his words which made up for a lack of organization.
He used to come into New York every little while to confer with the low-church wing of Episcopalians and lay plans for articles in the Churchman and for other petards calculated to hoist the ambitions of the Anglo-Catholics; but he was always so pleasant himself, so devoid of rancor, so transparently guileless, that he invariably escaped the episcopal censure that was sometimes visited on his co-conspirators. He was a perfect country parson: kind, reliable, and understanding. He spoke with the suggestion of a brogue; his smile was quick and reassuring; he was gallant in misfortune; he had the great virtues of the Irish.
George W. Martin
1954 Century Association Yearbook