William Henry Odenheimer was born in Philadelphia Aug. 11, 1817, the son of John W. Odenheimer, a prosperous merchant, and Henrietta Burns Odenheimer.
A brother, John Kerlin, was born in 1819 and died in 1821; a sister, Caroline Louisa, was born in 1821 and died in 1825.
Odenheimer was named for an uncle, a lieutenant in the United States Navy, who died in 1815 at 23 of a severe cold that resulted from his attempt to rescue a steward who had fallen off his ship, the Franklin.
Odenheimer attended St. Paul's College in Flushing, N. Y., and then
Penn, where, although he was't yet 18, he was selected to give the valedictory.
He graduated in June 1838 from General Theological Seminary in New York City, was ordained a deacon by Bishop Henry U. Onderdonk of Pennsylvania, in Sept. 2, 1838, and became assistant rector of St. Peter's, where the Rev. William H. DeLancey had been rector since Bishop White's death in July 1836.
DeLancey was called to be bishop of Western New York in 1839. The vestry chose Odenheimer to succeed him, but waited until his ordination to the priesthood Oct. 3, 1841, to elect him to the post.
(Editor's note: Because the Eucharist was not yet as important as preaching, it didn't matter that Odenheimer was not yet a priest. In addition, there were assistants who were priests).
In 1839, Odenheimer married Anne D. Randall Shaw, daughter of John R. Shaw, a naval officer. Little is known of Odenheimer’s wife and children although there appear to have been 11
eleven children born to the couple, only two of whom reached maturity. All the infants were buried in the churchyard. A grave registry book reports that their bodies were disinterred when their father was elected bishop of New Jersey and placed in the graveyard of St. Mary's, Burlington, where the older children were later buried.
Odenheimer was Tractarian. His nom de plume was Diaconus Catholicus.
Bishop White had only Morning Prayer each Sunday and no weekday services, Odenheimer inaugurated daily services, Holy Communion at all Sunday early services, and Holy Communion on the first and third Sundays at the late service. In addition, a brass cross was placed, for the first time, on the altar as were candles and soon a tower and steeple appeared on the west end of the church.
The anti-Roman Catholicism of the times led many to declare a preference for a weathervane to top the steeple rather than the cross, but a tied vestry vote allowed Odenheimer to cast the deciding vote in favor of the cross.
Odenheimer took the middle road in the bitter and sometimes violent conflict between Protestants and
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