Levi Jenkins Coppin

Bishop Coppin was born in Frederick Town, Maryland to free parents:  Jane Lily and John Coppin.  He had six siblings.  He learned to read and write as his mother held secret classes in her home at night and on Sundays before church.  At the end of the Civil War, a school was created for African American children in the Friendship Church in Frederick Town and his mother was the school’s first teacher.  Levi attended for two terms and eventually became a teacher. 

At the age of 17, he moved to Wilmington, DE and joined the Bethel AME church.¹Centennial Encyclopedia of the AME church by R.R Wright, 1916. In 1865, he joined the AME church and in 1866, he was licensed to preach.

He married Martha Grinnage, a school teacher, in 1875.  They had 1 son who died 9 months after birth; his wife died 18 months after their marriage.²Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Ed: Anthony Appiah. 2nd ed. , 2004. He married his second wife, Fannie Ann Jackson, in 1881.  Mrs. Coppin was the principle of the Institute for Colored Youth.  Coppin graduated from the Philadelphia Episcopal  Divinity School in 1887. In 1900 he was elected Bishop and was assigned to the 14^th District from 1900 to 1904.  He served in the 1^st, 4^th, 2^nd, 7^th and 14^th districts. Fannie Ann died in January 1913.  He married his 3^rd wife, M. Evelyn Thompson, a physician on August 1, 1914 and they had 1 daughter.  He died at the age of 76, in Philadelphia in 1924.