First Edition, 1997

Copyrighted ã 1997

by Francis Michael Walsh

Foreword

Preface

Prologue

Chapter 1 The Beginning (1634-1639)

Chapter 2 The Evangelization (1639-1645)

Chapter 3 The Plundering Time (1645-1881)

Chapter 4 A Time of Peace (1661-1689)

Chapter 5 The Not So Glorious Revolution (1689-1704)

Chapter 6 The Penal Days (1705-1784)

Chapter 7 The Restoration (1784-1812)

Chapter 8 The Raid (1812-1815)

Prologue

Chapter 9 The Root of All Evil (1825-1832)

Chapter 10 The Curse of Slavery (1832-1860)

Chapter 11 The Rise of Segregation (1860-1889)

Chapter 12 The Coming of the Roads (1889-1902)

Chapter 13 A Development Thwarted (1902-1910)

Chapter 14 The Move to Ridge (1910-1919)

Chapter 15 The Schools (1919-1931)

Chapter 16 Hard Times ((1931-1937)

Chapter 17 Father Superior (1937-1942)

Chapter 18 The Ending of an Era (1942-1947)

Prologue

Chapter 19 The Curse of Segregation (1948-1953)

Chapter 20 Going Their Separate Ways (1953-1963)

Chapter 21 The Return of the Secular Priests (1963-1977)

Chapter 22 The Two Parish Solution (1977-1994)

Appendix Bibliography

Index Notes

The story of the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church in Maryland has never been adequately told. The Story of the Saint Inigoes Mission (1634-1984) adds some important data that throws more light on the complex situation that developed during the period 1637-1650, including the land controversy between Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, and the Jesuits. Somehow in the course of negotiations over this issue, as Father Walsh points out, the situation got out of hand, until it was finally resolved in Lord Baltimore’s favor by the English Jesuit Provincial. It must be remembered that if Lord Baltimore had permitted the transfer of Indian lands to the Jesuits, he would soon have been dispossessed of his colony. Many young noblemen, eager for instant land holdings, had married Indians and were prepared to lay similar claims. Giles Brent, for example, had married the Indian Princess who was the ward of his sister Margaret Brent, and laid claim to her extensive holdings.

Other new and interesting data, including Mr. Michael Smolek’s archaeological investigations, have been added to the fascinating story of historic St. Inigoes.

The second half of the story is devoted to the history of the Black Roman Catholics of the area, which has never been done before, except in a booklet by Father Horace McKenna in 1949. It is a history of hardship, unremitting toil, and adversity under the most difficult circumstances but one that was finally crowned by a fair measure of success. The Black people can take justifiable pride in their Roman Catholic heritage extending back 350 years in the St. Inigoes area. They have given much and their efforts will live in the history of the Church. All of us too can take pride in the fine work of our devoted priests who have labored so diligently over the past three and a half centuries in St. Mary’s County.

In summary, this book is an interesting history of the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church in Maryland, specially in lower Saint Mary’s County.

Mr. Edwin W. Beitzell

Saint Mary’s County Historical Society

April 25, 1983

Laudetur Jesus Christus!

This is the story of the Catholic presence in what is today known as the First Election District of St. Mary’s County, Maryland, the St. Inigoes District. Situated on the tip of the western shore of Maryland, between the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay, it was one of the more obscure places in the Archdiocese of Washington. People tended to equate it with Siberia. They sent me there in 1977. Someone later asked me what I had ever done to be assigned there. He figured that whatever it was, it must have been bad. I was amused. The query spoke volumes. I had to assure him that it was not a punishment. Today I can assure anyone that being sent to St. Inigoes was something more. It was a gift from God. It gave me an experience that I shall always treasure, one that I am happy to share with you.

When I arrived I found two Catholic parishes in the same geographic area, Saint Michael’s and Saint Peter Claver’s, Ridge. In the popular mind one was for whites and one was for blacks. This was an area that had suffered the curse of segregation more persistently than any other. I did not have any preconceived ideas about what to do. I just knew I had to do something. But what and how?

One of the things that struck me was the culture lag in the First District. It was like stepping back in time about a generation. If you lived all your life there you would never have noticed it. This is the danger of being so close to a situation that you never notice the broader context. If you had never been there you would never have suspected the existence of such a lag. This is the danger of looking at a place from too far away. Some things are only seen up close.

The relationships between the races in my time were always civil and polite, but distant. There were no external signs of discord, just a tremendous distance between people. The invisible barriers of social segregation kept them apart. They were viewing one another through the optic of race. They were making race the fundamental element in a person’s identity. This condemned them to live in a world divided into "them" and "us." How had this happened? I grew curious about why things were the way they were. So I began to dig into the past. The unity that emerged in this story surprised me. What was more important, I discovered the importance of history.

History is important because it tells us our story. Our story gives us our identity. Other people tell us what our identity is. They do it many ways, none more effectively than by telling us our history. Between the two, history and identity, there is a curious interplay. Our understanding of history depends on the identity through which we view history. A false identity distorts our reading of history. In turn, a false understanding of history perpetuates a false self-identity. The only way to correct this is to retell the story, but this time from another point of view.

The thesis underlying this work is that a false identity has distorted the traditional way of understanding the Catholic history of St. Inigoes. It lead to the notion that Saint Inigoes parish was dead. My experience taught me that St. Inigoes never died. It is still alive and well. It was just silted over and forgotten. I offer this retelling of our story to excavate the silt. Saint Inigoes parish gradually evolved over the last three hundred and sixty years. What an evolution it has been! Who could have foreseen the outcome to the persecutions from without and from within which have lain heavily on this parish in the long course of its history? It is the story of all the Catholic people, prominent and obscure, who have put their shoulders to the wheel and have helped in any way to further the evangelization. As we stand on the eve of the Third Millennium I offer it in homage to their memory. Their story belongs to all who can identify with them, without regard to race. I offer it in the hope that knowing this development will help to overcome one more obstacle to the evangelization.

The passage of time compounded the problem by blurring the institutional memory of what happened. Succeeding bishops were often at the mercy of whatever someone who thought they knew the facts told them. The results have not always been felicitous. So many well intentioned individuals had only a sketchy understanding that I determined to try to supply for what was lacking in the institutional memory.

Saint Inigoes is the classic example of an ecclesiastical Vietnam. At the turn of the twentieth century those in authority backed into a messy situation without any clear idea of how to get out of it. Once in, all the other alternates seemed worse than doing nothing. The result was that the split deepened and hardened. In teaching us that race mattered, the culture created a dichotomy between the identity that St. Peter’s had on paper and the identity it had in practice.

The writing of this book became another chapter in the on-going saga of St. Inigoes. The opposition to its appearing in print reflected the problems it was written to address. That it has seen the light of day is a testimony to the extent to which a new perspective has emerged. There is a readiness to revisit the old issues and to see them in a new way. This book is a conscious effort to resurrect a parish that many thought had disappeared years ago. Because this retelling traces the continuity between St. Inigoes and St. Peter Claver’s, many who did not identify with St. Peter’s felt that their history was being taken from them. Those who felt that way insisted that there was a difference between St. Inigoes and St. Peter’s. What was the difference? It could not be territory. As events developed the territory was the same. All the missions of St. Inigoes became distinct territories, except St. Peter Claver’s. Is the difference race? If so, then race becomes an element in parish identity. Once it becomes an element in parish identity, it creates a barrier. Some belong and some do not. This has long been the obstacle to the evangelization. I have found it difficult to dislodge the notion the race is that specific difference. To do this required challenging an entire culture. In the process the challenge was not always understood.

We are disciples of a Master who said that the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. If our concern in insisting on the identity of St. Peter Claver’s is to have some distinction over others, we are clearly at a spiritual dead-end. To seek to be the premier parish of this or any other diocese is clearly an exercise in pride. Distinctions of that sort mean nothing. If, however, the motive is different, then showing that St. Peter Claver’s is the continuation of St. Inigoes can serve a purpose. It can destroy the temptation to use St. Inigoes and its history as a status symbol. The irony is that the moment the identity of St. Inigoes and St. Peter Claver’s is accepted, the issue no longer is important. It can be passed over in silence. After all, who cares? In the end, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. Only if racism is at the root of the reluctance to identify with St. Peter Claver’s, is there any justification for insisting on the identity of St. Inigoes with St. Peter’s. Then it becomes a thorn in the side, calling us to conversion.

As you read, judge for yourself if I am right.

I am indebted to Mr. Edwin Beitzell who has graciously allowed me to draw upon the pioneering research he has done in his Jesuit Missions of St. Mary's County, Maryland. I had the honor of knowing him personally. He was a gracious gentleman and scholar of the history of St. Mary’s County. He did pioneer work in uncovering and chronicling the history of the Catholic Church in these parts. He wrote a foreword for this work as it stood in 1983 before he died. His book is required reading to understand what is new with this one. The facts are the same, but they are marshaled in a different way. I have made a conscious effort not to anticipate future events. The danger in writing history is to retroject into the past the awareness of subsequent developments. When we do this, we give events a meaning that the people involved in them may not or could not have intended or foreseen. This distorts the telling of history.

I also wish to thank the following for their invaluable help they gave me in critiquing and editing this book:

Elinor Cofer of Ridge, Maryland.

Dr. Andrea Hammer, of St. Mary’s College of Maryland

Mr. Silas Hurray, of the St. Mary’s City Commission.

Rev. Marc Britt, Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Oakley, Maryland

Rev. Paul Liston, Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church, Washington, D.C.

The history of the Catholic Church is the history of a movement. It is not just one movement, but many movements, one after another, like waves crashing on the shore, then ebbing, only to be succeeded by another wave. The only authentic way to understand Church history is to locate events in the broader context of the evangelization that God set in motion nearly two millennia ago. The evangelization of Maryland is part of this event. The events that preceded it have shaped it so that it cannot be understood apart from them.

There are two major themes marking the history of the evangelization in Maryland since 1634. The first was the persecution from without. Religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants stemming from the sixteenth century convulsed the seventeenth. To a lesser extent, the generalized attack that the Enlightenment mounted on the notion that faith in God provided a basis on which to build a life convulsed the eighteenth century. At one time all shared the same house of faith. We were not divided into Protestants and Catholics. All shared at the same table. Events intervened and separated us. We drifted apart to the point where we no longer saw the family resemblance. Our differences in understanding the consequences of our shared baptism eventually impaired our ability to share a civil society. This was the source of the rebellions and repressions that became such an obstacle to the evangelization as we shall see.

In England the sixteenth century proved to be a traumatic one for the Catholic Church. The House of Tudor was striving to establish itself after the long civil war, the War of the Roses. Henry did not need religious conflict in his domains. He rejected Luther and penned a defense of the seven sacraments that won for him the title "Defender of the Faith" from the Pope. What Henry wanted was a male heir. His wife, Catherine of Aragon, had only given him a daughter. It was not for lack of trying, though. She had twenty-some pregnancies. As long as Henry lived the "reform" of the English Church remained a vehicle for Henry’s personal and dynastic ambitions. Those who opposed him lost their lives. Henry won friends for himself by dissolving the monasteries, seizing their properties, and distributing them to those who were willing to support him. None of this touched the need of the ordinary Englishman to pass from natural religiosity to adult faith. What it did was to create a class that had a vested interested in the status quo. Queen Mary’s attempts at a Catholic restoration was an equal disaster. Her use of gruesome violence to undo the previous violence only brought the Church into greater disrepute and underscored the total failure to grasp the real dimensions of the need for renewal.

Mary’s death in 1558 brought to the throne the last of the Tudors, Elizabeth I. Pope Pius V’s misguided policy of using political means to fight the Reformation only served to fan the flames of nationalism and undermined the position of the Catholic Church in England. By attempting to release English Catholics from their obligations to render allegiance to the monarchy, Pius succeeded in implanting deep within the English psyche the notion that to have allegiance to the Pope was to be a traitor to England.

The impulse to renew the Church continued in England. Reform came from two sources, both of which were outside the established church. One was the non-conformist movement which gave rise to the Puritans in England. The second came out of the remnants of the old Catholic Church and the impulse that came from the Council of Trent known as the Counter Reformation. The renewal was brought to England by the Jesuits who suffered under severe penalties of the civil law. These two renewals caused a three-way split and conflict within English society, a conflict that profoundlyed effected the history of Maryland.

It was at this moment of time in the seventeenth century that George Calvert appeared on the scene with a plan to undue the work of Constantine in uniting Church and state through the establishment of a state religion. To avoid the fratricidal conflicts he proposed to establish a colony in which religion and government would be separated once again. We shall now begin to recount what happened to the Catholic Church in the context of this plan. As we do, it is important to understand another event that was to have an impact on the Maryland scene. In the second half of the eighteenth century, another revolution, the "Enlightenment, took place in Europe. It was the intellectual revolution which produced rationalism, the notion that the only reality that could be trusted was what empirical science could affirm. Confronted with the advances in the physical sciences, European intellectuals, especially in France, could not reconcile faith with reason. The world being revealed to the inquiring mind did not jib with the view the Bible presented. They had to choose between faith and reason, and, like any self-respecting intellectual, they chose reason. They ripped the Bible to shreds, pointing out what they thought were its errors and inconsistencies, and declared it unworthy of being a source of scientific knowledge. Both nationalism and rationalism had a profound effect on the Church as a whole. Using the St. Inigoes Mission as the example, I invite you to see how this was realized on a grass-roots level in Part I: the Persecution from Without.

It was the feast of Saint Cecilia, November 22, 1633. For several weeks two small ships had been in the harbor of Cowes on the Isle of Wright, preparing to set sail for the New World. Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, was gambling his family’s fortune to make his father’s dream come true. His father, George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, had long cherished the hope of supplying a refuge for his fellow Catholics from the persecution prevailing in England. He wanted to plant a colony in the New World where there would be a separation of church and state. All religious groups would be tolerated and expected to share the same civil society. It was an idea that no one had tried before and for which there were no models. His first attempt was in 1629 in Avalon in Newfoundland, Canada. The forbidding climate, so different from England, doomed this enterprise almost from the beginning.

Calvert did not give up his idea. He pressed his efforts to secure a more southern site. Time, however, was against him now. He had been in declining health for some time. He died April 15, 1632, in his London lodgings at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. His hoped for patent for a new colony had not yet passed the great seal. Charles I granted it to his son and heir, Cecil, on June 20, 1632. When Calvert presented the Latin charter to the king, there was a blank where the name of the new colony should appear. He told the king he had wanted to name the proposed colony in honor of his royal patron, but another colony had already taken the name "Carolina". The king thought for a moment and then suggested that he would be just as pleased to have the colony named "Mariana" in honor of his queen, Henrietta Maria. Lord Baltimore could only find one objection to that. "Mariana" also happened to be the name of a Jesuit with decidedly anti-royal views. Thinking for a moment, the king picked up a pen and settled the question by writing in the blank "Terra Mariae," Maryland.

The Charter granted sweeping powers to the proprietor in a province modeled on the palatinate of the Bishop of Durham. Significant among the provisions of the charter, which historians credit to George Calvert, was the provision made for collective ownership of land. It made an express declaration that English anti-mortmain statutes, especially the Quia Emptores of Edward III, were not to have force in the colony. It fell to the second Lord Baltimore to gather a company of pilgrims and set them sailing. His brother Leonard did much of the detail work. Cecil had selected him as the governor of the new province. The two brothers formed a holding company in London to exploit trade with Maryland. The stockholders also included Captain Thomas Cornwaleys, Edward Wintour, Frederick Wintour, Richard Gerard, John Saunders, Mr. Wiseman, Thomas Greene, Nicholas Fairfax, and Jerome Hawley.

Lord Baltimore had two ships for the voyage. The larger of the two was the Ark of London, having a four hundred ton cargo capacity. Her captain was Robert Wintour, and her master was Richard Low. The smaller was the Dove of Maryland, a pinnace, able to accommodate only forty tons. They planned to sail from Gravesend, London on August 20. When the heavily entrenched and hostile Puritan Parliament saw the elaborate preparations taking place before their very eyes, all kinds of false and vicious rumors began to fly. It was said that the baron was sending nuns to Spain or recruiting for the Spanish King’s army. Worst of all, he was withdrawing Catholics from the operation of the penal laws and placing them where there would be no opportunity to reclaim them from their abominable errors. Hostile agents of the Virginia Company then in London joined with a Parliament unfriendly to Lord Baltimore to apply pressure in the Privy Council in an attempt to abort the venture. They alleged that Catholics were in league with Spain and that the two ships were part of some foul conspiracy and intrigue against the English colonies in America. Annoying delays occurred and several who had planned to sail became discouraged and returned to their native parishes. Cecil had considered making the journey himself, but in the end decided to remain in England to guard against the intrigues and sent his brother Leonard as the governor in his place.

By September 1 both ships were still in the Thames, preparations still not completed. Lord Baltimore was able to write that the Privy Council had decided not to disturb or dispossessed him of the charter. At that time he estimated that the Ark and pinnace Dove would sail from Gravesend about October 1. At that late date, Lord Baltimore was still recruiting for the voyage. He wrote to Dr. John Briscoe and invited him to join the company if he were of the same mind as before when he had spoken with him.

By September 20, members of the holding company negotiated a contract with Richard Orchard, the master of the Dove. A week later, on September 28, Leonard loaded one hundred and five tons of beer. John Bowler, the purser of the Ark, gave his receipt to Leonard Leonards, the brewer, who delivered the order to Richard Low, the Master of the Ark. The adventurers began to stow their few personal belongings on the ship. They installed cannons on board along with lumber to build a barge when the settlers arrived in Maryland. On October 15 Lord Baltimore conveyed to his brother, Leonard, one-eighth interest in the Dove of Maryland, which then was still in the River Thames.

Three days later, October 18, the two ships finally left Gravesend on their way down the Thames to the sea. One particularly persistent enemy rushed to the Star Chamber in Whitehall Palace to report that the crew had not taken the oath of allegiance. He repeated to the Council all the rumors that he had heard. The Secretary of the Privy Council, Sir John Coke, became very excited and sent an order to Admiral John Pennington commanding the Channel fleet to stop the ships at Dover. A relay of couriers forwarded this dispatch. It had the endorsement "haste" repeated ten times, along with the addition of "post haste" and "all speed". The couriers broke all speed records. By noon the messengers reached Bishopsgate; by four in the afternoon they were at Dartford. Two hours later they reached Rochester, and by three the next morning they reached Sandwich. They finally overtook the ships at Tilbury Hope, on the left bank of the Thames. The Privy Council dispatched Edward Watkins to administer to all the pilgrims the oath of supremacy, containing the clauses repugnant to Catholics. When Watkins and his accomplices caught up with the ships, they forced all on board to take the oath. Watkins later reported to the Council that all the one hundred twenty-eight on board had done so. On October 19 Secretary Coke informed Admiral Pennington that the company had taken the required oath of allegiance. The ships finally got out of the Thames into the English Channel and encircled Margate and Ramsgate. Passing through the Straits of Dover, they hugged the southern shore of England until they reached Cowes on the northern coast of the Isle of Wright. It was there that the pioneer band of Catholics had arranged to join the company, swelling the number of the pilgrims to over two hundred. Included among the new additions were three Jesuits, Father Andrew White, Father John Altham and Brother Thomas Gervase. They had waited until the ships had left that mainland to avoid having to take the oath of supremacy.

On November 15, while the tides and unfavorable winds forced further delay, Lord Baltimore drew up elaborate instructions for the voyage. To prevent conflict among the passengers, he instructed his fellow Catholics to practice their religion as privately as they could. They were not to discuss religion so as not to give anyone offense. The governor and the commissioners were to treat the Protestants with as much mildness and favor as justice would permit. They were to observe the same policy when they reached land as well as during the voyage.

When the feast of St. Cecilia finally dawned all was in readiness. About ten in the morning the two small ships set sail. All the delays had forced them to journey with winter approaching. As they headed out of the harbor they made for the needles, a formation of rocks at the south end of the Isle of Wright. Seasoned sailors feared them because of their sharp rocks and dangerous tides.. The lack of wind, however, forced them to anchor for the night at Yarmouth. They were still not out of danger. The crew was doing everything in their power to force another delay. They were hoping that the Privy Council in London would block the voyage at the last minute. That night the wind blew so fiercely that a French bark broke from her moorings. She crashed with full force against the Dove, causing her to lose her anchor. This in turn forced the captain to take the Dove to sea, since without an anchor it was too dangerous to remain in the crowded port. This, in turn, forced the Ark to set sail, otherwise the two vessels would separate. Father White saw in these events the hand of God frustrating the plot of the mariners.

The two ships arrived at Hurste Castle the following morning at ten o’clock in the morning. The castle saluted them with cannon fire as they passed the garrison. At long last they were on their way. Shortly after leaving port the two vessels met another English ship, the Dragon, a six hundred ton merchantship from London. The two larger ships engaged in a friendly race for an hour, abetted by the blowing of trumpets. The smaller Ark was gaining the upper hand when the captain decided to fall back so as not to separate from the smaller and slower Dove.

The weather was fine for sailing all day Sunday as well as the following day until evening. Then the wind suddenly shifted round to the north. A terrible storm arose that drove the Dragon back on her course. Those on board the Ark could see that she turned back to seek shelter in a port. Those on board the Dove began to lose confidence in her strength, since she was the smaller vessel. They sailed near the Ark to say that, if they feared shipwreck, they would signal it by hanging lights from the masthead. Meanwhile, the Ark continued onward. She had a very skillful captain in Robert Wintour. He was confident that no one could build a better ship of wood and iron. Though he too could have returned to port, he chose to struggle with the winds, although he admitted that it was the more dangerous course. The straits were narrow, and the wind could drive them against the Irish coast. It was notorious for its hidden rocks and frequent shipwrecks. The captain, however, had a bold spirit and wanted to test the strength of the new ship that he was managing for the first time. Danger was nearer at hand than they thought. The winds were increasing and the sea was growing more boisterous. Those on the Ark could see the pinnace in the distance showing two lights at her mast-head. Then suddenly she passed out of sight. They were certain the Dove had perished, swallowed by the deep whirlpools. Shaken but undaunted, the Ark headed for the New World alone.

The next three days the weather was comparably calm. The Ark was making progress on her solitary journey. It proved, however, to be only the calm before the real storm. On the following day, Friday, November 29, the winds changed to the southeast. Toward evening, a storm erupted, driving before it thick black clouds. It was so fierce that it seemed that the waves would swallow the ship at any moment. The weather was no more promising the next day, the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle.

All through the night the storm raged. The crew lost all control over the ship. She was at the mercy of the wind and waves. In the midst of the hurricane the Catholics on board turned to prayer. They invoked the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of Saint Ignatius, the patron saint of Maryland, Saint Michael, and all its guardian angels. Each one hastened to purge his soul by the Sacrament of Penance. These events greatly affected Father White too. Fearing shipwreak and death, he prayed more fervently than usual that night. He thought about why he had undertaken this perilous journey, and the awareness that they were risking their lives to evangelize for the kingdom of God comforted him. He had so firm a conviction that God would deliver them, not only from this storm, but from everything else during that voyage, that all doubt or fear disappeared. Scarcely had he finished praying in this fashion, when the sailors observed that the storm was abating. That news brought him to a new frame of mind, filling him with great joy and admiration. He understood much more clearly the greatness of God’s love towards the people of Maryland.

The Ark continued south along the coast of Spain and Portugal, heading for the Canary Islands. Passing the Straits of Gibraltar and the Maderas, it encountered the full force of the favorable trade winds, blowing south and southwest. Sailing along they met three ships bigger than theirs. They were three leagues to the West, and headed, they thought, straight toward them. Fearing they might be pirates, some on board the Ark imprudently wanted the captain to sail towards them to make an attack. He refused by saying he could not justify such a risk to the owners of the ship. Happily, the ships on the horizon turned out to be merchants bound for the Canary Islands who feared the Ppilgrims as much as they had feared the merchants.. Once they had passed the Ark sailed on to the Canary Islands. After a brief stay there, she was on her way again.

The crossing of the Atlantic was uneventfully for the most part. The only fear the Ppilgrims had was from calms, which could continue for weeks at a time. From the day they sailed till Christmas their only sickness had been sea-sickness. Then to celebrate the holy day they served wine to all on board. Some drank so immoderately that the next day thirty people were sick with fevers. About a dozen subsequently died, including Nicholas Fairfax, one of the Catholic adventurers, and James Barefoot, a servant of Lord Baltimore.

The governor wanted to make a straight run to Virginia. He was afraid that they might arrive too late for the planting season. However the commissioners and the gentlemen adventurers who had made a financial investment in the journey prevailed upon him to head for the Island of Bona Vista, the eastern most of the Cape Verde Islands. They wanted to take on supplies of salt. They had not gone a full two hundred miles, when the governor checked the state of the provisions with the purser. It was then that he realized that by making this stop they would use up all the provisions they would need when they landed. So he ordered the captain to sail directly to St. Christopher’s. On the way those in charge began to think about when they were likely to arrive in Maryland. They realized that they would need seed corn for planting. For a third time the Ark changed course and this time headed for Barbados instead to procure the seed corn.

The pilgrims arrived at Barbados on January 3, 1634, only to discover the hand of God’s providence had again been at work. They learnt that the Spanish fleet was at Bona Vista to keep all foreign ships from obtaining salt. The island lay below the Tropic of Cancer, an area that the Spanish claimed as their own. The Spanish fleet was there to capture any foreign vessel that dared to sail in those waters.

This was not the only danger they had escaped. The very day they arrived they found the island occupied by a force of eight hundred armed men. The slaves on the island had revolted. Hoping to obtain their liberty, they had planned to kill their masters, take the first ship that came along and set sailing. That first ship would have been the Ark. A slave who was afraid to join in the plot revealed the plans to the authorities. They quickly arrested the ring leaders, two brothers named Weston. The authorities executed one of them, but some friends saved the other.

The governor of the island was Captain Henry Hawley, the brother of Jerome Hawley, one of the pilgrims. This gave them a ready entree. Up to this point those on the Ark journeyed alone thinking the Dove had perished at sea during the first storm. To their utter disbelief one day the colonists beheld the Dove sailing into the harbor. It was like the resurrection from the dead. The Dove had not perished after all. Instead she had just turned back to seek shelter in the Scilly Isles. From there she set sail again, this time in the company of the Dragon, the large merchant ship that had passed the Ark during those first few days of the voyage.

This reunion delayed the sailing schedule of the Ark, but the finger of God was here again. A fleet of five Spanish ships had attacked two small English barks and two or three Dutch ships at the port of St. Christopher’s at the very time the Ark had planned to be there. By delaying them and keeping them there till the Spanish ships left, God had preserved them from yet another danger. If the Ark and Dove had come as previously planned, there would have been four English barks and not two to feel the sting of the Spanish ordinance. It is likely that they would have been in the thick of the battle, having a ship so well gunned and manned. Whether they would have won or lost, any conflict would certainly have damaged the ships. The repairs required would have delayed them beyond the time needed to plant a crop. Any delay would have been disastrous. The pilgrims were confident that God who had accompanied and destined them for the spiritual good of Maryland had preserved them from danger again.

On January 24, the two ships, now reunited, set sail from Barbados. By noon of the following day they reached St. Lucia’s. Several hours later, around four in the afternoon, they arrived in Martinique where they dropped anchor and traded with the Indians. Then, pushing on, they reached Guadeloupe by dawn the following day. By noon they were at Monserat. There they found a plantation of Irish Catholics whom the Virginians had not allowed to live with them because of their religion. The next day they came to the Island of Nevis, where they stayed a day. The following day they arrived at nearby St. Christopher’s where they stayed ten days. Sir Thomas Waroner, governor, Captain Jefferson, Lieutenant Corronell, and two Catholics, Captain Caverley and Captain Pellam, received them cordially. The governor of the French colony in the same island did the same for Father White.

After the initial two storms, for the three months that they were at sea, the weather was perfect for sailing, not one hour of bad weather. The sailors remarked that they had never had so calm a voyage. The three months included the time spent at Barbados and St. Christopher’s. They were at sea only seven weeks and two days, which they considered a speedy passage.

The next stop was Virginia. The Pilgrims feared that it would be a difficult and dangerous stop. Even though they carried the king’s letters to the Governor of Virginia, Sir John Harvey, they anticipated little from the Virginians but blows. They knew that the governor was favorable to Lord Baltimore and his enterprise. Still the pilgrims feared that his hostile council intimated him to the point where his sympathy would do them little good.

They arrived at Point Comfort about February 27. Here the pilgrims had their first encounter with Captain William Claiborne. Three years earlier he had established a trading outpost on Kent Island, an area that Lord Baltimore was now claiming for his own. Claiborne warned them that the Indians were all in arms, ready to resist them. They had heard a rumor that six Spanish ships were coming to destroy them all. The Maryland pilgrim took Captain Claiborne’s concern with more than a grain of salt. They thought privately that it was more likely that the good captain was the real source of the rumors. They suspected him of trying to sow the seeds of mistrust between themselves and the Indians right from the beginning.

They presented the king’s letters and Lord Baltimore’s gifts to the governor. This made him show them the best usage the place afforded. He promised to furnish them with all manner of provisions for their plantation. In so doing, the governor acted much against his council’s will. Father White thought his motive might be to receive Lord Baltimore's help to recover a great deal of money due to him from the exchequer. They stayed there eight or nine days not without imminent danger, under command of the castle.

From there the Ark and the Dove pressed on to Maryland. They reached the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay about March 8. Turning their ships north, they saileding up the bay, some ten leagues (thirty Italian miles) wide. As they went along they measured the depth. It was four, five, and six fathoms deep; and abounded in fish. They could scarcely imagine finding a more beautiful sheet of water. Yet, as they reached the mouth of the Potomac River, their amazement grew even more. Never had they beheld a larger or more beautiful river. The Thames seemed a mere rivulet in comparison with it. There were no swamps to disfigure it. As they moved up the bay and river they gave names to the various points of interest. At the mouth of the river they consecrated the southern promontory, with the name of St. Gregory. They named the northern one St. Michael’s, in honor of all the angels. Just at the mouth of the river they observed armed natives on the shore. That night fires blazed through the whole country. The Indians had never seen such a large ship. They sent messengers in all directions to report that a canoe as big as an island had arrived. It had as many men as there were trees in the woods. The pilgrims pushed on to Heron’s Islands, so called from the birds that abounded there. The first island they reached they called St. Clement’s Island. Due to its sloping shore, there is no way to land except by wading. Some of the women left the ship in a small boat to do the washing. They capsized the boat and almost drowned. In the process they lost a large part of Father White’s linen clothes, no small loss in those parts.

It was on St. Clement’s Island, on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, that the Catholic community celebrated Mass for the first time in English America. The governor and his associates and the other Catholics shouldered a great cross they had fashioned out of a tree. Carrying it to the appointed place, they erected it as a trophy to Christ, the Savior. On bended knees they humbly recited the litanies of the Holy Cross with great devotion.

The governor's first priority was to put relations with the Indians on a friendly basis, and to put their fears and the rumors to rest.. He was also eager to secure a favorable site for the settlement. So when the governor learned that many native chiefs were subject to the Tayac of the Piscataways, he decided to visit him to explain the purpose for their coming. . The tayac had a very extensive domain. It stretched about one hundred and thirty miles. All the local chieftains were his subjects. By gaining his good will, Calvert hoped to secure an easier access to the others. Leaving Father White with the cargo on St. Clement’s Island, the sailed the Dove farther up the Potomac. When he learned that the natives had fled inland, he went on to Potomac, a settlement that took its name from the river. The young chief’s uncle named Archihu acted as his guardian and regent. A sober and discreet man, he willingly listened to Father Altham who was accompanying the governor. Henry Fleet, a Protestant trader from Virginia who had the acquired the confidence of the natives, interpreted for them. The governor had chosen him to act as an interpreter for more than one reason. He wanted to use Fleet's known relationship to Claiborne to reassure the natives that the rumors they had heard were not true. He suspected that Fleet might have had a hand in spreading those rumors.

Their arrival pleased Archihu very much once he realized that they had come with peaceful intentions. As far as he could through the interpreter, Altham explained the errors of the heathen, Archilu would, every little while, acknowledge his own. He insisted the English only desired to impart civilized instruction to his people, to show them the way to heaven, and to share with them the advantages of distant countries. As Father Altham could not stop for further instruction then, he promised that he would return before very long. "That is just what I wish," said Archihu, "we will eat at the same table; my followers too shall go to hunt for you, and we will have all things in common."

From there they went to Piscataway, the seat of the tayac. His name was Chitomachen. Five hundred bowmen came to meet them at the water side. The tayac had less fear then the rest. He came aboard the Dove by himself. Through the hospitality he received he realized that they had come with good intentions. As a result he gave them permission to settle where they pleased. While the tayac was on aboard, his men stayed by the water side. Some feared treason, until the pilgrims assured them otherwise through interpreters..

While the governor was on his mission, Father White was busy on St. Clement’s Island trying to dispel whatever fears the native peoples there might have. Gradually they began to lose their fear and came to the make-shift guard house, and sometimes aboard the ship. They wondered where that tree grew from which the pilgrims had hewn such a big canoe. They assumed that it was all of one piece, just like theirs. The cannons caused them to tremble. They thought they were more fearful than any thunder they had ever heard.

Once Governor Calvert had reassured the tayac and obtained his cooperation, the Pilgrims went looking for a place to settle permanently. Returning from Piscataway, they followed Fleet’s directions and went some nine or ten leagues lower in the Potomac River. There they discovered a smaller river flowing into it on the north side. It was as big as the Thames. They named it the St. George’s River. This river had two excellent bays. They estimated that one was big enough to harbor three hundred ships of a thousand tons each with very great safety. This one they called St. George’s bay.

The other bay was farther up the river. On its shores the colonists found an Indian village named Yoacomaco. Meeting with the inhabitants under a mulberry tree on shore, the pilgrims discovered that God had already gone before them. The native people were quite willing to enter into an alliance with them. What made them so willing was the harassment by a war-like tribe called the Susquahannocks. They were attacking the Yoacomacos and continually laying waste their country. The Yoacomacos saw the Ppilgrims as potential allies who could protect them in their struggles with the Susquahannocks. By living with the English who had plenty of guns and cannons, the Yoacomacos could assure themselves of greater safety.

To avoid all occasion of dislike, and the appearance of wrong, the Ppilgrims bought an area of thirty miles for their settlement. They called the area Augusta Carolina. They renamed the village St. Mary’s City. In exchange for surrendering it, they gave the Yoacomacos axes, hoes, cloth and hatchets. The Ppilgrims agreed that some natives would stay with them for a year. Then the land would be theirs alone.

The Pilgrims could only marvel at the reversal. Here was a nation that only a few days before was in arms against them and their enterprise. Within days they yielded themselves like lambs. They were glad for the company of the English, giving them houses, land, and living for a trifle. The Ppilgrims could only conclude that the finger of God was at work. Not only had He disposed things very favorably for those who were to evangelize, but He also disposed the native peoples to see the Ppilgrims as their benefactors.

On March 27, the entire company returned to the new site, and with appropriate ceremony, began the Maryland Mission. The next day they began to build a fort and a store-house. While building, they lived aboard the ship. They had not been there many days before the governor of Virginia arrived to visit them. Some native chiefs, and many other natives from various areas came to see them. One of those visiting the governor was Maquacomen, the Werowance of Patuxent, a native settlement some sixteen miles to the north on the Patuxent River. When he entered the great cabin of the ship, he sat between the two governors. A Patuxent Indian who came with the chief entered the cabin. He saw his chief sitting between the two governors. Fearing foul play, he started back, ready to leap overboard. The settlers could not persuade him to come into the cabin, until the chief himself came out to reassure him. The man reacted in this way because he remembered how the English of Virginia had once before taken the same chief prisoner.

After they had finished the storehouse, and unloaded the ship, Governor Calvert thought it fit to bring the colors on shore. The gentlemen of the company and the rest of the servants in arms lined up in attendance. They received the colors with a volley of shot, which the ordinance from the ships answered. The chiefs of Patuxent and Yoacomaco, along with many other Indians, were present for the ceremony. The chief of Patuxent took the occasion to advise the Indians of Yoacomaco to be careful to keep the alliance that they had made with the English. He stayed with them several days, and used many Indian compliments. When he was leaving, he said to the governor: "I love the English so well, that if they should go about to kill me, if I had but so much breath as to speak, I would command the people, not to revenge my death; for I know they would not do such a thing, except it were through my own fault."

One of the natives agreed to give his hogan to the two priests. They fixed it up and used it as a chapel, celebrating Mass there. It became the first chapel in Maryland. Judging from the description of hogans, it would have been about twenty feet long, ten feet high, semi-oval in form, with a place about half a yard square open at the top to let in the light and to let out the smoke. The Indians built their fire after the manner of ancient halls of England, in the middle of the house. They slept around the fire on mats, spread on a low scaffold eighteen inches from the ground..

Once established at St. Mary’s City, Father White and Father Altham were not content with simply looking after the spiritual needs of the English settlers. They wanted to evangelize the natives immediately. The first problem was to master the language so that they could communicate directly with the native peoples and learn their religious beliefs. The Jesuits were unable to trust the traders from Virginia who were all Protestants. Father Altham made some headway with devising a writing system for these new languages. Together with Cyprian Thorowgood, a trader with the natives, he ascertained that they acknowledged one god of heaven, whom they called their god. They considered it shameful to offend so good a god. They did not give external honor to him, but used all their might to appease an Okee, a demonic spirit, for fear he would harm them. Father White heard that they also adored corn and fire, as gods very beneficial to man's nature. In the Matchcomaco, or temple of the Patuxents, some English traders had seen the natives conducting some religious ceremony. On the appointed day, the towns about met together, and built a great fire. Then standing around it, the natives lifted up their hands to heaven crying Taho Taho. After this they produced a bag of Poate, which was their name for tobacco, together with a great tobacco pipe, and carried it around the fire. A young man followed it, crying Taho Taho, with great variety of bodily gestures. Then they filled the pipe, and every one smoked from it. The then exhaled the smoke on all parts of their bodies, to sanctify themselves for the service of their god. This was the most that the Jesuits had been able to learn. They had only been able to converse with the natives for about a month, but thought that they might have some tradition of Noah and his flood.

Governor Calvert hampered their first attempts to learn more about the native beliefs by not permitting them to live among the Indians. He feared that they might prove hostile towards the English settlers. He did not wish to give the natives an opportunity to take hostages. Consequently, the first missionary labors the Jesuits undertook were among those who lived near the settlement at Saint Mary’s City, on the Patuxent River, about sixteen miles north of the city. The missionaries chafed under these restrictions. They were eager to make contact and to learn the native languages. They found this a difficult task since it was unwritten. They had to invent their own writing system.

On April 23, 1635, Robert Clarke, was sailing the good ship St. Margaret, a boat belonging to the Jesuits, on a trading expedition to the Indians on the Eastern Shore. The St. Helen, under the command of Thomas Cornwaleys, a prominent Catholic in the colony, accompanied him. Governor Calvert had sent them to defend Maryland’s territorial claims against Virginians under the command of William Claiborne. The Marylanders had captured a pinnace belonging to Virginian traders operating in Maryland waters without a Maryland license. To retaliate Claiborne armed a shallop named the Cockatrice. It had a crew of thirty men under the command of his lieutenant, Ratcliffe Warren. Claiborne had commissioned him to seize any vessel belonging to Maryland. The two groups met on the Pocomoke River on the Eastern Shore. Lieut. Warren, Richard Hancock, and others, attacked them with guns, pistols, swords, and other weapons. In the melee, William Ashmore, an apprentice who had come over with Father White, was killed. Cornwaleys returned fire, killing Warren and two others. The Cockatrice quickly surrendered.

The Annual Letter 1635 mentions that there were five Jesuits in Maryland that year, three priests and two assistants. Besides Fathers White and Altham, the third priest mentioned is believed to have been Father Timothy Hayes who returned to England in 1636 after only a year in the colony. Father Francis Rogers and Brother John Wood joined their fellow Jesuits the same year.

In the Spring of 1637 Father Thomas Copley, S.J., set sail for Maryland in the company of Father John Knowles, S.J.. Copley was the son of Sir Thomas Copley, of Gatton, Surrey, heir to an English barony. His father had become a Catholic, only to be banished to exile in Spain where the future Jesuit was born in 1594. The younger Copley served as the Jesuit procurator in England in charge of the finances of the province. He had helped Father White prepare for the voyage. Now Copley was to have a chance to be a part of mission first-hand. Together with the young and eager Father Knowles, Copley brought with him nineteen indentured servants. When he arrived, Father Copley promptly took charge of the financial affairs of the Mission. On August 8, 1637, he filed a claim for six thousand acres based on the number of settlers that the Jesuits had brought over before he arrived. Along with the claim for six thousand acres, Father Copley also filed another claim for four thousand acres based on the settlers that he had brought over with him. These claims apparently resulted in the Jesuits' obtaining title to the farm at St. Inigoes. It had first been assigned to Richard Gerard, one of the original gentlemen settlers who returned to England around this time. This farm lies about five miles south of Saint Mary’s City between the Saint Inigoes Creek and the St. Mary’s River. Shortly after the purchase Father Copley had a farmhouse built on the property. It came to be called St. Inigoes House.. William Lewis was the overseer for St. Inigoes.

About this time the Jesuits received a second manor from Maquacomen, the Chief of the Patuxents. He had received them kindly, and gave them land as a gift. They used it to established a mission on the Patuxent. The Fathers fenced off a portion of the land, erected a house and other farm buildings, and called the place Conception Manor. They rented out sections of the land to tenants. Robert Clarke served as the overseer. The manor also retained its Indian name, Mattapany. The surrounding area was called Mattapany Hundred.

In September 1637, an epidemic -- possibly of yellow fever -- broke out in the colony and many died. Among them were Brother Thomas Gervase, the faithful helper of Father White, and the newly arrived Father Knowles. In the province for only about two months, Father Knowles, died a victim of the epidemic on September 24, 1637.

The following November 28, the new Secretary of the Province, Mr. John Lewger, along with his wife, and son arrived in the harbor of Saint Mary’s City aboard the Unity. Lewger was a former Anglican minister who had become a Catholic before coming to the colony as Lord Baltimore’s secretary. Lewger brought with him from England draft laws which Lord Baltimore hoped would win the approval of the Assembly.

The Maryland Assembly met on January 25, 1638, to consider the proprietor’s proposals and noted that Father Copley, Father White, and Father Altham, of St. Mary’s Hundred, had not responded to the writs to attend the meeting. Their business agent, Robert Clarke, explained that their absence was due to sickness. The Assembly excused them. It appears that the sickness was of a diplomatic kind. The Jesuits felt that it was not fit that they should be there in person. William Lewis, the overseer of St. Inigoes Manor, also attended with the proxies of the Catholic freeholders who for one reason or another did not attend.

The session lasted until March 1638, and not only rejected the proposed laws, but also resisted Lord Baltimore’s attempt to initiate legislation. The Assembly did, however, pass a series of acts that it sent to Lord Baltimore in England for his approval.

In many ways Lord Baltimore undertook his policy of separation of church and state without thinking through all the practicalities. The laws that the Assembly had proposed raised a series of practical questions about how the separation of Church and State would work. On April 3, 1638, after the Assembly adjourned, Father Copley wrote to Lord Baltimore to outline the impact the proposed laws would have on the fledging Maryland Mission. He objected to the new laws the Assembly proposed which would limit the Jesuits to only one manor. Since they already had two, they would then have to choose which manor they wanted to retain. Should their choice prove unsuitable, what they already had might be taken from them. Then they would have to start all over again. Either they must lose all their building, all their clearing, all their enclosures, and all their tenants, or else be forced to sit as freeholders in the Assembly and to pay one barrel of corn for every hundred acres. This did not take into account that it was still a struggle for them to get bread. If they chose Mattapany first, then they were sure to lose St. Inigoes Manor, even though they had bought it for a high price. Father Copley felt that if they permitted the precedent that Assemblies could alter property rights, no one would ever be sure of what he had. The man who could get the most proxies in every Assembly would be able to dispose of anyone else’s estate in any way he pleased. Father Copley insisted that it was most unlawful for civil authorities to treat the Church in this fashion. He also felt that it was wrong for ecclesiastical persons to permit it to happen.

Regarding their land claims, Father Copley asked Lord Baltimore to agree to let them have as much land as in his earlier letters he had indicated they would need. Even though they did not then claim anything near what was due to them under the conditions of plantation, Father Copley wanted to retain the possibility of filing for additional land if they should need it in the future. He assured Lord Baltimore that if the province should need any land the Jesuits then had at St. Mary’s City to lay out the town, they would be as forward and free with it as any others. However, he believed that if the proprietor left the land in the hands of the Jesuits, they would develop it much sooner then if he were to take possession of it.

The proposed laws would also require that every household head plant two acres of corn. Copley judged this to be an unbearable burden. Already experience had taught the Jesuits that they could not possibly employ half their workers in planting. They must either turn planters themselves, or else be forced to violate this law as more of them came into the province. Unless their numbers also increased, Copley feared that the Jesuits would find themselves violating this law still more.

More importantly, Father Copley objected that nothing was being done to promote the conversion of the natives. He objected to any restriction being placed on the right to trade with the Indians in beaver and corn. Lord Baltimore had promised the first Pilgrims in the conditions of plantation of 1632 that they would have a generous share in this profitable trade. The provincial government, however, soon restricted this right to certain traders by requiring licenses, because, they said, some traders spread false and alarming reports among the natives. The next step was to impose a tax, resulting in a scarcity of corn because people were not planting it. As it became more profitable to the government to employ the men in trading, fewer were left to farm. The people involved with trading then had to buy the corn they needed from a monopoly. Father Copley saw a danger in needing to ask permission to buy corn for bread. If those in authority intended to monopolize the corn, or if for any other reason the Jesuits fell from favor, Copley feared that they would quickly find themselves in a precarious situation. He did not want to live beholding to anyone.

Father Copley wanted to preserve the immunity and privileges the Church enjoyed elsewhere in Europe. He saw this as belonging to her by divine right. He felt that Lewger seemed to defend the opinion that the Church has no such privileges. In order to secure the Church’s position in the future, Copley asked Lord Baltimore to guarantee the Jesuits certain privileges. They wanted the church and their houses to be considered sanctuary from the reaches of the civil law. There already had been a case where the civil authorities in the province had issued warrants against someone living on the Jesuit manors. The sheriff who was once a Catholic, but was now a leading Protestant, wanted Father Copley to surrender him. If he did not, the sheriff threatened to come and arrest him. He made these threats in the presence of the governor himself, as Father Copley recalled.

In addition, Copley wanted the Jesuits, their domestic servants, and at least half of their planting servants to be free from public taxes. This was an even more pressing issue for Copley since, even before Lord Baltimore had confirmed the laws sent to him by the Assembly, Lewger was demanding that Father Copley pay fifteen hundred weight of tobacco towards the building a fort. Copley objected to what he thought was unfair. The whole colony together never had bestowed on him one third of that amount, he said. He thought that out of gratitude for his services, they should exempt them from such taxation. He felt this was only fair, especially since they put no tax upon the colonists, but helped them gratis, and in such a manner that he was sure they could not complain.

Copley wanted the rest of their servants and tenants, though not exempt from civil responsibilities, to be able to fulfill them according to the custom of other Catholic countries so that fallen-away Catholics would not forget the respects which they owe to God and his Church.

Copley wanted exemption for the clergy from military service. Under the proposed laws, if the Jesuits were to own any manors, they would be required to serve in the militia. In addition they would have to provide munitions, and have in every manor fifteen freemen ready for military service. They would also be responsible to maintain them in time of service. Copley felt all of this was unfit for the clerical state.

The Jesuits also wanted the right to come and go freely with their helpers among the natives, without needing the governor’s permission. Lastly, the Jesuits were willing to relinquish many ecclesiastical privileges when they judged it appropriate, but they wanted the discretion to determine when this was appropriate. They were willing to submit to the jurisdiction of civil courts, yet they wanted it understood that they did so as arbitrators and defenders of the church since the question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction was not yet settled in Maryland.

We can easily infer Lord Baltimore's reaction to this letter from the words that he scribbled on the top of the manuscript of the letter: "Herein are demands of very extravagant privileges." Needless to say, no privilegespriviliges were every granted.

For his part, Lord Baltimore had a problem with anyone claiming lands in virtue of a gift of the native peoples. Many young gentry were coming over from England and marrying natives. If he acknowledged native titles to the land, they would claim the entire colony out from under him. Father Copley understood the delicate position in which Lord Baltimore found himself. Copley was willing to agree to take no further land except under Lord Baltimore’s title. Yet he foresaw the possibility that his restriction could work a hardship in the future. The Jesuits would not be able to accept any land from any converted native chief, even a small a plot sufficient to build a church or a house.

Baltimore, however, attempted to work out an agreement with the provincial in England. To this end he proposed that the Jesuits agree to the following "Four Points":

1.) Not to trade with the Indians without his permission;

2.) Not to acquire lands from the natives;

3.) To acknowledge the acts of the Maryland Assembly and to be bound by them;

4.) To be subject to the jurisdiction of civil courts.

Lord Baltimore wrote to John Lewger to inform him of these points and outlined his expectation of how the Jesuits should conduct themselves regarding the proprietor’s rights and the provincial government.

The Jesuits looked upon the trade with the Indians as a crucial part of their evangelizing efforts. these commercial ties gave them an opportunity to meet the Indians and develop trust so that they could evangelize them. With this in mind the Jesuits imported various items from Europe for this trade. Around this time a shipment of clothes, hatchets, knives, and hoes arrived for Father Copley on board the St. Marc. The trade in beaver also helped the Jesuits defray the expenses of their boat, the St. Margaret, that they needed for their missionary activities. A sizable boat, she was big enough able to carry one hundred barrels of corn. The Fathers wanted to be able to use it commercially to pay the expenses such a boat entailed when they were not using it for the evangelization. At the time that the Assembly was meeting, Cyprian Thorowgood was using the St. Margaret to trade some forty yards of cloth for beavers with the Indians. On May 13, Cyprian Thorowgood returned from his trading expedition on the St. Margaret and recorded one hundred pounds of beaver traded since February 10.

While these negotiations were going on in England, the Fathers in the Province were busy with the spiritual development of the Mission. In the Annual Letter of 1638, the Fathers reported that the civil authorities had not yet allowed them to dwell among the natives. Their reluctance was due to the prevailing sickness among the settlers as well as to the hostile disposition shown them by the natives. They had recently murdered a settler who had gone amongst them for the sake of trade. They had also entered into a conspiracy against the entire colony. In spite of all these difficulties the Jesuits still hoped that one of them would shortly secure a station among the natives. Meanwhile, they devoted themselves more zealously to the English, and, since there were Protestants as well as Catholics in the colony, they labored for both. God had blessed their labors, they reported. They had reconciled to the Catholic Church nearly all the Protestants who came from England in 1638 as well as many others.

The same letter also reports that the attendance of the sacraments in Maryland was so large, that it was not greater among the faithful in Europe, in proportion to their numbers. The priests catechized all groups, beginners to the more advanced. They preached every Sunday and almost every feast day. They assisted the sick and the dying so that no one died without the sacraments. Though many died, the Jesuits baptized an even greater number.

In 1638 Father Rogers and Brother Wood returned to England. Father Ferdinand Poulton, S.J., arrived to be the new Superior of the Maryland Mission. The coming of Father Poulton did not resolve the impasse between the Jesuits and the Lord Proprietor. Both sides, however, seemed eager to avoid making matters worse. That same year Jerome Hawley, a cousin of Lord Baltimore and one of the original Ppilgrims died. He owed his Lordship the amount of £254 and Father Copley £189. While all the other creditors received payment, Father Copley had to be satisfied with £89.

The Jesuits continued to use the improvised hogan as a chapel until sometime between 1636 and 1638. Around that time they replaced it with a wooden chapel built on the chapel land in St. Mary’s City.

On January 5, 1639, John Lewger wrote to Lord Baltimore to inform him of his dealings with the Jesuits. Before writing, he had shown Father Poulton the instructions Lord Baltimore had sent from England regarding the way the Jesuits should conduct themselves regarding the proprietor’s rights and the provincial government. In that meeting Lewger got the impression that Father Poulton had not received any instructions from his superiors in England in this regard. Father Poulton could hardly believe that Lord Baltimore was correct when he asserted that the Jesuit provincial, Father Henry More, S.J. or any other for that matter, had agreed to Lord Baltimore’s contention that a Catholic magistrate may in discretion proceed in Maryland as well intentioned magistrates did in England. Nevertheless, Father Poulton had asked Lewger for a written copy of what Lord Baltimore had written. The Jesuits want to conform themselves to it in all points in so far as their conscience would allow. For his part, Lewger appears to have been anxious to resolve the issue completely. He was not looking for a fight with the Jesuits and hoped that there would be no further difficulties, where either party could avoid them. Indeed, he welcomed any offer from the Jesuit side to reconcile with them. In his letter to Lord Baltimore Lewger expressed regret for any past errors of which he or the governor might have been guilty. He was confident, however, that neither he nor any official of the provincial administration had violated any rights of the Jesuits. In the same letter Lewger told Lord Baltimore that the trade of beaver was now wholly in the hand of the governor and of Captain Cornwaleys. Lord Baltimore had the satisfaction of knowing that at least he had prevailed on this point.

Due to the governor’s initial reluctance to permit the Jesuits to live among the natives, the first missionary labors the Jesuits undertook were among those who lived near the settlement at Saint Mary’s City, on the Patuxent River, about sixteen miles north of the city. The Indians lived a simple life. Their chiefs had absolute power of life and death over their people, and in certain prerogatives of honor and wealth excelled others. Nevertheless in personal appearances they were scarcely different from anyone else. The only peculiarity that distinguished a chief was some badge; either a collar made of a rude jewel, or a belt, or a cloak. Often shells in circular rows decorated it. Their kingdoms were little more than a single village and the adjacent country.

In 1639 Governor Calvert finally permitted the Fathers to live on a permanent basis with the Indians. Immediately Father Altham went off to Kent Island. Father White went to Mattapany in hopes of converting Maquacomen. He had bestowed much labor and time for his conversion. Everyone was praying for it. At the beginning there were indications that it might happen. The Jesuits hoped that his example would influence the others positively. Some of the Patuxent Indians had already joined the Catholic Church. The chief himself appeared abundantly instructed in an understanding of the faith, when he began to procrastinate. Then by degrees he grew indifferent. Finally he broke off any pretense of desiring baptism. He also gave clear indications of a mind entirely alienated from the whole colony. This alarmed the governor. After making prudent inquiries, he decided to heed his advisors and recalled Father White from the hospitality of the chief. Calvert was afraid that the chief might take Father White as a hostage if there were some trouble. Despairing of the conversion of Maquacomen, Father White went to Kittamaquindi in June of 1639 to preach to the Piscataways.

Conception Manor turned out to be a two-edged sword. This farm was a great help in providing food and other supplies necessary to support the Maryland Mission. The Jesuits also intended to use it as the site for a college. The General had written to them that he would approve of a college and sent men to staff it when the plans matured. However, the manor also sparked a bitter dispute with Lord Baltimore that did more than anything else up to this point to destroy the Mission. By accepting the gift of Mattapany from Maquacomen and attempting to validate the Indian title, the Jesuits placed Lord Baltimore in a difficult position. Most of the gentry who had come over to the colony from England were land-hungry younger sons, whose eldest brothers had inherited their fathers’ estates in England. These men would have followed the example of Giles Brent. who married the Indian ward of his sister, Margaret Brent, and unsuccessfully demanded title to her lands. Through purchases or gifts from the Indians they would soon have obtained huge tracts of land and gradually dispossessed Lord Baltimore himself, if he had not taken steps to prevent it. As a consequence, after the Jesuits had made their improvements on Conception Manor, Lord Baltimore refused to recognize their legal title to it. The Jesuits, for their part, objected to treatment that seemed to them decidedly unfair, and the conflict deepened.

In 1639 the Jesuits had three manors on the Patuxent surveyed. In addition to Conception Manor, the Jesuits lay claim to St. Leonard’s Manor on the east side of the Patuxent and St. Gregory’s Manor on the west side of the Patuxent.

After the Assembly of 1639, Father Copley wrote to the General in Rome on May 14 to describe the difficult situation in which they found themselves in Maryland. In his response, dated September 3, 1639, the General firmly supported his position. The General was encouraged by the tranquillity that followed the rejection of the laws by the delegates. He hoped that Lord Baltimore, desiring to be reckoned a Catholic, would not move against ecclesiastics on the lanrd question without referring the matter to the Pope.

Writing to the English provincial, Father Edward Knott, S.J., the General expressed a similar concern. He too regarded the situation created by the new laws as critical. He favored taking a stand defending the rights of the Church, rather than submitting to the clamors of popular cupidity or the fear of unpopularity. He thought that it would be worth the trouble to see if the Jesuits could persuade Lord Baltimore to submit the matter to the Holy See for adjudication.

While all this was going on, the evangelization of the native people was making progress. At Piscataway Father White found the breakthrough that he had been seeking. In June 1639, Chitomachen, the Tayac of the Piscataways, received Father White with great openness. From the very beginning he insisted that he should accept no other hospitality than that of his palace. The queen was no less hospitable to Father White. With her own hands, she prepared meat and baked bread for him with no less care than labor.

Father White claimed that this remarkable affection that the tayac had for him stemmed from two dreams. One dream appeared to the mind of Uwanno, the twin brother of the tayac, who ruled before him, and whom he slew. For in his sleep he appeared to see Father White and Father Altham standing before him. He heard a voice telling him these were the men who truly loved him with all his tribe. They were bringing those blessings by which he could be happy, if he desired it. These unknown men made such an impression on him that he never forgot them. When he first saw the two Jesuits walking toward him, he immediately recognized them as the men in his dream. He customarily called Father White his father. He wanted him to take on the instruction of his son for seven years if he should ever have one. This was all the more remarkable because the natives were very fond of children and seldom let them go from their embrace. The other dream, which he frequently related, occurred to the tTayac. His father, deceased some time before, appeared before his eyes. A god of a dim color, whom he worshipped, accompanied him and was beseeching him not to desert him. At a short distance stood the Englishman, Justinian Snow, a stout opponent of the Jesuits, accompanied by a hideous god. Finally, in another direction, the governor of the colony and Father White appeared. A god also accompanied him, but this one was much more beautiful. He excelled the unstained snow in whiteness, and seemed gently to beckon the tayac to him. From that time on, the tayac treated both the governor and Father White with the greatest affection.

Not long after Father White arrived, the tayac fell gravely ill. When forty conjurers had in vain tried every remedy, Father White, with permission of the sick man, administered medicine. It was a certain powder of known efficacy mixed with holy water. A day later, by the assistance of the boy whom he had with him, Father White opened one of the tayac’s veins for blood-letting. Gradually, the sick man began to grow better, and soon recovered fully. When he was well, he decided to become a Christian. In this he was not alone. His wife and two daughters decided to do the same. Father White promptly began to instruct them. For their part, they eagerly received the Faith. Once the light of heaven poured upon them, they quickly forsook their former way of life. The tayac exchanged the skins which he had worn up to then for clothes in the English style. He also made an effort to learn English. He put away his concubines, and lived content with one wife. He did this, he said, to have more leisure to pray. He abstained from meat on the days the Church forbade it. He thought anyone who did not fast ought to be called a bad Christian. He greatly delighted in spiritual conversation, and seemed to esteem earthly wealth as nothing in comparison with heavenly. Once Governor Calvert was explaining to him what great advantages he could derive from trade with the English. The tayac told him that he considered these things trifling when compared with the one advantage he received from the English. Through their testimony he had arrived at the true knowledge of the one God. In his eyes there was nothing more important.

The tayac continued to give signs of faith. On one occasion he held a convention of the empire. There was a crowded assembly of the chiefs and a circle of the common people in attendance. Father White and some of the English where present when the tayac publicly stated that he and his family were determined to renounce their former superstitions and to take the part of Christ. He was convinced that there was no other God than the God of the Christians. Only by faith in Jesus could the immortal soul of man be saved from death. He now realized that the stones and herbs, which he had once worshipped, were the humblest things created by the almighty God for the use and relief of human life. To give added force to his words, he kicked far away from him a stone that happened to be near. The murmur of applause from the people encouraged the Jesuits.. It indicated to them that the other members of the tribe were also favorable inclined to the Faith. This led them to hope that when the family of the tayac was baptized, the conversion of the whole empire would speedily take place. In the meantime, they heartily thanked God for so joyful a beginning to the evangelization. They were especially encouraged when they daily saw that the native peoples had a contempt for those idols that they had formerly reckoned as gods.

The tayac showed himself willing to evangelize even before his baptism. A certain native man killed an English settler. He was found guilty of the homicide, and sentenced to death. At just that time the tayac, in the company Father White, arrived at St. Mary’s City. The Jesuits exhorted the condemned man to receive baptism. In this way he should provide for the salvation of his immortal soul. When he appeared to show himself open to what they were saying, the Jesuits tried as far as they could to instruct the man further. Language, however, was a barrier. The tayac saw that the Jesuits were struggling to express their thoughts in the native tongue. So, of his own accord, he began to help. Not only did he interpret for the condemned man what Father White had taught him, but he also on his own added some things so appropriate and efficacious that those present were deeply impressed. Finally he drew the prisoner over to the Catholic side. Imbued with the necessary knowledge and washed in the sacred font, the neophyte prepared himself for death. He followed for the most part everything the priests suggested to him. Indeed he appeared to be possessed with so vehement a desire of seeing God, that he seemed almost too eager to have the execution hastened. A remarkable eagerness appeared in his countenance. He fortified himself by the frequent and salutary sign of the cross. He often repeated it submissively. Whatever he did or said did not seem feigned for show. They seemed to come from the inner recesses of his soul. When he came to the place of execution, he inquired, with cheerful countenance, if he was to sing at his departure. When he was told to say the holy names of Jesus and Mary, he cheerfully obeyed. Almost at the same moment the rope cut short his breath. It stilled his voice praising God as it ended his life. The Jesuits buried him in the Catholic cemetery, in the most solemn manner, so that even from this, the native people might understand, that, although Christians may punish the crimes of malefactors, they hold their souls dear, and are easily reconciled to them, if they repent. The Jesuits were certain that such an example of clemency and charity to the deceased, struck them so much the more forcibly, the more it differed from their customs. They were accustomed to serve up their enemies, slain in the most cruel manner, to be feasted on by their friends.

This unnamed native thus became the first Catholic among the Maryland Indians. The example of his new-found faith moved all who saw it. No one, however, was more touched at the sight of the dying neophyte than the tayac himself. He afterwards earnestly insisted that he too should receive the gift of baptism. After carefully considering his request, the Jesuits decided that it would be for the greater glory of God to defer the baptism a little until it could be performed with the greatest solemnity, and in the sight of his countrymen. This would allow his wife and his children to participate in his joy and gladness. The Catholics won over the tayac to their view. He greatly delighted in their prolonged hospitality. When he returned home, Father White went with him. As soon as soon as he arrived home, he commanded his people to prepare the church by the next Pentecost, the time appointed for his baptism.

The Jesuits wanted their confreres in England to share their excitement over the prospect of the conversion of the native peoples. They wrote to tell them that even though the native people appeared more abject than any other peoples in the whole world, the missionaries esteemed them no less precious than the most cultivated Europeans because they had souls ransomed by Christ. They had their faults, although they were not very many, considering the darkness of ignorance, and the unrestrained and wandering mode of life. They had many natural virtues. Above all, they were docile. They suffered troubles patiently, and easily endured contumely and injuries, if they did not involve danger of life. They had few if any idols whom they worshipped, nor was there any class of priests who offered sacrifices. Though there were those who interpreted superstitions, and sold them to the people, not even these were numerous. They acknowledged one god in heaven. Yet even here, they distrusted that they knew in what way he was to be worshipped. As a consequence they gave willing ear to the missionaries. Even though they rarely thought of the immortality of the soul, or of the things that are to be after death, if at any time they met a teacher clearly explaining these things, they showed themselves very attentive. As a result, it was not difficult for the missionaries to get them to think of their souls, so as to be ready to obtain those things which led to salvation. They were readily swayed by reason, and did not obstinately withhold their assent from the truth once it was set forth in a credible way. This natural disposition of the tribe, aided by the seasonable assistance of divine grace, gave the missionaries hope of a most desirable harvest. It encouraged them in the highest degree to continue their labors in this vineyard.

The Jesuits also hoped for converts from among the English settlers. Since there were no other churches or ministers in the colony up to that point, many of the non-Catholics were coming to Mass on the principal festival days of the year. The Jesuits preached and gave expositions of the catechism each Sunday. These attracted not only Catholics, but also very many Protestants. The result was that twelve entered into communion with the Catholic Church that year. The Jesuits continued daily to dispense the sacraments to those who came, as often as circumstances demanded. To those in health, to the sick, to the afflicted and the dying, they strove to be available at all times for counsel, for relief, and assistance of every kind.

As year 1639 came to an end, Father Poulton, the superior, was staying with a coadjutor brother at Conception Manor. It was serving as a sort of storehouse for the mission. Father Altham was living in Kent Island, sixty miles away. Father White was even farther away. He was still living one hundred and twenty miles away at Kittamaquund in the palace of the tayac. For his part, Father Copley remained at St. Mary’s City, looking after the temporal affairs of the Mission. In spite of his many and varied duties, he also found time around 1640 to establish a mission among the English at Newtown and to visit the settlers throughout this area. We find mention of his being at the head of St. Clement’s Bay where he gathered his flock at the home of Luke Gardiner. In addition, it appears that the home of William Bretton also served as a center of Catholic worship. Father White at some point had a chapel at White’s Neck, across from St. Clement’s Island. There was no residence at this mission. This may have been another Indian mission.

On July 5th of 1640, the long hoped for event occurred. Chitomachen entered the Catholic Church together with his family and a number of his tribe. At the same time the queen, with an infant at the breast, the tayac’s little son, along with some of his principal advisors were regenerated in the baptismal font. The tayac was given the baptismal name of Charles. His wife received the name of Mary. Each of the others who were baptized also received Christian names. Governor Calvert, the secretary, Mr. Lewger, and other prominent people of the Province traveled to Piscataway to witness the fruit of Father White's labors. The celebration took place in a little chapel, that the tayac had erected of bark, after the style of the native hogans. No expense was spared to make the celebration as magnificent as possible.

In the afternoon, the tayac and his queen renewed their marriage vows according to the Christian rite. Then the tayac, the governor, the secretary and others lent their shoulders and hands to the task of erecting a great cross. They carried it to its destined place, while Father White and Father Altham lead the way, chanting the Litany of Loreto in honor of the Blessed Virgin".

Unfortunately, both Fathers White and Altham contracted a fever during their stay at Piscataway, and it was necessary for them to return to St. Mary’s City, where Father Altham died on November 5, 1640. Father Poulton took over the mission at Piscataway until Father White’s return in February, 1641. At the invitation of the King of the Anacostians, Father White visited his tribe at Anacostia, converting the king and some of his people. Chitomachen sent his daughter, who was to succeed him, to Saint Mary’s City to be educated among the English. She became the ward of Miss Margaret Brent, the most prominent woman in the colony at that time and a trusted advisor of the governor.

In 1641 Father Roger Rigby, S.J., arrived at St. Mary’s City and was assigned to take Father Poulton’s place at the Patuxent Mission. Father White continued at his station at Piscataway but found time to convert the young Queen of Port Tobacco and most of her subjects, and establish a residence there. The Fathers applied themselves diligently to the study of the Indian language, but found it difficult due to the different dialects. They had to rely on the services of an interpreter. Often they had only a young man whose imperfect understanding of the native language made the Indians laugh. However, with perseverance the Jesuits made progress with the language. Father Rigby was making enough headway that he was hopeful of being able to converse with the natives about the things of daily life. His next goal was to be able to instruct them for baptism. With the aid of an interpreter he prepared a catechism. Father White also prepared a catechism. He is also credited with a vocabulary and grammar, which, unfortunately, are not now extant.

The land issue continued to poison the atmosphere and impede the efforts for the evangelization. Lord Baltimore had instructed his brother, the governor, not to issue any further land grants to the Jesuits until an agreement was forthcoming. As the impasse continued, he decided in 1641 to resolve his dispute with the Jesuits by having them removed entirely from the colony. He therefore approached the secular clergy in London and asked if they would be willing to send some of their number to Maryland. The clergy considered the request and then asked the permission of their superior, Bishop Richard Smith, the superior of the clergy for England and Scotland. Once they obtained his approval, a petition was submitted to Rome requesting faculties for the mission. Their petitiony asked the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith to appoint a prefect with secular priests sent to take charge of the Maryland Mission. At the same time, in order to provide residence for the secular clergy, Lord Baltimore, in April 1641, appointed a commission consisting of his brother, John Lewger, and John Langford. He gave this commission the task of purchasing from Father Copley the land and buildings that made up the Jesuit residence in Saint Mary’s City. In addition, he demanded the surrender of Conception Manor. Father Poulton had been spending a good deal of time there. When it became evident that the Jesuits would lose it, he rented out the farm and returned to St. Mary’s City in order to begin preparations for the future development of the farm at St. Inigoes. On June 5, he was accidentally shot and killed while crossing the St. Mary’s River on his way to St. Inigoes. No further details of his death are known. He had evidently intended to reside at St. Inigoes, build tenements and farms, and make it the granary of the Mission, as the Patuxent farms had been up to this time. The farm at St. Inigoes at that time could boast of a storehouse for grain, a tobacco barn, a blacksmith shop and a farmhouse for the servants.

At the time of the confiscation of Conception Manor, Father Knott, the Jesuit provincial, was residing in Liege, Belgium. He immediately wrote a letter to Lord Baltimore, protesting the action. Courteous and even pleasant in tone, he nonetheless firmly insisted on the right of the Indians to give their land to anybody they pleased.

The sudden death of Father Poulton meant that the responsibility for the mission fell to Father Copley. His first concern was to protect the other Jesuit lands from possible confiscation by Lord Baltimore. He did that by first securing a confirmation of the title to St. Inigoes Manor from Governor Calvert. About this land there was no dispute. The Governor said they could not be deprived of it without evident injustice. Then, on July 27, 1641, Father Copley transferred the entire plantation by means of personal trust to Cuthbert Fenwick. He put the lands at Piscataway in the name of John Lewger. In this way the Jesuits would technically own nothing that Lord Baltimore could confiscate.

When he heard of this maneuver, Lord Baltimore was furious. He felt betrayed by the very people in whom he had put his trust. Despite his prohibition the year before Leonard had confirmed Jesuit title to the property at St. Mary's City, St. Inigoes, and Piscataway. He felt that his brother had betrayed his trust, and severely reprimanded him. He refused to accept that Leonard conceived himself bound in justice to do what he did, even though this was contrary to the directions he had received. He did not want to have to explain the reasons for his actions. If he allowed others to pass judgment on his judgment, he felt he would have the same power in Maryland as Lord Proprietor as anybody else. Notwithstanding his strong disapproval of his brother’s actions, however, Lord Baltimore permitted them to stand.

In August 1641 the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome responded favorably to Lord Baltimore’s petition to send secular clergy to Maryland in place of the Jesuits. It assigned the papal nuncio at Ghent, Archbishop Carlo Rosetti, the task of proposing suitable candidates to be appointed prefect for the Mission. Presumably acting through the Father Philips, the confessor to Queen Henrietta Maria, the nuncio asked Mr. Jones, the dean of the clergy in England, to recommend a list of persons for that position. This they did in plenty of time, recommending a certain Father Gilmett to be prefect.

When word of the decision of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith reached the Jesuits, Father Knott, wrote to Msgr. Rosetti setting forth the Jesuit side of the controversy. He recounted that when a colony was first proposed for Maryland, Lord Baltimore had repeatedly urged the Jesuits to set out with the colonists. He wished them to participate both for the benefit of those Catholics who were thinking of moving there, as well as for the conversion of the Indians among whom they expected a great harvest. For their part, the Jesuits were predisposed to undertake that mission. They realized that it would be full of labors and trials. Still, without the consent of the General in Rome, they could not commit themselves. When they obtained that permission with certain faculties, they agreed to the Baron’s proposal. Difficulties of one kind or another arose, but they were all solved. The final hurdle to be overcome was the problem of support. How would the missionaries be supported? As for living on alms, there was no hope whatever of that. The Jesuits did not want to be preoccupied with the care of providing for their temporal wants. They wished to be free for spiritual things in every sense. They were not able to persuade the Baron to provide for their support either from his own funds or from any common source. Finally, they concluded that the best thing to do seemed to be that the Jesuits should accept the same conditions, agreements and contracts as the rest of the colonists, and act accordingly. Like them, they would have the benefits of barter on equal terms. In the allotment of lands, they would accept a portion tallying with the conditions of plantation. In this manner they would have the wherewithal to support themselves and then to increase the number of missionaries to evangelize the native peoples. The Jesuits found the necessity to engage in farming and commerce a hard condition, one not in conformity with their institute. It involved a number of difficulties for which they could not discern any easy remedy in the future. Still, such as it was, it seemed a necessary condition to accept, for fear they would look like they were deserting the cause of God and souls.

Father Knott restated the Jesuit case in a memorial that he submitted to the Holy Office in January 1642. He informed the prefect that a year earlier Lord Baltimore petitioned the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, in the name of the Catholics of Maryland, to grant faculties for that mission to a prefect and priests of the secular clergy. He pointed out that in doing this Lord Baltimore had not said a word of the labors of the Jesuit Fathers in that harvest, nor did he state the reasons that led him to get new priests in their place. According to Father Knott, to find a new occasion for having the Jesuits withdrawn from the colony, Lord Baltimore had certain points propounded to the provincial, which Lord Baltimore’s secretary had also submitted to the Holy Office. The Baron demanded that the provincial agree to these points in his own name and in that of the Maryland Fathers. Meanwhile, the Congregation in Rome, unaware of these matters, had assented to Lord Baltimore’s petition, and in August 1641 dispatched faculties to Msgr. Rosetti to be forwarded to the secular clergy.

Father Knott requested that these faculties be revoked if a prefect for Maryland had not yet been appointed. If Father Philips, still had them, Father Knott wanted them returned to Rome. In case they had already been delivered, he requested that the departure of the new priests be put off until the Apostolic See could determine what should be done for the good of souls

In the face of this memorial, Cardinal Francis Barberini, the Secretary of State, wrote on February 1, 1642, to Msgr. Rosetti to inform him that Pope Urban VIII had decided to rescind the earlier action of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith favorable to Lord Baltimore. He instructed Msgr. Rosetti, if possible, to suspend any further action until the Holy See could figure out what to do. If he had consigned the same faculties to some other person to execute the commission, he was to give precise orders that no steps be taken in any way whatsoever. Instead, those persons likewise were to wait for new orders.

Rosetti did as he was instructed. On March 9, 1642, he wrote to Antonio Cardinal Barberini, the prefect of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, to inform him that he was waiting for those instructions.

While Rome was thus buying time, Lord Baltimore was pressing ahead with his plans. On April 12, 1642, his commissioners agreed with Father Copley to buy his house, his house-lot, and the chapel land at St. Mary’s City. The sale price was £200 sterling. Lord Baltimore, however, would not pay that amount. Whatever was the reason for this default, it caused Thomas Cornwaleys, through his attorney, Cuthbert Fenwick, to sue Governor Calvert, John Lewger and John Langfordfor ten thousand pounds of tobacco in damages. They were the commissioners who had handled the transaction for Lord Baltimore. Giles Brent, the judge in the case, notified Governor Calvert that he would have to pay or show cause why he should not pay. The governor refused to do either and entered a counter-suit against Brent for 30,000 pounds of tobacco as satisfaction of a trespass done to himself. Fenwick and Father Copley then obligated themselves to pay the governor thirty thousand pounds of tobacco to prevent Brent’s property from being attached. Brent, in turn, granted a process of attachment to Cornwaleys, but the sheriff, Edward Packer, refused to serve it on the governor. Brent had to issue another writ to Thomas Matthews, who was sworn in as a special deputy. The governor countered by issuing a warrant for the arrest of Brent to answer for crimes against the dignity and authority of the Lord Proprietary.

While these developments were taking place in Maryland, the secular clergy in London waited for word from Msgr. Rosetti. Their wait began in March. As the weeks went by and become months they continued with their arrangements, thinking that the prefect would easily obtain approval. They never suspected a problem since granting the faculties appeared to them wholly within the nuncio’s power. The summer was upon them, but still nothing happened. Word never came. Unaware of the second set of instructions, Father George Gage, the Archdeacon of London and Middlesex and others had been pressing the nuncio to confirm the appointment of Mr. Gilmett as prefect. By July matters had reached a crisis point. Lord Baltimore was in contact with the archdeacon, and was calling for the secular priests. The ships would be ready to sail for Maryland in six weeks. Father Gilmett was ready and willing to go to Maryland as superior. So were two more whom he would choose out of seven or eight proposed to him. In addition, six or seven families had committed themselves to accompany Father Gilmett. They were devoted to him and had decided to settle wherever he went. If the priests did not go, they would seriously injure the temporal estate of Lord Baltimore by depriving him of the families. None of the families would go without Father Gilmett.

The clergy blamed the Jesuits for the failure to obtain the faculties from the nuncio. Since the Holy See had already approved the mission by the secular priests and granted them the desired faculties, it was frustrating to them to have the final execution of the rescript hindered by what they considered to be the underhanded practices of the Society. They felt the Jesuits used all means possible not only to oppose the clergy in this business but even to suppress and keep under their control the temporal Lord of Maryland so that the Jesuits might then have more absolute rule and power. They considered it a kind of spiritual tyranny, that the civil authorities and people of Maryland did not have the same freedom to choose their confessors as did people throughout the world and found themselves limited to the spiritual services to the very people who were opposing them openly in matters of temporalities.

Since time was of the essence, Gage wrote to Bishop Smith asking his approval of the mission on behalf of Lord Baltimore. The ships were very shortly returning to Maryland and those who were to go needed all the time remaining to take leave of their friends in England and to prepare themselves for that voyage. Most of the clergy in London saw no problem in going without hearing from Rome. Since there were no bishops in Maryland to begin with, they reasoned, they would not be functioning in the diocese of another bishop. Their faculties already extended to all the dominions of the king, even though they mentioned only England by name. Many of the clergy thought that when Msgr. Rosetti saw that the clergy had gone to Maryland with their own faculties independently of him, he would soon cease his delaying tactics, send them the faculties they had requested, and approve Father Gilmett as the new prefect. They figured that it would be more for his honor to have them there dependent on him rather then independent of him. Indeed, many thought it was a mistake to have asked Rome for any new faculties. They felt that it would have been better to have gone to Maryland when Lord Baltimore first invited them.

Word of the clergy's intentions reached the ears of the Monsignor Rosetti in Ghent. He wrote to Cardinal Barberini that Father Philips had informed him of the pressure that the clergy were bringing to obtain the faculties. If these faculties did not arrive, Father Philips had told him that the clergy intended to use their ordinary faculties. Since Father Philips was on good terms of friendship with the clergy, Msgr. Rosetti tried to get him to persuade them not to take matters into their own hands. Wanting them to conform their conduct to what was right and to remember that it was from Rome that orders ought to come, he advised them that they needed to look before they leapt.

In August of 1642, while the strife over the faculties was still unresolved, civil war broke out in England between Charles I and Parliament. The two forces fought an inconclusive battle at Edgehill in Warwickshire On October 23. Charles was making Oxford his headquarters while his forces threatened London. Meanwhile, Lord Baltimore pressed ahead with his plans to remove the Jesuits from his province. We do not know how the question of faculties was resolved. All we know for sure is that in November 1642 Father Gilmett and one Father William Territt took passage on a ship under the command of Richard Ingle, a trader in goods from England and Holland, and sailed for Maryland. Both Gilmett and Territt had consulted Lord Baltimore before they left. The proprietor had given Father Territt a letter for his brother. Lord Baltimore expressed the hope that the priests might lodge with the governor. This would enable to acquaint the governor more particularly with his brother’s mind and with the opinions of various pious and learned men in England regarding what Lord Baltimore might do to counter what he considered was the odious and impudent injury that the Jesuit had done him. All were of the same opinion in this regard.

In a letter written November 18, 1642, just before the two priests left, Lord Baltimore gave instructions to his commissioners about their accommodations. The commissioners had not been able to complete the purchase of the Jesuit residence at St. Mary’s City, due possibly to Lord Baltimore’s precarious financial position. In view of this, Lord Baltimore wanted them to see if Father Copley was willing to make another arrangement. They could do this by letting Father Copley have his house and land there again with a reasonable consideration allowed for Father Gilmett’s use of it. Lord Baltimore directed that his own funds be used for that purpose. In case Father Copley did not want to rent the house to Mr. Gilmett until midsummer of 1645 at a rent the commissioners found reasonable, Lord Baltimore wanted them to provide some other convenient place for the priests’ residence. The proprietor had forgotten earlier to ask the governor to find accommodations for Father Gilmett’s servant boy who waited upon him. Lord Baltimore’s aristocratic background showed itself in his judgment that Father Gilmett could not live decently without such attendance. They had all the household necessities provided and sent with them. He also wanted the governor to take care to provide lodgings for Father Territt. Lord Baltimore was willing to pay the charges, but he hoped that his brother would husband his expense as best he could. Financially he was in difficulty for the colony was not producing the revenues he had hoped.

At the last moment, Lord Baltimore attached a postscript to the bottom of his letter. He had just received information that, notwithstanding his prohibition to the contrary, another Jesuit had managed to board the ship owned by Richard Ingle. At that moment Ingle’s ship, the Reformation, was in the Downs waiting to sail for Maryland. His Lordship was furious. This was precisely what he had forbidden the Jesuits to do. By this time he fully believed that they were so devious that they might send the stowaway to Potomac Town in Virginia, hoping to avoid detection. In any case, he wanted the man apprehended. If that failed, the governor was to put Father Copley on the next boat out of Maryland unless he surrendered the newcomer forthwith. Lord Baltimore had no doubt that he was fully within his rights in ordering such action. He told his brother that if he did not follow the instructions that he had sent a month earlier on October 20, he would consider himself betrayed.

Concerning the land question, Lord Baltimore encouraged his brother to try to have all the natives surrender their interest and rights to him. He wanted his brother not to forget to follow up on the business of the contributions from the natives who were baptized to help to build the new chapel at St. Mary’s City. He felt that if their conversion was real, they would participate through their labors and donations.

Lord Baltimore had heard from one of the Jesuits in England that the tayac at Kittamaquund, shortly before his death, had given a great deal of land to Father White at Piscataway. The unnamed Jesuit made the mistake of mentioning this development to Lord Baltimore, not realizing that the place was within his province. Only with difficulty did Lord Baltimore manage to assure him that Piscataway was indeed within the proprietor’s province, since his informant was convinced of the contrary. Lord Baltimore recounted this incident to his brother to show him how the Jesuits acted and what dangerous consequence their activities had for him.

Lord Baltimore warned his brother that whatever he might have thought of the Jesuits in the past, he would have no reason to love them very much if he knew as much as Lord Baltimore did concerning their speeches and actions in England. He was obsessed by the idea that the Jesuits were determined to destroy him. He suspected that they might try to turn the English colonists against him. In case that did not work, he feared that they would turn to the natives and incite them to armed rebellion, all in the name of promoting the evangelization.

Whether Lord Baltimore was correctly informed or not regarding the Jesuit on board Ingle’s ship, we do not know. What we do know is that shortly before the secular priests arrived, two other Jesuits had reached Maryland from England, to the great comfort of those already there. The newcomers had suffered an unpleasant voyage of fourteen weeks. Normally such a voyage took no more than six or eight. Whether these were the same that Lord Baltimore was so incensed about we do not know. What we do know is that Father Copley was not expelled from the colony. During 1642 he stayed for the most part at St. Mary’s City to be at the service of the English who are more numerous there, and of the natives in the vicinity, as well as of the others who came on business from other parts.

Father Copley had not expected much from those who were so closely allied with Lord Baltimore, but when the secular priests arrived, he was in for a surprise. The reverse of what he expected happened. It appears that the two secular priests had a change of heart on the land issue when they arrived in Maryland. Once they heard the reasons for the Jesuit position, the secular priests ended up agreeing with the Jesuits, as did most of the laity in Maryland.

The coming of Gilmet and Territt also helped the evangelization in another way. It freed Father Copley for the Indian missions. When they arrived, Father Copley surrendered the parish at St. Mary’s City into their care. He let them use his house, and put the chapel at their service, and went off to devote his energies to the evangelization of the natives. He left us a description of what these activities were like. The priests would travel with a servant and an interpreter. Two had to row the boat with oars when the wind failed, or was adverse, while the third steered. They took with them a supply of bread, butter, cheese, dried corn, beans and a little flour. In another chest they carried wine for the altar and baptismal water. A third box held the sacred utensils for Mass. Another chest was full of trifles to gain their good will of the Indians. These included little bells, combs, fishing hooks, needles, and thread. They also took a table to use as an altar, a little tent for camping in the open air that they frequently used, and a larger one for stormy weather. The servants also carried the hunting and cooking gear. In their excursions they tried to reach some English house or native village before sunset. Failing this, they would land and moor the boat fast to the shore. One would then collect wood and make a fire, while the other two went hunting. If the hunters returned empty-handed, they ate the provisions they had brought, and then lay down to sleep by the fire. Such was life on the missions.

In 1642 the Jesuits were able to report to Rome that the town called Port Tobacco, to a great extent, hadr received the faith with baptism. SThis town, situated on the Potomac Rriver, this town Pamac (the inhabitants call it Pamoke), was a natural center of the Indians and so more convenient for excursions in all directions, so that the Jesuits were determined to put a residence there. They were afraid that the proximity of the warlike Susquehannoes would force them to abandon Piscataway. This tribe was the most savage in the area and hostile to Christian missionaries. They had already attacked one of the missions and slew the men whom the missionaries had left there and carried away the goods that were there. This amounted to quite a loss for the Jesuits. These attacks forced the missionaries to restrict themselves to excursions among the tribes, while maintaining their base of operations in the more secured areas. On one these excursions they went up the Patuxent River to the village of Patuxent. There they converted the queen and her mother.

On one occasion the Susquehannoes attacked an Anacostian Indian who was a Christian as he was making his way through the woods with a group of companions. They ambushed him when he fell back a bit from the group. A strong and light spear of locust wood from which the Indians made their bows struck him. It had an oblong iron point. The spear pierced him through from the right side to the left, at a hand’s breadth below the armpit near the heart itself with a wound two fingers broad at each side. His attackers fled immediately. When his friends heard the sudden noise and the shout, they hurried back and found the wounded man speechless and quite out of his senses. They carried him to a boat that was not far away. From there they carried him to his home at Piscataway. Father White was a short distance away, and when he heard of the incident he hastened to him. The following morning he found him lying on a mat before the fire by the door of his hogan. By that time the man had improved to the point that he was not altogether speechless, or out of his senses, as the day before. Nevertheless he was expecting to die at almost every moment. With a mournful voice he joined in the song with his friends from his tribe who stood around. This was customary in the case of the more distinguished people thought to be certainly about to die. Some of his friends were Christians, and their song, which, musically indeed, but with plaintive inflection of tone, they modulated, was, "May he live, oh God! if it so please you." They said it repeated it repeatedly, until Father White, filled with pity for his condition, spoke to the dying man. He immediately knew him and showed Father White his wounds. When the priest saw that the danger of death was imminent, he briefly explained the principal articles of faith. Once he had aroused repentance for sins in the dying man, Father White heard his confession. To elevate the man’s soul with hope and confidence in God, Father White recited the gospel read for the sick and recited the litany of the Blessed Virgin. He told the dying man to commend himself to her most holy intercession, and to call unceasingly upon the most sacred name of Jesus. Then Father White took the relic of the Holy Cross from around his neck and applied it to the man’s wounds on each side. It was about noon when Father White left to baptize an aged Indian whom he expected to die the next day. Before he departed, he directed the bystanders to carry the wounded man to the chapel for burial when he should breathe his last.

About noon the following day, Father White was riding in his boat when he saw two Indians rowing towards him. When they came alongside, one of them put his foot into the boat in which Father White was sitting. He could not believe his eyes. The man looked like the Indian who was so near to death the day before. Language was still a barrier, but the man overcame it by suddenly throwing open his cloak. Father White could see the traces of the wounds, or rather a red spot on each side. Seeing this removed all doubt immediately. In language of great exultation he exclaimed that he was entirely well. From the time that Father White had left the Indian had not ceased to invoke the most holy name of Jesus, to whom he attributed his recovered health. This miracle greatly rejoiced and confirmed the faith of all who were in the boat with Father White. They broke forth into praise of God and thanksgiving. Father White advised the man to do the same for so great and manifest a blessing and continue to treat that holy name and most holy cross with love and reverence. He then sent him away. When the man returned to his boat, he began to row it strenuously together with the other, something he could not have done, unless he had been of sound and entire strength.

By 1643, the Superior General of the Jesuits in Rome was eager to settle the entire land question even at the price of capitulation. He wrote to the English Provincial, Father Knott, on October 31, 1643, to express his misgivings with the entire controversy. He regretted if differences about temporal things placed a hindrance in the way of the conversion of souls. He did not want disputes about perishable goods to hamper the evangelization. He authorized the provincial to assure the Baron that the Jesuits would not be a source of detriment to his temporal dominion. On the contrary, they would, as far as the nature of their institute allowed, always promote his interests and proprietary rights. The Jesuits had already petitioned the Holy See to allow them to abandon any claim on the disputed property. The General did not think that the Holy See would agree to that request however. Nevertheless, for the sake of peace, the General was willing to agree to a compromise. He unilaterally ordered the Jesuits in Maryland in the future not to accept any landed property offered them, whether by the English faithful or by the Indians, without Lord Baltimore’s consent. The General had often heard those who knew Lord Baltimore commend his eminent piety, zeal, and particular good will towards the Jesuits. He hoped that the proprietor would be generous in granting his consent for such acquisitions as might be necessary to support the missionaries in the future.

In another letter dated December 1643, the General reiterated this hope. He renewed his instruction that the provincial forbid any Jesuit from accepting landed property without the consent of Lord Baltimore. He did not want to see the first fruits of the evangelization impeded by the frost of cupidity. Unfortunately, this was not sufficient to end the matter. Lord Baltimore was not willing to settle for assurances against future land donations. He wanted total capitulation. He continued to demand the surrender of Mattapany and the Piscataway lands.

In April 1643, Leonard Calvert sailed from England to consult with his brother. It was the first time he returned to England since the original voyage. He left Giles Brent, his deputy governor, in charge while he was away. In January 1644, while Leonard Calvert was still in England, Richard Ingle arrived again in the harbor at St. Mary’s City on his ship, the Reformation. Ingle was a supporter of the Parliament in its struggle against the king. During his stay at St. Mary’s City, he made no effort to hide his political views. In his flamboyant style he announced for all who would hear what he thought of the king. He boasted that if he had Prince Rupert on board, he would flog him at the capstan. He emphasized his determination with flourishes of his cutlass, and threatened to cut off the heads of those who opposed him. As a consequence he was accused of treason. The sheriff arrested him and placed him in custody. The sheriff seized his ship, the Reformation, affixed a proclamation to the mast, and placed a guard aboard. Soon afterward, however, Ingle made his escape from custody as the result of a fiasco. The sheriff excused himself from blame by saying that there was no prison in the province except his own hands. He had only let Ingle go when he saw him leave the governor’s house in the company of Captain Cornwaleys and Mr. James Neale even though it was against his better judgment. Mr. Neale, for his part, said he had no jurisdiction over Ingle and did not help his escape. Captain Cornwaleys said he thought the governor had consented to release the prisoner. The captain of the guard aboard the ship excused himself too. He thought everything was all right when he saw Cornwaleys come aboard with Ingle, with all taking together in a very friendly manner.

Thus it was that the Reformation slipped out of Maryland. On his return to England, Ingle complained that his ship had been seized in Maryland because it was a London ship. He accused the province of being a stronghold of papists and supporters of the king against Parliament. He then procured letters of marque against all ships opposed to Parliament, and sailed for Maryland to avenge himself against its government and any Catholic on whom he could lay his hands.

In September 1644 Leonard Calvert was back in Maryland, and the land controversy was still unresolved. Two months later, on November 5, Father Sangrius, the Vicar General, wrote from Rome to Father Knott to express his surprise that Lord Baltimore was still not satisfied by being reassured on the subject of landed property for the future. He would have thought that Baltimore would have let drop demands for the surrender of the past acquisitions. The Jesuits at that point were quite willing to do what they could to obtain from the Holy See the license necessary for letting Lord Baltimore have all that he wanted. As far as the Jesuits were concerned, they were content to say: "Give us souls; the rest let him take to himself." Their only object in being in Maryland in the first place was to sow the seeds of the gospel. Since it had been so happily sown, they did not want the tares of dissension to choke it. Two weeks later Father Sangrius wrote to Father Knott to reaffirm that the Jesuits in Maryland were free to decline any property offered to them if they judge it expedient so to do for the sake of peace and the good of the Christian religion.

On February 24, 1645, Richard Ingle put in at St. Mary’s with the avowed purpose of burning or destroying whatever belonged to Catholics, and to put Protestants in possession of everything not destroyed. We do not know whatever happened to the two secular priests at Saint Mary’s City. As for the five Jesuit priests in Maryland, Ingle tried to apprehend them. Father Bernard Hartwell and John Cooper were at St. Inigoes; Father Roger Rigby was stationed on the Patuxent. These three fled for their lives in the middle of winter. Fathers Rigby and Cooper were reported to have crossed the Potomac to Virginia. It is uncertain where Father Hartwell sought refuge. Father Copley was either visiting Father White at Port Tobacco or had fled there from St. Inigoes. Ingle captured them both and imprisoned them on his ship the Looking Glass. They thus joined Giles Brent and John Lewger in chains. Governor Calvert escaped and fled to Virginia where he was well received. Ingle and his men also destroyed the court records for this period so that we do not know the outcome of the lawsuits between Governor Calvert and the Jesuits and their allies.

When they arrived back in England, the two Jesuits were tried on the charge that they returned to England after being banished. The Fathers were able to prove without much difficulty that they had not returned voluntarily. They were finally acquitted, but not before spending about two years in the notorious Newgate Jail. This did not prevent Father Copley from suing Ingle for damages in the High Court of Admiralty. In a schedule he filed as part of his suit, Father Copley detailed the losses suffered. They included one house that was burned, some sixty cattle that were dispersed, hogs and other animals that disappeared, and twenty indentured servants who were missing. In addition he mentioned silver plate, jewelry of gold, diamonds, sapphire and ruby and tapestries embroidered in gold and silver. The schedule also mentions a library of books valued at £150. In all, the Mission lost property valued at over £2000.

The years that followed are remembered in Maryland history as the "plundering time". There was no government to maintain law and order in Maryland. The wrath of the Puritans was free to fall upon all, especially Catholics. Ingle captured the fort at St. Mary’s City and used it has his headquarters. From there he set out to rob and ravage the countryside. At the same time William Claiborne captured Kent Island. Fathers Rigby and Cooper are believed to have died in Virginia of hardship in 1646. The same fate must have befallen Father Hartwell, since he too was never heard of again.

The same can not be said of Leonard Calvert. Having escaped the wrath of Ingle by fleeing to Virginia from Maryland, he appealed to the royal governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley, for help. On July 30, 1646, Calvert diplomatically appointed Captain Edward Hill, a Protestant, to be governor during his absence. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Maryland with a force of anti-Puritan Virginians and regained the governorship. As the combined forces landed at St. Mary’s and other points, Claiborne and Ingle made tactful and timely departures. By the autumn Governor Calvert was effectively restored to power.

The expulsion of the Jesuits from the colony disposed the Jesuit superiors in Europe to consider their involvement in the enterprise at an end. Even though the Mission had ended in disaster from their point of view, the Jesuits were able to take some consolation in the turns of events. Writing to the English provincial, Father Henry Silesdon, S.J. , the General in Rome, Father Vincent Carrafa, S.J., commended the zeal the missionaries had shown. They had volunteered out of a desire of greater self-sacrifice for the Indian missions. He was, however, willing to see them return again only if Lord Baltimore requested them.

During the years after the Insurrection there is no clear picture of the state of the Mission. No one knows whatever became of Fathers Gilmett and Territt. They simply disappear from the record. It is generally assumed that they returned to England during this period. There was, however, another secular priest there. He subsequently applied for admission to the Jesuits. Father Carrafa wrote to Father Silesdon on May 11, 1647, regarding this application. He was very dubious whether it was wise to admit him to the Society as long as he was still laboring in Maryland. There were no Jesuits in Maryland at that time. It did not appear likely that there would be in the foreseeable future. As a result there was no one who could be the director of his conscience in order for him to make a novitiate. Carrafa thought it much better to give him the privilege of communication in the merits of the Society, and promise to admit him to the Society at the hour of death. This would join him in bounds of charity to the Jesuits. In the mean time, Father Carrafa thought that he should remain to till the vineyard in Maryland. The only alternative would be to recall him to Europe for a novitiate. He was unwilling to do that , since that might leave the Maryland Mission without any priest.

This secular priest who was seeking admission to the Society seems to have been none other than Lord Baltimore’s secretary, John Lewger. His wife had died while they lived in Maryland. After Ingle brought him back to England, it seems he became a priest. The fact that he had formerly been an Anglican priest before entering the Catholic Church and immigrating to Maryland may have shortened his preparations.. He apparently returned to England in the later part of 1647.

Governor Calvert died June 11, 1647. On his deathbed he appointed Thomas Greene, a Catholic, as governor. Captain Edward Hill from Checakone, Virginia, on June 20, 1647, wrote the Council a lengthy letter and claimed the governorship in virtue of his appointment by Calvert when he was in exile in Virginia. Governor Greene rejected Hill’s claims. The Council, he told him, had the power to elect a person from the Council in emergencies if the Governor should die or be absent from the Province. He advised Hill not to press the issue since, not being a member of the Council, his appointment was based upon false pretense. Shortly thereafter Lord Baltimore appointed William Stone as governor. Since Stone was a Protestant, Lord Baltimore sought to blunt criticism of the prominent position Catholics held in the government of the province.

One of the difficulties preventing the return of the Jesuits was the new set of conditions that Lord Baltimore insisted on before he would consent to have them back in Maryland. By mid-summer the provincial was reporting to Rome that agreement seemed in hand. Father Copley was very eager to return as soon as possible. There seems, however, to have been some last minute hitch. Father Carrafa wrote to Father Silesdon on December 28, 1647. SinceIn sending any missionary to Maryland he dido not wish to provoke new quarrels with the Lord Proprietary, i. It seemed better to him that they not to send any missionaries to Maryland rather than one than find themselves in Maryland against the wishes of the Lord Proprietor. The General instructed the provincial and his consultors to consider what they could do to comfort the Catholics in Virginia some distance away.

The General’s letter, excluding Maryland from the area of the missionaries’ activities, providentially arrived in England after Father Copley and his new companion, Father Lawrence Starkey, S.J., had set sail. The pair arrived in Virginia in January 1648, and "laid low." Leaving Father Starkey in Virginia, Father Copley slipped back into Maryland the following month. "Like an angel of God did they receive me," he wrote to the General on March 1, 1648. By that time he had spent two weeks at Saint Mary’s City with the English he found it difficult to tear himself away. However, the natives whom the raiders had also badly treated were calling for him. He scarcely knew what to do since he could not satisfy all. He asked the General and the provincial to send a reinforcement of two or three men to help Father Starkey and himself care for the spiritual needs of the people of Maryland and Virginia. He closed his letter with: "God grant that I may do His will for the greater glory of His name. Truly, flowers appear in our land; may they attain to fruit."

The returning Fathers found that the mission stations at Saint Mary’s City, Saint Inigoes, had suffered extensively during the insurrection. All the church and house furnishings were stolen. The raiders had destroyed the chapel at St. Mary’s City, but the Saint Inigoes House on the manor had escaped destruction. The "Hill" house in St. Mary’s City remained intact also. The Indian village at Port Tobacco had disappeared completely.

In 1648 Lord Baltimore imposed new Conditions of Plantations. They revived the anti-mortmain legislation by providing that no corporation, spiritual or temporal, could legally acquire land by gift or purchase without his permission. He also outlawed the right of any colonist to donate land to a corporation, spiritual or temporal, without his permission. These prohibitions included all civil corporations, such as trading companies, but there were no trading companies in the colony at this period. The only ones adversely affected by the new conditions were the Jesuit missionaries. It fell to Father Copley to begin the Maryland Mission again virtually from scratch within the confines of these new conditions. Mr. Thomas Matthews, his attorney, brought back some of the twenty-one indentured servants who had departed during the disturbance. Without their help it would have been impossible to cultivate the farms. One of them, a certain John Howard, preferred a kind of tramp life, until Mr. Matthews had him arrested, and then he too went back to serve out his time on the farm, rather than in jail. John Kekcape resisted all the suave allurements even of Father Copley. Matthews sued John Hallows for making the other John obstinate and obdurate. He then restored as many of the sixty cows as possible that had scattered in the woods, or the neighbors had "detained".

Father Copley’s efforts to restore the manor farm gradually began to bear fruit. The properties at Saint Mary’s City, however, were still not settled as late as October 9, 1648. In the Assembly Father Copley asked for authorization to collect the rents of certain tenements in the manor of East St. Maries until the sale of the properties was completed. Mrs. Margaret Brent acted as the attorney for Lord Baltimore. She consented to such an order.

In 1649 Father Starkley rejoined Father Copley at St. Inigoes. He undertook to care for the outlying mission of Newtown and Patuxent. There is also some evidence that at about this time the Fathers opened a school either at St. Mary’s City or at St. Inigoes.

On April 2, 1649, Governor Stone convened the Assembly to consider among other things, the need to give legal form to the policy of religious toleration that had been the unwritten policy of the proprietor since the beginning of the colony. The growing presence of the Puritans in the colony made it expedient to give legal protection to those who in the past had felt their wrath. Three weeks later, on April 21, 1649, the Assembly passed an "Act concerning Religion". This act was a compromise whereby Lord Baltimore attempted to salvage as much of his policy of toleration as possible at a time when it was increasingly under attack. The bill the Assembly passed bore a strong resemblance to the "Act for the Punishment of Blasphemies and heresies" the long Parliament had passed the year before in England. Like its English counterpart, the Maryland bill provided the death penalty and confiscation of estate for blasphemy and denial of the doctrine of the Trinity. The measure was then sent to England to obtain Lord Baltimore’s consent.

On August 16, 1649 Father Copley assigned to Thomas Matthews four thousand acres of land due the Jesuits for transporting servants into Maryland in the year 1633. On the following day Matthews presented his demand for the four thousand acres. A warrant was issued and Robert Clark, the surveyor general, set to work and surveyed four thousand acres on the north side of the Potomac River near Port Tobacco. Three thousand acres lay on the west side and five hundred on the east side of Port Tobacco Creek. He finished the job on October 25, 1649 by recording the tract in the land records. A patent was then duly granted to Matthews. In this way the Jesuits were able to secure a future base for their operations in Charles County which at that time was beginning to open up to settlement.

Events in England again spilled over into the colony. The Puritans had beheaded Charles I. Lord Baltimore acknowledged Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth when he came to power in 1649 Virginia sided with the young Charles II. News of the beheading of the king reached Maryland while Thomas Greene was acting governor during the absence of William Stone. On November 15, Greene published a proclamation recognizing Charles II as the legitimate sovereign. The Puritans, especially in Calvert County, and the liberals in other parts of the province, rose in angry protest and denounced the proclamation. They almost hanged Greene in effigy. Upon his return, Governor Stone repudiated the action of Greene and openly gave his support to the Puritans and the Commonwealth. Moreover, Governor Stone, offered to aid the Puritans in Virginia. The royalists in Virginia were making life difficult for them there. He offered any Puritan who wished to come to Maryland freedom of religion and equality before the law. This action by the governor put Lord Baltimore in an embarrassing position. Agents of Virginia reported to Charles II that Lord Baltimore was being disloyal by harboring Puritan dissidents in his province. From his exile on the Isle of Jersey, Charles issued an edict on February 15, 1650, authorizing Sir William Davenant to supersede Lord Baltimore’s gubernatorial authority. It did not go so far, however, to deprive him of his sovereign rights as lord of the palatinate. With several retainers Davenant sailed to assume his new duties in Maryland. A cruiser belonging to Parliament intercepted his ship before it had cleared the English Channel. Davenant was arrested and interned at Cowes.

Meanwhile in Maryland about three hundred Puritans accepted Stone’s promise of sanctuary. In 1650 they settled on a large tract of land on the Severn River and named their settlement Providence. In April the Assembly met and established itself as a bicameral body. The Council, including the governor and the secretary of the province, constituted the upper house. The burgesses, giving expressing to the popular will, constitute the lower house. That year the Puritans sent burgesses to the Assembly at St. Mary’s City, but did not see any good coming of it even though the lower House elected one of their number its Speaker. In England on August 26, 1650, Lord Baltimore confirmed the Toleration Act that the Assembly had passed the year before.

Back in Maryland, Father Copley found himself the object of another lawsuit. On January 15, 1651, Richard Blout of Virginia, acting though Henry Coursey, his attorney, sued Father Copley, charging that he was harboring a fugitive servant, one Nicholas White. Copley defended himself, but lost the case.

By the spring of 1651, the dissatisfaction of the Puritans with Lord Baltimore’s government had grown to such an extent that they flatly refused to send burgesses to the Assembly. This action amounted to insubordination. Open rebellion quickly followed. On March 29, 1652, Richard Bennett, Edmund Curtis, and William Claiborne, acting as Parliament’s Commissioners, forced Governor Stone to resign and to turn over the reins of government to the Puritans. By June 28, the Commissioners restored the vacillating Stone to the governorship. He had to promise, however, to issue all writs in the name of Oliver Cromwell, the Keeper of the Liberties of England, or the Commonwealth.

In 1652, as the clouds of political turmoil gathered for a second time, Father Copley died. Where and how he died we do not know, not even the place of his burial. All we have is the memory of a pre-eminent missionary, a zealous, charitable and active superior, who had nothing more at heart than the advancement of the evangelization. For fifteen years he was the life and support of the spiritual and material welfare of the Maryland Mission. He left Father Starkey alone to carry on just as the storm finally broke.

Shortly after April 1653, Ralph Crouch moved from St. Inigoes to Newtown and began to teach school there. Edward Cotten had left moneys for such a school in his will probated April 23, 1653. This school may well have been the same "school" conducted at the St. Inigoes Mission, since in those days there was very little distinction between the school and the teacher.

In 1654 Father Francis Fitzherbert, set out from England to join Father Starkey in Maryland. He traveled alone, agreeing to go as soon as his superiors first suggested it. Four ships sailed together from England, but a fearful storm overtook them when they had passed beyond the Western Isles. The violent waves battered Father Fitzherbert’s ship so badly that it sprung a leak. The water almost engulfed it. Everyone had to take a turn at the pumps. In teams of four, the crew and passengers alike, worked day and night to keep the ship afloat. The ship changed course, hoping to make Barbados. This proved impossible. Then they thought to abandon the ship and its freight, and to commit themselves to the long boat. The winds caused mountainous waves that prevented this. Death was on the minds of all, until the terror grew so familiar that they almost lost the fear of death. The tempest lasted two months in all. At one point, the crew became convinced that witchcraft was involved. They seized a little old woman suspected of sorcery. After examining her with the strictest scrutiny, they killed her, and threw her corpse into the sea. The deliverance they hoped for did not happen. The winds continued their violence, and the raging sea its threatenings. Sickness added to the troubles of the storm. Almost everyone became sick, and not a few died. The general contagion, however, did not touch Father Fitzherbert. He only contracted a slight fever that lasted a few days. He lay the blame for this on working and exercising at the pump too laboriously. Finally, by the favor of God, the ship reached the port of Maryland, contrary to the expectation of all on board.

Once in Maryland Father Fitzherbert became the superior of the Mission, living at St. Inigoes and assuming responsibility for that mission. Father Starkey continued to care for the outlying English missions. They were the only missions that had survived Ingle’s’ insurrection. The great tragedy was that Father Copley was not able to revive the Indians missions, so that the pioneering work of evangelizing the Indians that Father White and Father Altham had begun was lost. Father Francis Rogers, S.J., arrived the same year. He remained only a few months in Maryland before returning to England.

On July 15, 1654, the two Puritan commissioners published a declaration condemning the administration of Governor Stone. They stated that their attempts for a peaceful solution of matters in the colony had only evoked an uncivil response from the governor and the Council. Five days later Governor Stone, under pressure from the commissioners, resigned and William Fulton, a Puritan and a member of the new commission in charge of the province, became the governor. These commissioners ruled the province without help of an elected assembly until October 1654. The Assembly finally met at Mr. Richard Preston’s house at Patuxent in Calvert County. In that belatedly called session, Thomas Hatton and Job Chandler refused to serve as burgesses of St. Mary’s County. Instead, they subscribed an oath of loyalty to Lord Baltimore.

When word finally reached England that the Puritans had seized control of his colony, Lord Baltimore wrote to rebuke Governor Stone for surrendering without a fight. Thereupon, Stone gathered a force of one hundred thirty Marylanders and proceeded to Annapolis to attempt to reclaim the colony for Lord Baltimore. Fulton gathered a force of a hundred and twenty-five to oppose him. The two armies met in the Battle of the Severn on March 25, 1655. Aided by two English ships armed with cannons, the Puritans attacked and defeated Stone’s militia. They killed or wounded about fifty of his troops and took the rest prisoners. They had promised to spare those who surrendered, but instead condemned the leaders of Lord Baltimore's men to death, including Governor Stone. They spared some of the condemned men, including Stone, but a firing squad executed four of the captives, three of them Catholics. Subsequently the victorious Puritans ransacked St. Mary’s City. They rushed into the Jesuit residence and demanded death for the impostors, as they called them. But God protected them, and they slipped away in a small boat under the noses of their pursuers who never realized what was happening. For a second time in less than ten years the Jesuits had to flee for their lives to Virginia and loose everything they possessed in Maryland. Their books, furniture, and whatever was in the house fell prey to the robbers.

One of the first things the Puritans did once they were in power was to abolish the "Toleration Act of 1649", even though they had first come to Maryland seeking refuge from religious persecution in Virginia. They passed in its place a new act that provided that no one who professed and exercised "the Popish religion, commonly known by the name of the Roman Catholic religion, can be protected in the Province." They brought anyone suspected of being a Catholic into court and forced him to provide a substantial bond besides fines if he admitted affiliation with the Catholic Church. The act also denied liberty to "prelacy", thereby including Anglicans among those denied religious toleration. An additional clause of a general character was added which made it unlawful for any "under the profession of Christ" to "hold forth and practice licentiousness" of any kind. This broad provision made it possible for Puritan magistrates to proceed against any dissent by methods not unlike those of their fellow religionists in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Lord Baltimore appealed for help to Cromwell to regain his colony. Cromwell in turn referred the matter to the Commission of Trade and Plantations for a ruling. In the negotiations that followed the proprietor insisted on a return to the policy of religious toleration and on an oath of allegiance to himself. Apparently the commissioners gave their reluctant consent, for the next year a compromise was arranged by which the proprietor agreed that a promise and engagement could be substituted for the oath of fidelity which was not to be forced upon the people. As a result of this compromise, Lord Baltimore regain partial control. By July 10,1656, he had regained enough to appoint Josias Fendall as Governor. He instructed him to restore the Act of Toleration. Baltimore also sent his brother Philip Calvert to serve as Councilor and Secretary of the Province. Meanwhile, the two Jesuits stayed in Virginia living in a mean hut and in the greatest want. Their confreres in England sent supplies to help them in their distress, but they were lost at sea when the ship carrying them was intercepted. Their greatest privation was lacking enough wine to say Mass. They had no one to help in the domestic chores, or to guide their way through unknown and suspected places, or even to row and steer the boat, whenever needed. Often they had to travel alone long distances, guided only by Divine Providence. It was here in Virginia that Father Starkey died on February 13, 1657. Father Fitzherbert was now left to carry on alone.

In London the Commission of Trade and Plantations finally ruled in favor of Lord Baltimore. After prolonged negotiations, Cromwell finally restored him to full power in the colony on February 26, 1658. Not so strangely, one of the chief terms of settlement which the Puritans desired and received was the assurance of religious toleration. With the restoration of Lord Baltimore to power, the persecution of Catholics and Anglicans came to an end.

When Father Fitzherbert returned to Maryland to resume his duties, he found the Jesuit possessions in a sad state. All their movable property had either been stolen or destroyed. The Mission was so impoverished that he was forced to appeal to his superiors abroad for help to get started again. One of the first aids they sent was Father Thomas Payton, S.J. who arrived in 1658.

Father Fitzherbert found himself in trouble with the law as a result of a sermon he preached on August 24, 1658 at the occasion of a muster on the Patuxent and again at Newtown on August 30. The attorney Henry Coursey appears to have taken sharp exception to his remarks. He filed a civil complaint charging Father Fitzherbert with having said that a man must be directed by his conscience more than by the law of any country. The Provincial Court summoned Father Fitzherbert to appear at Newtown on October 5, 1658 to answer the charge that he traitorously and seditiously endeavored to seduce and draw the inhabitants from their religion. Coursey charged that these treacherous and seditious practices had caused several inhabitants to refuse to appear at muster. As a result, he charged, they would be incapable of defending the peace and liberty of the inhabitants of the Province against the attempts of foreign or home bred enemies. Coursey also charged that Father Fitzherbert said that if Thomas Gerard did not come and bring his wife and children to his church, he would come and force them to his church. Coursey claimed this violated the Act of Toleration.

Before the matter could come to triail Father Payton returned to England in 1659, only to die at sea on January 12, 1660 during the return voyage to Maryland. Father Fitzherbert had to carry on alone once again. Then there was another rebellion in the colony. In the March 1660 session of the Assembly, the lower house was anxious to improve its relative importance in the legislative scheme of things. Governor Fendall issued a proclamation dissolving the upper house. He then surrendered to the lower house the commission he had received from Lord Baltimore, and received a new one from the Assembly. He forbade anyone from acknowledging any authority except that which came directly from the king or the Assembly. He proposed to make himself "dictator" of Maryland. Thomas Gerard was one of those who sided with Fendall. Lord Baltimore promptly dismissed Fendall and appointed his brother Philip as Governor. The rebellion managed to interrupt the hearing of the case against Father Fitzherbert. It is difficult to understand Gerard’s part in this short-lived rebellion. A short time before he had been hailed before the Council for saying that Governor Fendall would do anything requested by the people of Anne Arundel and that the members of the Council were a bunch of rogues. Apparently, he had no real sympathy for Fendall, and he had been close to the Calverts for many years.

Fendall’s Rebellion quickly collapsed in 1660 when it became known that Charles II had regained the English throne. On June 24, 1660, Lord Baltimore dismissed Fendall and appointed his brother Philip as governor. Two weeks later the newly restored king wrote to the governor of Virginia requesting him to aid Lord Baltimore in restoring his control in Maryland. The proprietor was determined to hang both Fendall and Gerard and confiscate their estates, but relented in a few months and pardoned both of them. This was the only revolution in Maryland in which the Jesuits did not suffer. During these troubled times Father Fitzherbert showed himself to be a resourceful, energetic and fearless priest who not only looked after his people throughout the Province, but managed the plantation at St. Inigoes and the other temporal affairs of the Mission as well.

Once order was restored to the province the Provincial Court at Newtown on June 5, 1661 took up again the case against Father Fitzherbert. In his defense Father Fitzherbert argued that the Act of Toleration allowed "Holy Church" within the province to have and enjoy all her rights, liberties and franchises wholly and without blemish. Among these that of preaching and teaching were among the most important. The law did not say what church was meant. He argued, therefore, that the true intent of the Act Concerning Religion was that every church professing to believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was accounted as "Holy Church". In addition, the Act provided that no person whatsoever professing to believe in Jesus Christ should be molested for the free exercise of every churchman’s religion.

The court agreed with Father Fitzherbert. It found him not guilty of all the charges brought against him. It held that it was neither rebellion nor mutiny to utter such words that he was alleged to have said. For that reason the court dismissed the suit.

With Lord Baltimore restored to power for a third time, his only son, Charles succeed his uncle, Philip, as governor in 1661. Philip Calvert then became the deputy governor. The structure of the assembly reverted to two houses. Charles took up residence at St. John’s House in St. Mary’s City. He later moved to Mattapany when he married the widow of its former owner, Henry Sewell.

With the help of Father Henry Warren, S.J., who joined him in Maryland in 1661, Father Fitzherbert began to plan for a new chapel at Newtown and Port Tobacco as well. On November 10, 1661, William Bretton and his wife, Temperance, gave an acre and a half of Little Bretton Manor for a church and cemetery. The following year the Jesuits built a wooden chapel, called Saint Ignatius in Newtown. It stood within the boundaries of the present graveyard. This graveyard has been in continuous use since 1662, and probably before that time. It seems certain that this ground was originally the private burial lot of the Bretton family. A similar chapel was built at Port Tobacco. Father Fitzherbert returned to England that year, leaving Father Warren to carry on alone.

During the period of peace for the Church the restoration of Lord Baltimore ushered in it was possible for the Jesuits to hold legal title to their property. On October 6, 1662 Thomas Matthews fulfilled his role as trustee when he transferred title to St. Thomas Manor to Father Warren. The following year , on July 12, 1663, Cuthbert Fenwick did the same with St. Inigoes Manor. He too had held it in trust since the time of Father Copley. It would appear that around this time the Jesuits erected a public chapel at St. Inigoes. It was a wooden affair, built in the form of a cross, and stood in the "chapel field" near the cove on St. Luke’s Creek. This chapel had a cemetery attached to it.

New missionaries from England arrived to assist in the evangelization during these years of tranquillity. In 1663 Father Edward Tidder, S.J., joined Father Warren in Maryland. The following year Father Peter Manners, S.J., and Father George Pole, S.J arrived. There is also a record of another priest, Father John Fitzwilliams, S.J. being in the province. When he came we do not know. The missions at Newtown, Port Tobacco, and Patuxent were flourishing. Father Warren probably lived at Saint Inigoes and cared for Newtown from there. Where the other priests were stationed is unknown. Father Fitzwilliam died in 1665. On October 12, 1666, Father Warren obtained a second patent for St. Thomas’ Manor with an additional eighty acres. The following year Father Tidder returned to England.

The Assembly took an fateful step in 1664. It legalized slavery in Maryland. We are uncertain as to the legal status of blacks prior to this time. Whether they were regarded as indentured servants, or whether some of them were regarded as slaves for life, is not certain. By this act the Assembly fastened servitude for life and by inheritance upon all Negroes who were then in the province or imported in the future.

The crowning achievement of the church building activity during this period was the Chapel at St. Mary’s City. Father Warren turned his attention to replacing the wooden structure destroyed in 1645. The new church was to be a brick structure of monumental proportions. The only surviving part is the foundations which are five feet into the ground and three feet wide. Based on these dimensions archeologists estimate that the walls must have been twenty-three to twenty-four feet high, towering over everything in the town. The excavations of the foundations reveal that the church was in the form of a cross, the nave and the sanctuary were fifty-five feet long while the width of the church at the point of the transepts was fifty-seven feet. The interior was covered with plaster. The floor was stone imported from Europe. Its windows consisted of leaded glass equipped with iron casements. It was finished about 1667.

During this period of relative peace the province of Maryland experienced rapid growth. As more colonists arrived, new settlements sprang up. Saint Inigoes found itself at the south end of a long chain of missions. To secure a more central location for the residence of the Superior of the Mission, Father Warren bought Little Bretton Manor at Newtown from William Bretton in 1668. Shortly thereafter, he transferred the headquarters for the Maryland Mission from Saint Inigoes to Newtown.

The next several years were hard ones for the Jesuits. Father Manners lost his life on April 24, 1669, while answering a call of mercy. In crossing a rapid millstream swollen by unusual spring rains, the torrent swept him and his horse to their death. His death was a great loss to the Mission since all without exception held him in the highest esteem for his virtue and integrity.

Father Pole died that same year on October 31. His death was a double blow to those few who remained. The overwork caused by their few numbers had already exhausted them. Father William Warren, S.J., arrived to reinforce the Jesuit community in 1669. He is thought to have been a brother to the Father Warren already in Maryland.

The records between the years 1670 and 1674 are incomplete, but the Annual Letters indicate much activity, with excellent results being achieved. Father William Warren died on February 7, 1671, as did Brother Thomas Sherborne some time that year.

The year 1671 is notable for another reason. The Assembly passed an act that year expressly declaring that baptism did not free a slave. This action was done so that no one would neglect to baptize their slaves out of fear that they would be thus set free.

About 1672, Father Henry Warren returned to England, leaving two Jesuits at the Mission, probably Fathers Clavering and Waldgrave. There is a record of them being in the Province in 1674. In the following year, Father Francis Pennington, S.J. and Nicholas Gulick, S.J. arrived in Maryland. The latter had been gravely ill during the voyage, but he recovered. Two lay brothers accompanied them. One of them was evidently Brother Francis Knatchbull, S.J., who was recorded in Maryland in 1675.

On November 30, 1675, Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, died in England, without ever having had the chance to visit Maryland during the forty years he was its Lord Proprietor. His son Charles, who succeeded his father, was in Maryland when word came of his father’s death. He was determined to continue his father’s policy of religious freedom. His efforts to secure this, however, did not always meet with understanding and acceptance. Voices were raised demanding the establishment of the Anglican Church in Maryland. One such was Rev. John Yeo. On May 25, 1676 he wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury to inform him of the dire lack of spirituality in the province. He attributed this situation to the lack of Anglican clergy and the absence of proper provision for the support of the three who were in Maryland of which he was one.

The following month, on June 8, 1676, the new Lord Baltimore demanded the Assembly take an oath of fidelity to him. This action revived in the minds of some an old fear that the Catholic proprietor would attempt to promote Catholicism. This provoked the publication of an strongly anti-Catholic pamphlet entitled "Petition entitled Complaint from Heaven with a Hue and Cry and a Petition Out of Virginia and Maryland." It was strongly anti-Catholic in sentiment, opposed to the oath of fidelity to the proprietor, and expressed a desire for Protestant governors. The fear was that Catholics would connive with the French and the Indians. It went on to request that Protestant ministers be supplied and that free school and glebe land be erected and established in every county, notwithstanding liberty of conscience.

.When the Archbishop of Canterbury received Rev. Yeo’s letter, he sent it to the Bishop of London on August 2, 1676. The Commission of Trade and Plantations had already begun an investigation of religious situation in Maryland. Lord Baltimore defended his policies by pointing to the preponderance of dissenters over both Anglicans and Roman Catholics. He used this as the basis for opposing the establishment of the Church of England. He argued instead for his policy of allowing each group voluntarily to support its own church. He did not believe it was wise to change this arrangement. To secure his position he left Maryland for England in 1676 where he spent a year. Shortly after he returned to Maryland in 1678, Charles had to deal with a plot to overthrow him hatched by Josias Fendall in conjunction with John Coode. Twenty years earlier Fendall had tried something similar. This time he had even less success. Apprehended, he was put on trial, convicted and banished from the colony in 1681. Coode escaped punishment altogether.

The Annual Letter sent to Rome for 1681 painted a picture of the Church at peace. The Maryland mission was flourishing. The seeds that the missionaries had sown there were growing into a copious crop and promised an abundant harvest. Problems still existed though. All that year, the Maryland Jesuits reported, there had been a great contention about their property. The enemies of the Society had enviously spread the report that it possessed immense wealth. They claimed it was almost enough to sustain an army. They thus tried to turn to the injury of the Society the generosity of the Jesuits in Europe who had promptly aided when their Maryland brothers had appealed to them. The truth was that the Jesuit possessions would hardly suffice to support a hundred. Taking into account of what perished through the ignorance of those in charge of it, of what was lost through the failure of tenant farmers to pay their annual revenues, of what was spent on lawyers to keep the estate itself from being snatched away, it sufficed for far fewer, unless they aided themselves by their own labor. What was lacking was adequately supplied by the charity of the faithful, for whom they labored strenuously. Much had been jeopardized and only preserved with difficulty. Some things were lost. Yet they trusted in the goodness of God and the piety of the Catholics, confident that while they sowed spiritual seed, their temporal needs would be met. Meanwhile they contented themselves with modest, frugal living and proper clothing.

In 1684 Lord Baltimore left for England in order to defend the Maryland charter at court against the complaints that were being lodged with the Commission of Trade and Plantations.

On August 24, 1685, Father Henry Warren conveyed all of the Jesuit holdings in Maryland to Fathers Francis and John Pennington, who are mentioned in the patent as being brothers. The patent also designated Father Francis Pennington as being of St. Inigoes. Father Warren was already in England at this time.

When Charles II died in 1685, his Catholic brother, the Duke of York, came to the throne as James II. If Lord Baltimore entertained any hopes that there would be an end to the petty opposition to his rule and policies, the new king doomed them. Of all the Stuart kings, James was the least friendly and gave the least support to the proprietary government of Maryland. In his brief reign of three years he did not evince the slightest interest in the cause of religious liberty. He opposed granting political rights and privileges to his subjects anywhere. In the case of Maryland he was jealous of the palatine powers of Lord Baltimore. He determined to curb his independence and bring the colony into line with the other colonies under his direct control and subjection. To accomplish his purpose he was willing to sacrifice the rights of the Catholic proprietary and the comfort and well-being of the Catholic colonists.

In 1688 the Holy See established four ecclesiastical districts in England. The Vicar Apostolic of the London District became responsible for the supervision of the Maryland mission. Up to now the Jesuit General in Rome, operating under a special privilege granted by Gregory XIII in 1579, granted faculties for the missionaries.

In a final attempt to restore stability to the province, Lord Baltimore appointed William Joseph, a Catholic, to be president of the Council. This move proved a disaster. When Joseph came to Maryland from England in 1688, he arrived as an unwanted foreigner. To add to the mismatch, Joseph was a staunch supporter of James II. He opened his first assembly in October 1688 by defending the divine right of kings and proprietary privilege. He frittered away whatever good will he had with the burgesses by spending days quarreling with them over issues that had more form than substance. He insisted they take an oath of fidelity to Lord Baltimore. Once he had carried the day on that issue, he forced through another act to make the birthday of James’s Catholic heir a holiday. This served only to further alienate Protestants from the cause of the proprietor.

In 1688, a few months after the birth of his son, King James II fled from his kingdom. William of Orange and his wife, Mary, the eldest daughter of the deposed king and an Anglican, were proclaimed jointly the rightful successors to the throne of England. Immediately Lord Baltimore, dispatched a messenger from England with an order to proclaim the new sovereigns. The messenger died at Plymouth on the way to Maryland. Thus, while the other colonies were proclaiming the accession of William and Mary, Maryland remained silent. Although Lord Baltimore sent a second messenger in February, 1689, the mischief had already been done. Many people in the Province linked the fact that Maryland had not acknowledged the new Protestant sovereigns with the rumors that the Catholics and the Indians had entered into a conspiracy to massacre the Protestants. The Council met daily trying to come up with a strategy to calm popular fears. They investigated the reported conspiracy and declared them to be without foundation in fact. Since, however, the Council was composed of only Catholics by this point, their statements had little credibility. Nevertheless, a number of Protestants prominent in the colony signed a declaration of confidence in Lord Baltimore. Later some of them issued a second declaration in which they insisted that all the alarm was "but a sleeveless fear and imagination, fomented by the artifice of some ill-minded persons who are studious and ready to take all occasions of raising disturbances for their own private and malicious interest." However, the seeds of suspicion had been sown, and an atmosphere receptive to rebellion had been created.

Suddenly and without warning, rebellion broke out in the summer of 1689. On July 25, John Coode, Nehemiah Blackistone, his brother-in-law, and Henry Jowles along with a band of armed followers published a "Declaration of the reason and motive for the present appearing in arms of His Majesty's Protestant Subjects in the Province of Maryland". They demanded the Council surrender the government of the province to them. They justified their demands by saying that the Council was not sufficiently loyal to the new Sovereigns; that the Council, a majority of whom were Catholics, was prejudiced against the Anglican Church and its members; and, finally, that the Council and the proprietor had abused the powers granted in the charter. With this declaration the "Associators", as they called themselves, were able to enlist enough support that a defense of St. Mary's City became impossible. Coode, assisted by Nehemiah Blackiston, Kenelm Cheseldyne, Henry Jowles, and others began a march through St. Mary’s County on the capital. The force grew in strength as they approached St. Mary’s City. Colonel William Diggs, a Council member and leader of the faction loyal to Lord Baltimore, had raised a force of about one hundred men. This small force took up positions at the statehouse. When the defenders learned how greatly they were outnumbered, they refused to fight. So without a shot being fired, the Council surrendered St. Mary’s City on July 27, 1689. The Associators seized the records of the province and prepared to administer the government as the representatives of William and Mary. Nicholas Sewall and Henry Darnall, two other Catholic members of the Council fled to Mattapany, where they prepared to make another stand. Coode pursued them with a force now numbering seven hundred. Again the Council surrendered and agreed to legislation barring Catholics from holding office in the Province in the future. All appointive offices were forthwith filled with Protestants.

After establishing themselves in power, the Associators proceeded to threaten, plunder, and imprison anyone who attempted in any way to oppose them -- Protestant and Catholic alike. They petitioned the king to take the government of the province into his own hands. The king approved of the rebellion, but ordered them to await his further commands.

At the outbreak of the trouble, the Jesuits fled for their lives once again. It is uncertain who was at St. Inigoes at the time, but it probably was Father Gulick. He escaped to Virginia. Father Francis Pennington and Father John Matthews probably went into hiding in Maryland. John Coode and the Associators spared no effort in tracking them down. On November 16, 1689, Coode wrote to Governor Bacon of Virginia and demanded the extradition of Father Richard Hubbard, a Franciscan, and Father Cannon, probably also a Franciscan, who fled to their friends, the Brents, in Stafford County. Coode wrote again on January 10, 1690 concerning the same fugitives. He also demanded the surrender of Father Gulick. Becoming impatient, Coode wrote to Bacon a third time, this time in rather sharp language. Governor Bacon, to his credit, just ignored him. Father Gulick and Father Hubbard subsequently returned to Maryland at an unknown time.

It was not until December that the Autumn tobacco fleet reached London with the word of the revolution in Maryland. They brought with them copies of the "Declaration" as well as refugees from the losing side. The Commission of Trade and Plantations immediately re-opened the investigation of the Maryland charter. Lord Baltimore appeared before them together an array of witnesses that included Henry Darnall, his ousted councilor who was one of those who had come over on the tobacco boats. Darnell brought with him Charles Carroll to give legal advice to Lord Baltimore.

By February 1690 the tobacco fleet was ready to return to Maryland on their Spring return. It was imperative that some word be sent to guide those in control of the province. As a stop-gap measure, William III authorized the Associators to administer the government until he could make a proper and complete examination of all matters and hear the proprietor’s side of the dispute. The government sent the letter by way of Francis Nicholson, the royal governor of Virginia. It reached the Associators in late May 1690. This caused both Coode and Cheseldyne to sail for England to press in person their petition with the king. Meanwhile the king asked the Lord Chief Justice John Holt to find some means, having the cloak of legality, to justify the seizure of the province and to vacate the charter of Lord Baltimore. The Lord Chief Justice had many misgivings. On June 3, 1690, he rendered the opinion that it would be more proper to proclaim the forfeiture of the Charter on some special ground after an investigation. Yet since there was none, and it was a case of necessity, he thought the king might by his commission, constitute a governor whose authority would be legal. The one benefit he allowed to Lord Baltimore was the right to collect rents and other profits. This opinion, in effect, made Lord Baltimore the landlord of the province, entitled only to receive rents of his estates, the quit-rents of the tenants, and impost duties on tobacco. The Commissioners of the Privy Seal doubted the legality of the decision and refused to confirm the commission without orders from the Privy Council. As a consequence, on August 21 the Privy Council ordered the Attorney General, Sir George Treby, to proceed against the charter of Lord Baltimore. He prepared a new commission for Copley and submitted it to Lord Baltimore for his signature. He objected because it deprived him of the powers of government that the charter had bestowed upon him. In the end it was useless for him, a Catholic, to contest the will of the king. He had to be content with having the continuance of his territorial rights conceded. As a consequence, Copley’s commission as governor finally bore the signature of Lord Baltimore. In March 1691 William III vacated the charter on the grounds of "political necessity", and on June 27, 1691 a commission was issued to Sir Lionel Copley to be the first Royal Governor of Maryland

Once Copley arrived in Maryland in 1692, events moved swiftly. The Assembly recognized William and Mary as the sovereigns and thanked them "for redeeming us from the arbitrary will and pleasure of a tyrannical popish government under which we have so long groaned." The Assembly also prescribed an oath in 1692 that effectively disbarred Catholic attorneys It then made the Anglican Church the established Church of Maryland. It divided every county into parishes, and levied a tax of forty pounds of tobacco on all males over sixteen years of age, Catholic and Protestant alike, to support the established Church. This act went further, however. It provided that the inhabitants of Maryland should have all rights and liberties as provided in the Magna Charta and the laws of England. As a result, the king refused to sanction it. He did not want mention made of the Magna Charta or civil liberties in the same act together with church establishment. His justification was that this would be joining ecclesiastical and temporal matters. He also informed the Assembly that the attorney general and other learned lawyers in England held that, if the people of the province had the enjoyment of their rights under English laws, they would have to try all their cases in Westminister Hall in London. While these events were playing themselves out, Father William Hunter, S.J., arrived in Maryland to be the new superior for the Mission.

Governor Copley died after a lingering illness in September 1693. The King appointed the acting governor of Virginia, Sir Francis Nicholson as the new governor of Maryland. At the time of his appointment, Nicholas was in England. Because of the difficulties the Assembly created in the establishment law, the king instructed him to drop the matter entirely and to permit liberty of conscience to all. The new governor did not arrive at his new assignment until the following year 1694. He convened the first Assembly under his administration at Anne Arundel Town. By so doing, he raised anew the issue of removing the capital permanently from St. Mary’s City. The people of St. Mary’s argued against the proposal, but to no avail. By February 1695, the government of the province was on the Severn. Saint Mary’s City was left as the seat of the county court.

Father Robert Brooke, S.J., the first native-born priest and Jesuit, returned to Maryland from Europe about 1696.

On August 10, 1697, the governor and Council ordered the county sheriffs to draw up a list of Catholic priests and lay brothers who were residents of their respective counties. They were also to include a list of all churches, chapels, or places of worship; what kind of buildings they were; and where they were situated. The sheriff of St. Mary's County submitted his report in May 1698. He reported that there were two priests, Father John Hall and Father Nicholas Gulick and one lay brother (probably Brother John Dyne) in residence at St. Inigoes Manor. In addition, there was a brick chapel at St. Mary's City; a wooden chapel at Mr. Gulick's plantation (St. Inigoes), and a wooden chapel beyond the Patuxent Road, near Mr. Haywood's (Mattapany). The exact site of this later chapel remains somewhat of a mystery to this day. The Haywoods lived near Mattapany, and the Patuxent Road ran from the Three Notch Road.

In 1698 Catholics protested against the forty-pound poll tax for the maintenance of Anglican ministers. It was to no avail. The following year the Assembly required a test oath of office-holders that effectively barred all Catholics from holding any public office in the Province. It also sought to limit the number of "Irish Papists" brought into the province.

However, matters did not rest there. In 1701 war broke out in Europe between England and the combined forces of France and Spain. The precipitating cause for the war was the attempt of Louis XIV to place his grandson, Philip V on the Spanish throne. English historians know this war as the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1702 King William died, and Queen Anne came to the throne. She was the younger sister of Queen Mary and the daughter of James II. What was more important, she was an Anglican. That year, the Assembly, responded to the wave of anti-Catholic feeling occasioned by the outbreak of Queen Anne’s War, the American colonial phase of the broader European conflict. The Assembly succeeded in drawing up a law establishing the Anglican Church as the Church of Maryland. It required every inhabitant to pay a tax to support the Anglican clergy. The fines collected under the act financed the repair of Anglican church property. The Queen sanctioned this law and it remained on the books almost until the American Revolution.

Beginning with the administration of Governor John Seymour in 1704, the government began to enact sterner measures. The Council and the governor summoned Father Brooke and Father Hunter to appear before them on September 11. Charles Carroll, represented them as their lawyer. He asked the Council if the two priests ought to have their counsel with them. The Council unanimously agreed that they should not. The governor then asked whether the custom of toleration from the first settlement of the province justified the actions of these priests. The Council agreed it could not.

When Father Hunter and Father Brooke appeared, they were told the reason they were called before the governor. They were charged with dedicating a popish chapel and for saying Mass at St. Mary’s City. Father Hunter thanked the governor for the opportunity of appearing before him. While expressing regret for any annoyance in his conduct, he denied that he had consecrated the chapel since that was an episcopal function. He admitted that he had said Mass, but nobody was present but himself in his common priest's vestments. Father Brooke admitted he did say Mass at St. Mary’s Chapel while court was in session as others formerly had done.

Advised that this was the first complaint against Father Hunter and Father Brooke, the governor severely reprimanded them. He told them that they must not expect any favor but rather the utmost severity of the law for any misdemeanor they might commit. He reminded the two Jesuits that it was the unhappy temper of their tribe to grow insolent upon civility and never know how to use it. Of all people, they should realize that the laws on the books, if enforced, were sufficient to crush them. The governor was convinced that they would fear them if only their arrogant beliefs had not blinded them. He thought that they should be content to live quietly and keep their superstitious vanities to themselves without proclaiming them at public times and in public places. Instead they expected by their gaudy shows and serpentine policy to amuse the multitude and beguile the unthinking weakest part of the population. This was an act of deceit characteristic of the Jesuits. He warned them not to mistake the clemency of Her Majesty's Government. Even though she was inclined to make all her subjects easy that knew how to be so, Queen Anne had the means to curb insolence. The governor felt the Jesuits needed this more than others, since, in his opinion, they abounded with insolence. He was only letting them go this time because some gentlemen had asked him to give them a second chance. He assured them that if there were a next time they would find the truth of what he said. He advised them not to think that the severity of the laws would be a means to move the pity of their judges. He intended to send them out of the colony where they could be dealt without popular disapproval. He advised them to be civil and modest for there was no other way for them to live quietly in Maryland. They were the first who had given any disturbance to the government. It was only the hope of better conduct that saved them from further punishment.

Even with these laws on the books, suspicions of Catholics persisted. On May 18, 1705, the governor and Council received an anonymous warning that a group of Catholics, lead by Henry Darnall and some priests were conniving with the Indians and the French to destroy Protestants. It charged that the mitigation of the laws against Catholic worship would cast a reflection on the lower house. By such an action, the House was blinding the people to their real danger. The legislators promptly branded the warning as a libel and ordered the writers prosecuted. Their identity was never discovered, but the rumors still received credence in certain circles.

The record is not clear what exactly happened at Saint Inigoes as these tragic events unfolded. The Jesuits had been living at Saint Inigoes House on the manor since the day of Father Copley. From there they had served the chapel at Saint Mary's City, the chapel at Mattapany, and the chapel in the field near their house. Almost overnight they lost the use of all three chapels. What happened at the Patuxent Mission is even more shrouded in mystery. It is likely that congregation continued, using the chapel at the Mattapany Manor, the old Conception Manor, which was still in the hands of the Sewell family.

As the eighteen-month period of grace for Catholic priests functioning in private Catholic families ended, another bill to tolerate this arrangement was introduced in the upper house on April 13, 1706. At the same time Henry Darnall, Charles Carroll, Richard Bennett, and James Carroll petitioned, in the name of their fellow Catholics, for complete toleration. The Council seemed unfavorable to the petition, but sent it, together with the bill for toleration, to the lower house. The lower house ignored the petition, but the bill providing continuance of toleration for private worship passed both houses on April 18, 1706. The next day the governor signed the measure into law. The following year, April 15, 1707, this arrangement was extended by law during the pleasure of the Queen.

Governor Seymour’s administration ended in 1709. Benedict Leonard Calvert, the eldest son of the third Lord Baltimore and his heir apparent suggested to Queen Anne the appointment of John Hart as the new governor. The Queen accepted his suggestion and Hart was on his way to Maryland as the new governor.

In 1710 Charles Calvert petitioned Queen Anne for the restoration of his rights in Maryland. The Queen denied the petition. Four years later the Queen died, without heirs. The English throne then went to the eldest son of Sophie, the Electress of Saxony, a granddaughter of James I. He came to England to reign as George I.

The abandonment of the chapel at Saint Mary's City preceded shortly the removal of the county seat to Leonardtown in 1708. Catholics in considerable numbers had been leaving the town for some time. At length not a house stood to mark the place where the town once stood. Legend has it that some years later (about 1710?) the Jesuits returned to St. Mary’s City and tore down the chapel in St. Mary’s City, taking the bricks down to the manor. It appears that the Fathers shortly thereafter built a new brick residence at St. Inigoes near the old chapel in the field. The reasons for this move are not clear to us, but perhaps it involved an effort to connect the chapel with a residence so that its use would again be legal.

The Jesuits remained at their posts to render what consolation they could to the distressed Catholics. The need to maintain secrecy during these years immediately following the imposition of the penal laws has deprived us of many written records. We are not even sure of the identity of all of the priests stationed at St. Inigoes during this troubled period or how long they stayed.

Knowing that his life was ending shortly, Calvert had given up hope that his eldest son and heir, Benedict Leonard, would be any protection for the Catholics of Maryland. The relationship between the two had been strained for some time. Benedict’s marriage was an unhappy one that ended in separation in 1709.

On June 11, 1711, Henry Darnall died. He had been the Judge and Registrar of the Land Office in Maryland. Lord Baltimore appointed his personal attorney, Charles Carroll to be the successor. Calvert instructed Carroll to allow himself twelve thousand pounds of tobacco for his advice and troubles. He was also to give to Father Robert Brooke and his eight brethren, the other Jesuits missionaries, a thousand pounds of tobacco. A second thousand was to go to James Haddock, a Franciscan friar working in Charles County.

Benedict Leonard Calvert’s decision to leave the Catholic Church in 1713 and become an Anglican was the final rupture in his relationship with his father. Now that he no longer had the opprobrium of being a Papist, Benedict petitioned for the return of his palatinate. His petition, made while his father was still alive, mentioned that the province would be in his hands at the death of his father "who is now eighty-five years of age." To safeguard as best he could the family heritage, the third Lord Baltimore made Charles Carroll virtually the vice-proprietary of the province. Carroll was in England on February 20, 1715, when Charles Calvert finally died. He remained on England to help Lady Baltimore in the settlement of her husband’s affairs, and then returned to Maryland.

Benedict turned out to be a very tragic figure. He outlived his father by only two months, dying himself April 15. He never received his expected reward for abandoning the faith of his fathers. His sixteen years old son, Charles succeeded him as the fifth Lord Baltimore. By the time that word of the death of the third Lord Baltimore reached Maryland in May, the fourth Lord Baltimore was already dead in England. The new Lord Baltimore was still a minor Lord Francis Guilford acted as his guardian. Since the new baron had been raised an Anglican, Guildford quickly petitioned King George I to restore the province to the Calvert family. The king granted this request and Maryland again was a proprietary colony.

The same year there was an uprising in Ireland and Scotland in favor of the Pretender, the son of James II, whose birth had sparked the Revolution of 1688. This event set the stage for a renewal of anti-Catholic legislation in Maryland. When Carroll returned to Maryland, he found Governor Hart starting on such a program. The Assembly empowered the governor and Council to remove a child from the custody of its mother if she became Catholic or married a Catholic. In June 1716 some over-zealous Catholic youths, including one of Carroll’s nephews, fired a salute from a cannon at the fort of Annapolis. It was the birthday of the Pretender. This single shot alarmed the whole colony that again reverberated with the cry of a popish plot. Governor Hart had the offenders arrested and imprisoned. Carroll had to secure his release. The rich were heavily fined. The poor felt the lash of the whip. Jacob Fox, a servant of Joseph Hill, was whipped and put in the pillory. Hart seized upon this event as a welcomed pretext to further restrict the rights of Catholics. As a consequence the Assembly met on July 17, 1716 and established stringent oaths of allegiance to the king and of abhorrence of the supremacy of the Pope as well as an abjuration of the claims of the Pretender. Anyone refusing to take them was barred from exercising any public office in the Province.

Governor Hart sought to use these laws against Carroll. Carroll’s position in the province was a particular annoyance to the governor. The prerogatives of Carroll’s office clearly encroached upon Hart’s. It was unthinkable to him that a Catholic should have any powers from the Lord Proprietary that might conflict with his own. It hurt his pride and he threatened to resign. He accused Carroll of being the chief fomenter of the trouble with his audacious claim that the second Lord Baltimore had given Catholics the right to hold office. To eliminate him, Hart demanded that Carroll take the oath of abjuration that the law required of all office-holders. Since it required anyone who took it to deny the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, no Catholic could take it. Hart required this oath for the express purpose of keeping all Catholics out of office. Carroll replied that the proprietary appointed him his chief agent in the colony without mention of religion or oaths. The Assembly supported the governor. Both Hart and Carroll then appealed to Lord Guilford. In the end Guildford sided with Hart and curtailed most of Carroll’s powers.

In 1717 the Assembly doubled the tax on imported Irish servants. The next year, 1718, to better secure the safety of the province, the Assembly prohibited Catholics from voting for members of the lower house.

Hart next tried to confiscate the property of the Jesuits. The question of vested property rights complicated this question. Here too Carroll, well grounded in the English Common Law, stood in the way. Then, too, there were certain rights of landowners under the royal charter and the conditions of plantation, to be considered. The English parliament had previously passed an act authorizing a commission to investigate estates given to superstitious uses. This was a penal measure used in England against Catholics and others considered traitors to raise money for the public use. The governor used this law to appoint himself a committee to one to conduct this investigation of Jesuit holdings in Maryland. Since the days of Henry VIII the twin phrases of "superstitious uses" and "public use" were the legal pretext to confiscate church or monastery property. As part of his investigation Hart subjected Charles Carroll to interrogatories, questioning whether he knew of lands or money given to "superstitious uses." Carroll replied that he did not. He added further that he believed that some priests possessed lands that they received either under the common conditions of plantation or for which they had paid a valuable consideration. He did think that they hardly afforded even a bare subsistence for those who held them. The governor must have agreed with him, for he let the matter drop.

The administration of Governor Hart ended in 1720. Charles Calvert, the uncle of the proprietor, succeeded him as governor. He did not share Hart’s anti-Catholic sentiments. Charles Carroll died that year. His work was done. In 1726 Governor Calvert also died, and the proprietor appointed his brother, Benedict Leonard Calvert, to succeed him. In 1727, the new governor arrived in Maryland to take up his responsibilities.

In 1729, the Assembly extended to the justices of the county courts the power to remove children from the custody of their mothers. That year the governor’s health worsened. He decided to return to England, only to die at sea on his way back. Samuel Ogle succeeded him as governor.

By a will dated 1723 Father Hunter bequeathed St. Inigoes Manor to his successor as superior of the mission, Father George Thorold, S.J.. Father Thomas Mansell, S.J., served at St. Inigoes in the early years of the century. After a period of service as superior at Newtown, he died at St. Inigoes on August 18, 1724. Father Peter Atwood, S.J., followed him at some point. Father Thorold deeded him the manor May 9, 1726. Father James Case, S.J., served at St. Inigoes around this time. He died there February 15, 1731, and was buried in the graveyard in the chapel field on the manor. A St. Inigoes rent book for 1734 mentions Father Thomas Gerard, S.J.. The same book is evidence that Father Henry Whetenhall, S.J., was also there then.

During the same time, the Father apparently did what they could, under cover to educate Catholic youth. Vitus Herbert, a schoolboy at St. Inigoes in 1735, received a legacy to two hundred fifty pounds of tobacco for his schooling.

Father Thomas Poulton, S.J., the procurator, went down to St. Inigoes in 1740 from St. Thomas to straighten out Father Gerard’s rent book. He was in a predicament concerning a certain Patrick Burns. Old Patrick Burns, the man’s father, had rented a farm, but was backward in his rent. When the old man died, the young Patrick continued on the farm. The rents kept on increasing and the young man became despondent. To encourage him Father Poulton took his promissory note, and then took him back to St. Thomas. Around this time he sent three shillings and six pence worth of rum to the people of St. Inigoes at harvest time. The people were especially well treated then.

Everyone went into the field, and worked as hard as he could. It was inspiring to behold the cradlers swing their scythes in rhythm through the golden grain. The strongest first went to give the time and beat, swinging his scythe in rhythm through the golden grain.. The others followed, straininged their arms and thighs to press upon his heels. Swish, swish came down the sheaf, and then forward a step. Swish, swish it went till they came to the end of the field. After a moment’s rest and , a cool drink, look back upon the swath and a cooling draught, the whetstones flew hither and thither on the glistening steel. At the word of command off they went again. So it went from early morning to noon and from noon to Vespers time. The binders followed quickly upon the heels of the cradlers. Their task was to tie the grain into sheaves. The heavily laden wagons hauled them away. All turned out on such a day. The aged and the children to look on, to encourage, to bandy words and to help, or to run about with nimble feet and play on the stubble field. The Fathers too would walk about to cheer on the reapers with gentle words and hearty smiles. Then came the harvest meal, a. A fatted calf, a big sheep or several tender lambs to graced the table.

Father Gerard died at St. Inigoes and was buried in the chapel field cemetery. Father Vincent Phillips, S.J., succeeded him around 1741. The catalogue of the English Province of the Society of Jesus for 1749-50 places Father James Ashby, S.J., at Saint Inigoes. The rent records written in his hand indicate that he was there from 1749 to 1754. He was a great builder. Father Carbery credits him with building St. Inigoes Manor. The old manor house was situated on the northwest corner of the estate on a point that juts out into the river. It fronted towards the mouth of the river. Someone in a boat above the point could see the mouth of the river through the two main doors when they were thrown open during pleasant weather. Father Ashby built in the English style. The walls were very thick and massive. The ground floor had five rooms. Entering the south front a visitor came to a hall that led to the pastor’s room on the left and to the assistant’s room on the right. On crossing it you were in the grand parlor or reception room, and in front the north entrance door was before you. A door leading from the left of the large room opened on the bishop’s apartment. On the right there was another door leading into the ordinary dining room. The central or main room was an elegant one and must have been twenty-four feet square with high ceiling. From the north front there was a superb view of the upper St. Mary’s, historic Rosecroft, Porto Bello and old St. Mary’s City. The roof was quadrilateral and severely peaked, with four tall chimneys piercing it.

Father Ashby hated idleness. After he had finished projecting plans, getting bids from the county masons and carpenters, considering costs and expenses, and fussing with workers, he spent the long quiet evenings of St. Inigoes in literary endeavors. He stitched together about one hundred sheets of paper with a piece of twine, and covered it with the ordinary rough store paper used on all the St. Inigoes rent books. He then wrote a history of the Holy Roman Empire, and of the Eastern and Western schism.

Father Ashby’s great interest in horses led him to introduce blooded horses to St. Inigoes. During this period the Jesuits had started to raise horses on their manors. In the early days the missionaries visited their parishioners by boat, as there were few roads. After the people had settled some distance from the rivers and creeks the priests traveled about on horseback, taking with them everything that was necessary for services at the various stations. They would pack an altar stone, vestments, missal, wine and vessels in their saddle bags. Then they were ready to ride.

During the Penal Years the homes of the people were the center of the life of the Mission. The priest would come to the house for Mass. Often he came the evening before, on horseback or driving his buggy down the necks to the big houses near the wharves. Next morning the head of the house would go to the fields and call out to the hands: "Tie up your horses and come in to Mass." Both Catholic and Protestant, white and black, would come in to the big room. If the priest had to hear confessions in the kitchen, it would be scrubbed clean as a deck. The best drapes in the house would be around the table used for Mass. Afterwards there may have been marriages to witness. Often there would be baptisms from the white and black groups. The lady of the house was the catechism teacher for that district.

In 1753 Horatio Sharpe was appointed governor of Maryland. It was during his administration that the French and Indian War broke out in 1754. This contributed to another rise of anti-Catholic feeling again in Maryland. The Assembly accused Catholics of meddling in political matters because of their efforts to get members elected to the Assembly who would be more favorable to their cause. Governor Sharpe felt that the legislation directed against Catholics the very year the war broke out was unwise. His caution, however, was not an obstacle to the Assembly. It promptly urged him to place none but faithful Protestants in offices of trust or profit in the province.

Father Arnold Livers, S.J., succeeded Father Ashby at St. Inigoes in 1754. A certain Thomas Greaves accused Father Livers before the Maryland Assembly in October 1753, of converting Protestants. His superiors decided to send him to St. Inigoes. Its isolation offered greater security than Newtown, where he had been, could afford. Father Livers was a genial gentleman, cheerful and hospitable, amiable and social. He loved poetry and blooded horses and continued to breed them. He kept very quiet, cultivating his flower gardens.

On November 5, 1754, Rev. William Brogden, the Anglican rector of St. Anne’s Parish in Annapolis, preached one of the most scathing denunciation of the Catholic Church found in any literature of that period. Many of the Anglican rectors were also vociferous in their warnings of the danger that Catholics posed. They exploited the general antipathy toward Catholics brought on by another war with France to advance the interest of the established church. The initial successes of the French forces posed the real possibility of a victory by Catholic France, and created an atmosphere of fear on the English side. This climate influenced some citizens of Prince George’s County to instruct their representatives in the Assembly to support a law dispossessing the Jesuits of their holdings in Maryland and excluding Catholics from all places of trust and profit in the government of the province. The petitioners described such an action as the most extensive service their representatives could do for their country. Reports were circulating that Catholics were still stirring up opposition to the government. Lord Baltimore contributed to this movement by declaring his hatred of the Catholic Church and his belief that the Anglican Church was the source of future happiness. He had written to Governor Sharpe and instructed him to begin to enforce certain parts of the penal laws that had fallen into disuse. Sharpe had chosen not to act on these instructions. The Maryland Assembly responded to these sentiments by passing a law in 1756 which subjected Catholics to double taxation. The hysteria reached such a point that even Governor Sharpe feared that he and his council might fall under some suspicion of being favorably inclined toward Catholicism if he did not support the bill. When Catholics petitioned him to veto it, he ignored their request, and showed himself subservient to popular demands by signing the measure. While he saw no menace in the Catholics, he also saw no injustice in the double tax. This was clear evidence of political bias engendered by the general disrepute in which Catholics found themselves.

Sharpe had some misgivings as to just how the matter might appear to the proprietor. In a letter to Calvert he tried to explain his position, laying part of the blame on the Catholics themselves. He thought that they should have voiced their objections while the double tax bill was still before the lower house. He had little sympathy for those who waited until it was before the upper house that did not customarily change money bills. Sharpe also felt that when the bill was presented, he did not want to be accused of favoring Catholics just when the war with Catholic France was being fought. The penal laws already forbade Catholics from serving in the militia. As a result, the governor reasoned, they stood to gain more from a successful outcome of the war than they would lose by the double tax imposed upon them. The governor closed his justification for signing the bill with a tour de force: other colonies were treating them even worse!

On October 10, 1756, the governor wrote to his brother John to express his apprehension about the double taxation. He was concerned that the Catholics might apply to the proprietor or to the king in Council for relief. He had heard that one of his brothers was helping them in this regard. This disturbed him greatly. He felt that Catholics were not grateful enough for what he had done for them in his past struggles with the Assembly. He had passed up opportunities to buy friends at their expense. He also felt that it would be a tactical mistake for Catholics to seek relief from either the proprietor or the Assembly. He realized, as they did not, that Lord Baltimore was not friendly to them. If, on the other hand, the Catholics were successful in obtaining relief from the Assembly, he was afraid that that very success would ignite demands for the enforcement of the proprietor’s directions. If the Catholics failed to obtain relief they sought from the Assembly, he was afraid that the Assembly would enact even severer laws against them. In his judgment, the Catholics stood to lose in either case. He felt they would be wiser to be satisfied with their existing situation. It was the best they could reasonablye expect.

Shortly afterward, Governor Sharpe began a formaln investigation into the charges being made against Catholics. The whole matter was beginning to agitate the government in London. The proprietor himself desired that the results of the investigation be sent to him. The governor’s method was to use the justices of the peace to gain information. Meanwhile, life continued uneventfully at St. Inigoes. Ssometime in 1757, Father Livers picked up Father Ashby’s historical treatise. He ventured to record the number of turkeys, geese, and Muscovy ducks he had around the house. In 1759, he jottedust put down everything as it came in and went out at least for a few years. After that no one knows what moneys he received or spent.

Father James Beadnell, S.J., came to St. Inigoes for a short time in 1758. He like Father Livers was a refugee from persecution. Someone in Queen Anne’s County accused him of trying to convert a Quaker to Roman Catholicism and of saying Mass in a private house. He denied the former and maintained the legality of the latter. Two writs were issued for his arrest, and he was obliged to post bail of £1500 to secure his appearance at the Provincial Court at Annapolis on October 19, 1756. He petitioned the proprietor to quash the indictment, or pardon him if convicted. The proprietor turned a deaf ear, pleading want of information. He adopted the position that Beadnall must submit to his punishment if convicted. The trail was delayed until April 16, 1757, when he was acquitted on both counts. He left St. Inigoes at some point and went to Newtown. Father Ashby rejoined Father Livers at St. Inigoes in 1761. That year it appears that Father James Framback, S.J., was also at St. Inigoes. Father John Diggs, S.J., a native Marylander, died there that November.

All the English settlements in America at this time were considered subject to the ecclesiastical superiors in London. It appears that this arrangement dated from 1688 when England was divided into four districts. The jurisdiction over the Catholics in those settlements in North America appears to have followed the London district. The English thought of them as part of the London diocese, probably because London was the capital of the British Empire. London had the most frequent opportunity of a proper correspondence with all those settlements. Whether the Holy See had ordered anything in this regard, Bishop Richard Challoner, the Vicar Apostolic in London, could never learn. By the middle of the eighteenth century the origins of this situation had been lost to history. All he knew was that all the missionaries in those settlements had from time immemorial applied to the Vicar Apostolic in London for their faculties. This was also true of the Jesuits in Maryland and Pennsylvania; at least from the time of the Brief of Innocent XII in 1696. The only difference was that then they used to ask only for approbation, but by that time they also asked for faculties.

The Treaty of Paris of 1763 not only ended the French and Indian War, but also opened the possibility of regularizing the situation of the Catholic Church in British North America. Bishop Challoner continued to be the episcopal superior of the Maryland Mission. He reported to Rome that in Maryland the laws were opposed to the Catholic Church as they were in England. However, these laws were rarely put into execution. Usually there was a sort of tacit toleration. He proposed that Rome consider sending one or more bishops to the American colonies. Catholics, like Charles Carroll, who lived in Maryland and knew the situation first hand, did not share this view. They feared that the appointment of a bishop would arouse further Protestant ire.

In his official report to the English provincial in 1765, Father George Hunter, S.J., the superior of the Maryland Mission, listed the missions chapels of Maryland. First on the list was the mission of the Holy Assumption, which he said was commonly called St. Inigo’s. He noted that there was one missionary stationed there. The manor had twenty slaves, of which twelve were workers. Three worked indoors and nine worked in the field. The rest were children or elderly.

Father Ashby returned to Newtown in 1766, while Father Livers continued to serve at St. Inigoes until his death on August 16, 1767. Father John Lewis, S.J., the superior of the Mission, appears in the records of St. Inigoes in the years 1769.

Governor Sharpe sent the results of his investigations to Lord Baltimore in December 1768. Ten years of work had shown that the charges were false. They exonerated Catholics of any hostility to the government. His letter to Lord Baltimore evidences his conclusion that Maryland had mistreated Catholics. He drew attention to their inability to sit in either house of the Maryland Assembly or to hold any place of public trust or profit in the province. In spite of that, he found that Catholics had been more circumspect in their conduct than had Protestants. They had not left the province in spite of hostile legislation against them. Instead, they had maintained an almost unvarying ratio to the total population of the province. At that time they held about one-twelfth of the land. As a group, he felt they manifested no greater spiritual fervor than other religious groups. Only about one-half of them approached the sacraments.

Nationalism was raising its head across Europe in a way that would have a profound impact on the Maryland Mission. In 1750 the Hispano-Portuguese Treaty divided the province of Paraguay where the Jesuits had been active establishing missions for the native peoples. When the Jesuits resisted Portuguese colonial policies in order to prevent the expropriation of lands of the native peoples and their enslavement, the Jesuits earned for themselves the undying hatred of the minister of state, Sebastiano Jose de Carvalho e Mello, Marquis of Pombal. He was a man strongly influenced by the French enlightenment. Not only did he expel from Portugal those he did not imprison, he also broke diplomatic relations with the Holy See. He expelled the papal nuncio and recalled the Portuguese ambassador in Rome. Portugal was in a virtual state of schism. The House of Bourbon, whose members sat on the thrones of France, Spain, Naples, and Parma, joined in the attack of the Society. They petitions the Holy See to suppress the Society worldwide. They were outlawed in France and expelled from Spain and its colonies, Naples, Parma, and Malta.

Pope Clement XIII had stood against the pressure to suppress the Society during the course of his pontificate. In the end he called a special consistory of the College of Cardinals to deal with the incessant demands for the suppression of the Jesuits as the price to secure the peace and unity of the Church. According to John Carroll, the Pope had prepared the answer he intended to make in a few days, and had delivered it to his ministers to be put into the due form. The substance of his answer was that no worldly considerations, no loss of temporalities, would ever force him into any measure which he could not justify to his own conscience. The more he saw and knew of the Jesuits, the more he was convinced the charges made against them were false. As a result, he could not acquiesce to the proposal made him by the allied courts. On February 3, 1769, the day before the consistory was to meet, God took a direct hand in directing the affairs of the Church. The Pope died of an apoplectic stroke. His death was a blow to the Society.

Once he head the news, John Carroll confided his fears regarding the future of the Society to his brother Daniel. Writing from Bruges in 1769, the year he was to be ordained a priest, he was confident that the news would have already reached Daniel. Carroll was learning first hand the mysteries of divine providence. In human appearance, nothing could have happened more unfortunate to them. It was the critical moment when the Pope was to give an answer to the memorials of three united courts of the family compact, France, Span and Naples, demanding the immediate dissolution of the Society. The answer the Pope was planning would have been a great triumph for the Society. God, however, was planning something different. Carroll realized that, humanly speaking, the Jesuits had everything to dread from the combination formed against them. Yet when reflecting on what he considered to be atrocious falsehoods, injustices, cruelties, and mean artifices employed against the Society, Carroll was confide that God’s providence would not permit such means to destroy the Society. Still he was enough of a realist to know that, since God’s kingdom is not of this world, those who seek to do his will must expect the cross. Divine providence often allows those who promote His glory to suffer persecution. Carroll reminded Daniel that they could not expect God to intervene in their favor on every occasion, or to receive in this life divine vindication.

The fateful conclave of 1769 elected Giovanni Cardinal Ganganelli who took the name of Clement XIV. The dominant issue among the cardinal electors was the fate of the Jesuits. The new pope proved to be disaster. His policy of appeasement of the European monarchies made the timid Clement XIII look like Gregory VII. At the same time he tried to stave off the demands of the Bourbons for the suppression of the Jesuits by temporizing. On January 23, 1772, while visiting Rome, John Carroll wrote to Father Thomas Elerker, S.J., at the English College of Liege that the gossip in Rome was that catastrophe was near at hand for the Jesuits. The rumors were that the Pope had sealed the fate of the Jesuits by agreeing to the demands of the Spanish court. Carroll felt they had great reason to fear that the rumors might be true. Similar predictions which had fixed the date of their destruction had alarmed the Jesuits so often during the present pontificate, only to have nothing come of them. Carroll hoped that the same thing would happen now, but his friends in Rome were hoping in nothing but the interposition of the Providence of God.

After another year and a half of vacillating, Clement XIV finally capitulated to the demands of the Bourbons, and, on July 21, 1773, signed his long-anticipated decree, Dominus ac Redemptor, dissolving the Society of Jesus throughout the world. In it he attempted to justify his actions by claiming that it was his duty in the interest of peace to sacrifice things most dear to himself. He was only acting in accord with past pontiffs who had suppressed other religious orders such as the Templars (1312), the Humiliati (1571), the Reformed Conventuals (1626), the Order of SS. Ambrose and Barnabas (1643), the Order of St. Basil of Armenia (1650) and the Jesuati (1668). Clement claimed thate from theits birth of the Society of Jesus seeds of strife and jealousy germinated within it, and against other orders, the secular clergy, and princes. Since he judged that it could no longer be fruitful or useful and hindered the peace of the Church, he was ordering it suppressed. Novices were to be dismissed. He permitted scholastics to remain in their houses for a year, but they were dispensed from their vows and could embrace a new state of life if they wished. The brief went on to forbid, under severe penalties, any ex-Jesuit from condemning the decree or even discussing its justice.

The Pope withheld its publication until August 16 when it was announced to the Jesuits in Rome. It came as a bombshell. The Jesuit General, Father Lorenzo Ricci, accepted the decree as the martyrdom of the Society. The Maryland Jesuits were part of the English province whose headquarters was in Liege in Flanders. The news reached Liege on September 5. The degree of suppression stipulated that it was to go into effect only when the bishop of the local diocese had communicated it to the members of the Society within his jurisdiction. On September 9, the dignitaries appointed by the Prince-Bishop appeared before the assembled community at Liege and announced that they had come to execute the Apostolic Brief calling for the suppression and extinction of the Society of Jesus. After they had completed the legal formalities, the chancellor of the diocese questioned each member of the community. Once they had signed the formal papers, the Society no longer existed as far as they were concerned. They were free to leave at will.

John Carroll was one of the Americans at Liege at the time. Two days later he voiced his devastation at the turn of events in a letter to his brother Daniel. He told him that he was not, and perhaps never would be, recovered from the shock. The greatest blessing which in his estimation he could receive from God would be to die immediately. Yet, in the spirit of Ignatius, if God had other plans for him, he prayed that they be wholly fulfilled.

Yet Divine Providence did not abandoned the Society to its enemies completely. It intervened, but in a curious way, through the political martyrdom of Poland. The partition of Poland in 1772 had brought Polish Jesuits into the Russian and Prussian Empires. Catherine the Great, an Orthodox, did not want to loose the schools they conducted so she refused to have the decree promulgated in her territory. Since the decree had to be promulgated in order to go into effect, the Society survived in Russia. Frederick II, a Protestant, did the same in Prussia. There the Jesuits survived, but nowhere else.

In America the Jesuits suffered the same fate as their brethren in Belgium. Since the Maryland missions were part of the Vicariate Apostolic in London, Bishop Challoner conveyed the news to priests in Maryland and Pennsylvania. He instructed them to sign a declaration of obedience and submission. Obediently, all nineteen Jesuits signed the forms he sent, making them secular priests. With a stroke of the pen, the Society of Jesus existed no more. Challoner then named Father Lewis, their former Superior as his Vicar General for the colonies.

At the time of the suppression Father John Lucas is reported to have been at St. Inigoes. Little is known of events at St. Inigoes in the years leading up to the American Revolution. There is a record of Father Lewis being at St. Inigoes in 1775. This does not seem to have been his normal custom.

In 1776 the American colonies of Great Britain went into rebellion. Lead by Charles Carroll of Carrollton Maryland was among them. Father Lewis spent some time at St. Inigoes during the Revolutionary War, as did Father Sylvester Boarman. There was only one notable incident at St. Inigoes associated with the war. The General Monk, an English sloop of war, anchored off St. Inigoes in 1778, fired a cannonball at the manor house. It struck the manor house on the north side, very close to the main doors. The local tradition had it that Father Lewis had risen from his bed and was in the act of dressing when the crash came, fracturing the wall.

Father Ignatius Matthews, another native of Maryland, was stationed at St. Inigoes about 1782. He arrived at a time of great upheaval. The American revolution was now a reality and the old laws of repression were a thing of the past. The war had broken the old ties with England, but it was not clear what would replace them. It appeared that even their bishop had abandoned them. During the entire course of the war there were no communications between the Catholics of American and their bishop, Bishop Talbot, who had succeeded Challoner as the vicar apostolic of the London District. The newly independent United States was subject to his spiritual jurisdiction, but in the absence of any contact, Father Lewis governed the mission during the bishop’s silence.

In many countries the expropriation of its properties and the expulsion of its members followed in the wake of the suppression of the Society. That the same thing did not happened in Maryland was in large measure due to two factors. There was no secular clergy to take the place of the Jesuits nor any ecclesiastical structures except their own. Secondly, the anti-mortmain legislation of Lord Baltimore had meant that the Society held no property in its own name. Everything was in the form of a personal trust. Therefore when it was suppressed, the properties were not immediately put in jeopardy Nevertheless Carroll was worried about the future. He wrote to his friend Charles Plowden in England that, in the wake of the suppression, the priests continued to live as they always had. He fretted that no one was doing anything to safeguard the properties of the Mission. He blamed this situation on ignorance, indolence, and Father Lewis’ illusion that the Society of Jesus would be re-established. Carroll felt that, without action to secure the legal ownership, the clergy would not be able to ensure a comfortable subsistence to their successors. The properties Carroll had in mind included Saint Inigoes Manor.

.Carroll was afraid that the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith would obtain possession of the properties of the old Society. He was determined that this would never happen. To that end he was even prepared to resort to the civil courts. In a preemptive action, he and five other ex-Jesuits met June 27,1783 at White Marsh to draft a plan of organization. They proposed a chapter of elected representatives from three districts. Under this plan, Father John Lewis, the vicar general, would retain authority over spiritual matters. Because of his concern about Lewis' administrative abilities, Carroll proposed that Father John Ashton be responsible for temporalities as procurator general.

On September 23, 1783, the clergy of the Southern District of Maryland meet at Newtown. This district embraced the three counties of Southern Maryland. Present at this meeting, in addition to Father Matthews, were Fathers Bennet Neale, James Walton, Peter Morris, John Bolton, John Boarman and Augustine Jenkins. Father Matthews collected the votes of Louis Roels and Leonard Neale, who were absent. They unanimously agreed to support the choice of John Lewis to be the superior of the Mission.

The General Chapter met on November 6, 1783. Father Matthews represented the Southern District along with Father Walton of Newtown. It agreed to recommend Father Lewis to Rome. It also declared itself in favor of restoring the Society of Jesus. If there were a restoration, it promised not to abandon any priest who had rendered good and faithful service if he did not re-enter the Society. He would receive a comfortable maintenance while he continued to render the same services and be provided for in old age or infirmity.

In 1783 two former Jesuits, Father John Boone and Father Henry Pile applied to Bishop Talbot for faculties. They had not been able to return to their native America due to the war. Bishop Talbot refused to grant them faculties, declaring that he would not exercise jurisdiction in the United States. Apparently the two priests then wrote directly to the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome for the faculties. This appears to be the way Rome discovered what was happening. Carroll reinforced the awareness of this irregular situation when he wrote to Rome in the name of the chapter which had just ended. He requested the Holy See to delegate Father Lewis to impart faculties to new priests, to administer confirmation, and to bless oils, chalices, and altar stones. Carroll argued that the American political system had under gone a profound revolution, one in which civil rights and religious liberty were now available to Catholics. This was a blessing and advantage which he sought to preserve and to improve upon. He felt that the best way to do this was for Catholics to conduct themselves in such a way that their attachment to American institutions would be beyond question. He hoped to avoid giving non-Catholics an excuse for taking exception to the American Catholic Church's dependence on foreign jurisdictions. To do this he wanted as much independence as possible while preserving what was essential for communion with Rome, an acknowledgment of the Pope's spiritual supremacy over the whole Christian world.

Rome for its part had been making discreet inquiries in Paris as to how it should proceed. The American Congress instructed Benjamin Franklin to inform the papal nuncio that any proposal to establish an apostolic vicariate was a purely spiritual affair. As such it was beyond the jurisdiction and the powers of Congress, which had no authority to permit or refuse it. Accustomed to having to deal with a different mentality, this response must have appeared as a refreshing novelty. In the end the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith decided to grant the faculties requested by the American clergy, but bestowed them instead on John Carroll, not on John Lewis. Rome was concerned about his age and state of health. In a letter dated June 9, 1784, Cardinal Antonelli named Carroll "Superior of the Mission in the thirteen United States." The cardinal prefect explained that he did this to "please and gratify many members of the Republic, especially Mr. Franklin."

In 1812 war broke out once again between the United States and Great Britain. President James Madison requested a declaration of war on June 1. The House of Representatives passed the bill on June 4 by a vote of 79-49. The Senate followed on June 17 by a vote of 19-13. Opposition to the war, however, was wide-spread, particularly in Southern Maryland. Many there envisioned that the war would be waged on the northern border with Canada. Few thought that they would have front row seats to the hostilities. It was weeks before the word of the declaration reached England and months before the effects would be seen. The following September the trustees of the Corporation voted to send the novices to St. Inigoes until the house at White Marsh should be ready for them, seemingly without any thought given to the possibility of any danger because of the war. The move from Georgetown College to St. Inigoes took place in October. Father Maximilian Rantzau, S.J. seems to have been in charge of the Mission and Father William J. Beschter, S.J. was Master of Novices. Brother Mobberly was transferred to New York that year but returned to St. Inigoes after a few months. Brother Walter Baron, S.J., was assigned to assist Brother Mobberly on the farm. Together with the novices the community numbered fifteen. The novitiate was hardly more than well settled at St. Inigoes when, on February 4, 1813, the British fleet entered the Virginia Capes to begin a blockade of the Chesapeake Bay. They were under the command of Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn. The sudden turn of events in the war forced the return of the novices to the safety of Georgetown College once again. Captain Coad transported them in his vessel, arriving in Georgetown on April 28, 1813. The novices had hardly left when British cruisers sailed up the Chesapeake Bay. Brother Mobberly, could been seen in a terrible bustle, shouting his commands to this one and that, loading his ox carts, and hustling his patient steers at a double step to the cellars of his neighbors.

Archbishop Carroll thought the removal of the novices was "precipitate and unnecessary." He had no doubt that Father John Anthony Grassi, S.J., sent over from Europe to be the new Jesuit superior, was the instigator of the move, though the archbishop was sure that Father Beschter must have been a ready and willing cooperator. The fact that they both were foreign-born only fed Carroll’s predisposition to a kind of nativism. The archbishop was concerned that precipitous actions of men who were ignorant of the American institutions would be used against the Society.

In May the trustees of the Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen decided to send the novices to the presbytery at Frederick until they could build permanent quarters at White Marsh. They also decided to place the manager of St. Inigoes, Brother Mobberly, under the control of the president of Georgetown College.

Sometime that year Brother Mobberly finally completed the brick barn begun by Father Neale. He hired four free blacks - Charles, Robert, Michael, and William - to do the job and paid them for making the needed additional bricks.

On November 2, 1813 the British landed on St. George’s Island and burned all four houses on the island along with a barn. A week later Father Francis Neale visited the island, which was then still part of St. Inigoes Manor, to inspect the damage. It pained him to see the devastation. The fire had engulfed everything on the south and west sides of the island from end to end, a distance of about three miles. It was still smoldering in four or five places. He recorded that the invaders had cut down twenty-five or twenty-six large oaks, all white oaks excepting two or three. He saw how they did the same with five or six large hickories. They cut down a great variety of pines. He could not find the stocks of some of them. They also burnt as much of the fencing as they could, as well as the marshes. Father Neale concluded that the British could have had no other view than to destroy completely the whole property and would have destroyed the whole island had it lain in their power. What he did not realize was that there was method in their madness. They wanted the wood for British shipping constructors in Europe and well as the construction of war barges and masts for their own use.

The destruction of St. George’s left the Jesuit community feeling very defenseless at the thought that in twelve hours the British could be with them again. Father Neale felt the only thing that stood between St. Inigoes and complete devastation was the demoralized state of the British troops. As a result he decided to send twelve or fourteen head of young steers to Georgetown. He felt it would a pity to kill them because they were not more than two years old. He had already killed two older ones for the use of the manor and would keep two more for the same purpose. If the approach of the enemy made it necessary to remove the others, he had no other alternative left than to send fifteen or twenty to Newtown and as many to St. Thomas’ Manor. There was still from fifteen to twenty left on hand together with a flock of some eighty sheep for which he had to find some hiding place.

Despite Father Neale’s fears, everything remained quiet until the British returned again in the summer of 1814. Then on the evening of July 4th, they landed seven barges of men on the bayside of St. Mary’s County. They took the sheep and cattle of a few families, including those of the widow Loker, Jenifer Taylor, and John Walsh. They afterwards returned under a white flag and paid the widow for all her stock of cattle, sheep, and geese, the last article at fifty cents a goose. They did the same for Jenifer Taylor for all they had taken from him. John Walsh was not being present, so he received no pay. The British then sailed up the Patuxent River, looking for Barney's flotilla.

In the early morning of July 8 the British navy sent a scouting party to raid the home of one of the neighbors, a Mrs. Holton. They took her two sons out of bed as prisoners of war. The commanding officer accused them of firing on the British the evening before. The two had to stand with no other dress than their linen, while the sailors destroyed everything in the house in retaliation. The one exception was a looking glass that the youngest child of the family begged from them. Only the humble entreaties of Mrs. Holton saved the house from being torched on the spot. She was unable, however, to save her sons from being taken on board by the British. With this event fresh in his mind, Father Neale was horrified to hear that Colonel Fenwick of the local militia wanted to use St. Inigoes to attack the British. The good colonel evidently felt that the brick barn would make a great guard house. Father Neale was unwilling to have anything to do with such a plan. He did not want to jeopardize the British good will. He was counting on the fact that since the British had never been fired on from the farm, and they understood it belonged to the Church, they would not molest anything on it. Nevertheless, he did not want to put all his eggs in one basket. To be on the safe side, he decided to remove the stock, sheep and cattle, in order to remove a temptation.

On Sunday morning, July 17, while services were being conducted in the church between the nine and ten in the morning, the alarm went out that the enemy had landed at the mouth of the Patuxent and were marching down toward Point Lookout. Father Neale was informed of the report while hearing confessions. He said Mass and advised the people to go home and keep their families quietly together. If the enemy should pass, he told them, they should behave civilly, but stay indoors. The report, however, proved false. The English had not landed, but only removed their vessels a little lower into the bay.

A month later they were back. Late in the evening of August 11 Admiral Cockburn sent his forces ashore at several places along the St. Mary’s River. Two hours later the Aetna sailed up the beautiful little waterway to offer the English troops whatever support they needed, but that proved unnecessary. Even thought units of the Maryland Militia were reportedly forming at a nearby factory, the local inhabitants offered no resistance, and submitted to the invaders without incident. The British took the factory without a fight. They then quietly marched through St. Inigoes Neck in small parties, taking the stock they wished but paying for whatever they carried off. The British accomplished their usual depredations without burning anything.

Suddenly on October 30, without warning, the worst fears were realized. Captain Tarlton had just arrived from Georgetown with supplies. A British brig, Captain Watts, sailed from the mouth of the Patuxent , came round Point Lookout and sailed up to St. Inigoes Creek. When Brother Mobberly spied it approaching, he immediately sent word to Tarlton. He was then in the Chapel Cove. That warning gave him time to escape with his vessel. Brother Mobberly quickly hid his watch and all the house money. In fifteen minutes the sailors were ready to land on the bank of the garden. They went first to the house of a tenant on the manor and took several articles. The wife pleaded poverty. Her daughters wept. The officer in charge finally ordered his men to restore everything, promising that they might do what they pleased at the manor house. She begged him not to make such promises, observing that there was a church in the house, and that the inhabitants were good people. The officer then said: "Then, Madam, you are too poor, and they are too good; so at this rate we are to get nothing. But Madam, we must live." He then ordered his men to row him to the big house.

Brother Mobberly went down to the shore to meet them. He uncovered his head and bowed respectfully as the first man ascended the bank. With a shout,"Ha!", the sailor shouted with a contemptuous frown the sailor. He then ran immediately to the manor house with his saber in his hand. His comrades were quick to follow him. The contempt they showed and their blood thirsty aspect gave Brother Mobberly expectedto understand that he should expect little mercy from them. Within minutes the captain arrived.He therefore awaited the arrival of the captain who landed a moment after. He sternly asked Mobberly if he were the proprietor of this place. To all his questions Brother Mobberly answered politely. "I have come", said the captain, "with the avowed purpose to burn this house down, for I have lately understood that the priests are busily exciting the militia to rise and fire on us." Brother Mobberly replied, "I give you my word of honor, sir, that you are misinformed. We have nothing to do with such matters. We are religious people. We have nothing to do with the war. Nor have we ever raised a finger toward it. This, sir, is all church property and appropriated to the use of the Church. I beg you, Sir, to spare it." He replied, "Well, as that’s the case, I shall not burn it. However, let us go."

Off he went with Brother Mobberly in hot pursuit, entreating him to respect Father Rantzau. The captain promised he would. Reaching the house, they entered the main hall together. As the captain turned about to protect Father Rantzau and his room, Brother Mobberly saw that the chapel door was open. Hearing an alarming noise, he ran into the chapel. He arrived in time to see four or five ruffians at work. He ran back and begged the captain to interfere. The captain accompanied him and ordered the men out of the chapel. But the damage had been done. The sacred vestments were thrown and dragged here and there. The vessels consecrated to the service of God profaned. The altar was stripped naked. The tabernacle had been carried off and the Blessed Sacrament borne away with it. Brother Mobberly was appalled. He entreated the captain repeatedly to protect the Church and have everything restored. He promised he would. Together the two of them instantly ran to the barge. The captain stormed at the men and swore if they did not restore everything, he would have all their plunder thrown on shore and deprive them of it. Brother Mobberly saw a chalice and pointed it out to the captain. He immediately ordered it restored. Brother Mobberly received it from the hands of one of the villains. Turning to the captain he exclaimed, "What an indignity offered to the church! My dear Sir, pardon the reflection. It is true." After a short pause the captain replied, "Sir, the truth is, I did not come on shore to plunder. I came for stock, but I cannot command these men. They are nothing but ruffians." They returned to the house. Brother Mobberly begged Father Rantzau to interfere and to demand restitution. He managed a feeble protest, but said little more, much to Brother Mobberly’s displeasure. Whether his silence was due to fear or stemmed from the fact that he didn’t speak English we will never know. The worthy brother, however, did not have the same reservations or limitations. He returned to the shore with the captain and begged him to restore the rest of the sacred vessels. The captain promised he would. He then seated himself in the barge and ordered his men to move off without taking any more notice of Mobberly. Madame Piero in the meantime begged the raiders and got the tabernacle from them. The paten and small spoon had been left behind on the altar. Thanks to his various interventions, Mobberly succeeded in getting back, in addition to the chalice, several of the vestments and one old alb. He begged the picture of St. Francis Xavier in a handsome guilt frame and that of King David playing on the harp, as also many of the smaller ones. The raiders left the crucifix, but the cruets and plates they broke and scattered on the floor. They took the pyxes for the Viaticum and those for holy oils, as well as Father Rantzau’s saddle-bags. They broke open the trunks, and stole sheets, blankets, and pillows, bed curtains, alarm clock, silver spoons, knives, forks, plates, glass tumblers, along with six feather beds. They also took Father Rantzau’s watch, the silver candlesticks, all the cigars, razors, some kitchen furniture, all the other candlesticks except one, various other little articles and almost all the clothing. Brother Mobberly lost the trunk Captain Tarlton had brought. It contained several valuable pious books and some clothing. Brother Mobberly had never seen a mechanic more the master of his trade than these villains were. The whole job was completed in about ten or fifteen minutes. Happily nobody was injured. Miss Jane Fenwick’s presence in her room and work house saved nearly all the articles there, except the clothing that the sailors carried from the wash. They were also very desirous of knowing where the blacks were. Fortunately Brother Mobberly had previously ordered them to run off. They did so except one of the female slaves and two of her children. The sailors grabbed her. She begged them to let her go, telling them she could not go without her husband. She afterward succeeded in escaping.

Mobberly was quick to write an account of the whole affair to Father Grassi in Georgetown who promptly took it to the Secretary of State. He in turn promptly gave it to the newspapers, hoping to make propaganda against the British.

The raid devastated morale. Brother Mobberly did not know what to do under such trying circumstances. He wrote to his superior asking what to do. At St. Inigoes, the raid devastated morale. Tthey were hourly expecting another attack. The alarm was too great for the work of the farm to continue since they were expeding another attack at any time. Even tThe slaves on the manor were too alarmed to take their natural rest. They were always on guard, afraid of being surrounded and kidnapped. The neighbors were in the same condition. The, especially the tenants on the manor. They talked strongly of moving away. Two of them, Jeremiah Smith and Robert Cole were so completely ruined that Brother Mobberly feared they would never be able to pay their rent. Rumor had it that the British intended to take every man they could find in retaliation for any hostile act. Brother Mobberly wrote to his superior at Georgetown for directions because he did not know what to do under such trying circumstances. The dilemma he was facing was very simple. To work the farm, they must have the necessities of life. But if hethey procured them today, he feared that the British in all probability would be back to take them again tomorrow. It seemed to Facing this situation, Brother Mobberly to be afelt hopeless situation. A sensible man might be tempted to pack up what still remained and move elsewhere, but Brother Mobberly felt that would be unwise. If the enemy came again and found the manor deserted, without stock or plunder, with only a lone man as a protection for the house, they would in all likelihood burn it down. He did not, however, think it prudent for any man to risktrust his life to such villains under such circumstances. For a man to expose his life where there was a prospect of doing good was one thing. To expose it, when there is no probability of doing good was, he thought, a rashness that ought to be avoided. Hence his dilemma. The British vessels were frequently observed running up to St. George’s Island. It seemed to be their general watering place where they had sunk many wells. MobberlyHe felt that every vessel that ran up for water was sure to plunder. Events seemed to bear that out. Already they had been plundered and robbed twice.

During the next three days Brother Mobberly was a busy man. He brought two or three loads of articles to the woodlands of Mrs. Rhodes about five miles away and there deposited them in a tumbled down hut. He assigned a family of faithful slaves to guard them. He then moved some cattle, hogs and salted provisions there, repaired the hut and finished another that had been begun some time before.

Then, without warning, things took a sudden turn for the better. One Friday several weeks after the raid, Father Rantzau was away at Newtown. Early in the morning at dawn, a flag of truce appeared on the garden bank. The English had returned, but this time to restore what they had taken in the raid. A lieutenant presented himself to Brother Mobberly and addressed him in very humble terms. He expressed his sincere regret for the sacrilege committed under his command. He begged forgiveness; observing that it had gone very hard with him. His commanding officer, Commodore Barrie, had written to the Admiral on the subject and seem determined to push the matter as far as he could. A court martial was to be held in his regard. The lieutenant hoped that Brother Mobberly, out of the goodness of his heart, would represent the affair to his captain in as favorable a light as he possibly could. He hoped that Father Rantzau on his return from Newtown would do the same. He then returned the property he said he could collect. It consisted of four beds, eight blankets, most of Father Rantzau’s clothes, including his great coats, riding pantaloons, one old vestment, all the albs and surplices, and small linens. Brother Mobberly recovered his trunk and its contents (except his stocking, one or two shirts and pocket handkerchiefs), two pistols, Brother Neale’s rifle, two counterpanes, three sheets, a spy glass, all the silver spoons, Father Rautzau’s watch, and his silver boxed candlesticks. With much confusion, mingled with emotions of joy, Brother Mobberly received the ciborium into his trembling hands. He fell on his knees and then carried it to the chapel. He opened it and saw one small pyx. From this he concluded it contained the Blessed Sacrament. The officer said that no law could force him to pay for anything that was missing, but that he was very willing to make all good as far as his circumstances would permit. He warned, however, that his circumstances were low. After a long, confused conversation he left on the table some English pound notes and a gold piece worth nine dollars. He gave Brother Mobberly his word of honor that he would make a thorough search for the rest, and would return whatever he found, even if he had to dispatch a vessel from the Tangier Islands to do so. Though not half of what was taken was returned, Brother Mobberly thought it prudent to give him a receipt in full as he demanded, and expressed his satisfaction as the agent in charge of the manor.

While the officer was there with the flag, Brother Mobberly saw a large ship coming up. He pointed her out to the lieutenant. Seeing her seemed to make him anxious. Brother Mobberly suspected that the commodore was probably on the ship and had sent the sloop to Tangier Island to make a more thorough search for the missing items. Brother Mobberly subsequently received under the flag of truce a very polite letter from Captain Alexander Dixie of H.B.M. Sloop of War Saracen. He declaring that he had never authorized the sacking of the manor. He expressed his sincere regret that those under his command should have committed such an outrage. He promised to take the earliest opportunity to restore the stolen property. He hoped that these actions would satisfy the injured parties and efface from their minds every prejudicial sentiment towards the British. When he returned from Newtown, Father Rantzau found four sacred hosts in the pyx in the ciborium. On that happy note the incident came to a close.

When Father Grassi received news of this second, and quite different visit by the British, he tried to publish it as the first one had been by taking Mobberly’s letter to the eidtor of the Washington newspaper, The National Intelligencer who refused to publish it. This prompted a letter from Archbishop Carroll to Grassi expressing his chagin at the way the matter had been handled.

In the evening of December 7, 1814, Archbishop Carroll received the word that he had been waiting for over forty year. Four months earlier, on the 7th of August Pope Pius VII had published in Rome the bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum, revoking the suppression of the Society of Jesus throughout the world. The archbishop was overjoyed. His dream had become a reality. He immediately sent his copy of the bull to Father Grassi.

The Treaty of Ghent, ending the war, was signed on Christmas eve 1814. The British continued to take wood from St. George’s Island right up to the end.. They finally withdrew from the Island on January 24-25, 1815. The Senate ratified the treaty the following month, on February 17, 1815. The war was finally over. Brother Mobberly later visited the island in the company of Elwiley Smith, William Herbert, William Evans, and George Tarleton. Together they estimated damages to the island to be about two thousand dollars.

The second theme to emerge was the persecution from within, slavery and its attendant racism. Since every evil is embraced only under the appearance of good, slavery needed a justification that would make it appear beneficial. The notion that blacks were inferior beings supplied that needed rationalization. This is how racism functioned. It turned slavery into a benefit that the higher race bestowed on the lower. The white man’s burden shouldered manfully even gave a hint of virtue to what would otherwise have repelled those who contemplated it.

Slavery was introduced gradually into Maryland. The first known instance was in 1647 when Thomas Cornwaleys imported a slave into the colony. When indentured servants were not longer available in sufficient numbers, Maryland planters turned to slaves indentured for life. Once introduced, however, slavery, like every injustice, created self-perpetuating structures in society. It provided an economic incentive to maintain a system that rewarded the exploitation of the weak by the powerful. These structures of sin did two things. They blinded those involved and profiting financially to the implications of baptism. The truth of faith is that in baptism Jesus Christ gives us a new identity. Baptism creates a bond where before none existed. It enables us to identify with others from difference races and nationalities. In baptism we acquire more than a relationship with Jesus Christ. We have a relationship with all those whom Jesus Christ has likewise called to be his friends and to share in his resurrected life. You can not have a relationship with Jesus without at the same time having a relationship with the other brothers and sisters of the Lord. We become a part of a concrete family that has a history. We are Catholics who just happen to be black or white.

But in the environment engendered by slavery, who could understand the notion of church as a family of brothers and sisters for Jesus? Race replaced baptism as the fundamental optic through which to understand identity. The American culture told them that race was the most important element in one’s identity. It conditioned them to see themselves as blacks and whites, separated from one another, without a uniting bond. The result was that at St. Inigoes people thought of ourselves as blacks or whites who just happened to be Catholic.

The second thing that slavery did was to deaden the consciences of those benefiting from it. This presented the Jesuits with a moral dilemma. How were they to deal with it? They tried to evangelize within the system, but without challenging the system directly. They insisted on baptism for slaves, and religious instruction for both blacks and whites. They insisted on marriage for slaves and keeping husbands and wives together. Yet since they had to resort to secular pursuits to support themselves, it meant they would have to depend on indentured servants to farm the manors. When indentured servants were no longer available, the Jesuits ended as slave owners themselves. The ownership of the manors and the issue of slavery became intertwined. The manors, in turn, gave rise to a long controversy with the archbishops of Baltimore which was only resolved in the end by an ironic involvement of the slaves.

The Civil War destroyed slavery as a social institution, but the war was not able to heal the attitudes of racism. These transmuted themselves like a virus. As long as slavery existed, whites were always able to feel superior. Once slavery was abolished, the built-in caste system no longer existed. Segregation took the place of slavery. Racism blighted the initial expectations of the freedmen following emancipation.

The persecution from within split St. Inigoes, causing two communities, one all white and one all black, to emerge within the same geographic area. It led to different attempts to explain away the embarrassment. Some of these attempts have only made matters worse. They made race an element in parish identity. In some cases they have turned history on its head. Referring to St. Peter’s someone said: "They wanted their own parish, so we gave it to them." In this way of seeing things, segregation becomes the idea that blacks invented. Whites were just respecting the choice that blacks made.

This section details how the Church attempted to ameliorate the effects of segregation and provide a locus for blacks of Saint Inigoes parish in a segregated world. These efforts included the beneficial society, the school that grew out of the beneficial society, the sodality, the grammar and high schools, and the co-ops. What proved so difficult was to challenge the system of segregation itself. As long as that system was allowed to stand, the Church continued to be deformed. The world formed us, rather than we forming the world.

The wall of separation was so absolute that it was easy to forget that someone existed on the other side of the wall. This amnesia affected the way history was told. What was happening on one’s own side of the wall was all anyone remembered. To see what was missed, I invite you to Part II, the Persecution from Within.

The Second War of Independence was now history. Severing the ties with England had resolved the first great issue of the parish's history -- the issue of persecution from without. Through the efforts of Father Walton and others the churches were rebuilt. Religious freedom was a reality. About March 1815, Father John Henry, S.J., succeeded Father Rautzau at St. Inigoes. Born in 1765 in Belgium, Father Henry had been a vicar in the diocese of Liege before entering the Society of Jesus in 1804 at Polotsk in White Russia. After completing his studies at the University of Louvain, his superiors sent him to America to help in the re-establishment of the Society in the United States. His short stay coincided with the transition from war to peace, from one generation to the next. The generation that had guided the Church through those stormy times of war was passing away. Notable among those who died that year was Father John Ashton, who had supplied the administrative genius for the temporalities of the church immediately following the revolution. Archbishop Carroll followed him in death that December, providing another sign of the ending of an era.

The second great issue -- the persecution from within, slavery with its attendant evils -- was about to take center stage, and with it came a new set of characters. Early in 1816 Father Henry left St. Inigoes for Bohemia Manor on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. On February 26, 1816, Father Joseph Carbery, a native of St. Mary’s County and still a postulant in the Society of Jesus, arrived at St. Inigoes to be its new pastor. He was soon to find his responsibilities doubled. On April 3, 1816, the new Archbishop of Baltimore, Leonard Neale, signed an agreement with the Superior of the Jesuits, Father John Grassi, stipulating what parishes of the archdiocese would be the care of the Jesuits. Among those they received were all the parishes and missions of St. Mary’s County. Thus Saint Nicholas at Mattapany became the responsibility of the priests at St. Inigoes. Once they became responsible for it, Saint Nicholas gradually lost the status of an independent parish and came to be seen as a mission attached to St. Inigoes.

Among his first projects, Father Carbery undertook to renovate St. Inigoes Church. He erected the sacristy, arched the ceiling, installed the gallery, rearranged the pewing, and redecorated the interior.

Brother Mobberly continued to be the manager of the farm at St. Inigoes after the war. The war had exacted a stiff price by disrupting the work of the farm. In the years that immediately followed the cession of hostilities the farms continued to be a financial liability. Brother Robert Fenwick was the procurator. Brother Mobberly had Brother Barron as his assistant, and the two did not always see eye to eye. To add to his troubles Brother Mobberly also had an overseer with whom he had some difficulties. The overseer had a house next to the Quarter on the manor. On June 17, 1817, Mobberly found him at home doing nothing. Three days later he found him again neglecting his duties, this time working in his garden. Every few days he found him loafing. In July the overseer was away from home for several days. Then he was out catching oysters, and so forth. The extent of the problem can be gauged by the fact that, at the end of the year, Mobberly deducted $35.26 from his $100 annual salary.

Archbishop Neale lived only a short time, and at his death in 1817, his vicar general, the Rev. Ambrose Marechal, succeeded him as archbishop. Marechal had been one of the French Sulpicians who had come over early in the administration of Archbishop Carroll to open the seminary in Baltimore. For the first time now the archbishop of Baltimore was an outsider in a double sense. He was foreign born, and he had never been a Jesuit. He did not have the same attachments to the Society as his two predecessors did. This divergence of interests would quickly begin to show itself.

Archbishop Carroll and the other ex-Jesuits had created the Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen to fill the vacuum caused by the suppression of the Society of Jesus. Through this legal mechanism they hoped to secure the properties the Jesuits had once possessed until the day when the Society would be restored. Now that the Society was restored, the Corporation seemed redundant, yet it continued to operate as it had before, pretending to occupy the place of a Society that no longer needed such a substitution. What added to the incongruity was that the members of the Board were themselves all Jesuits. The superior of the mission, however, was not among them. He had no structured place in the Corporation’s functioning. The end result was a double system of governance, a fertile seedbed for conflicts.

In 1817 the General in Rome, Father Thaddeus Brzozowski, S.J., appointed Father Anthony Kohlmann, S.J., the new superior of the Mission with instructions to curb the independence of the Corporation once and for all. In his struggle with the Corporation, Father Kohlmann labored under a distinct liability. He was a foreigner. Due to the isolation of the Maryland Mission, an American nativism had grown up within it. It had developed a suspicion of all foreign influence and ideas. The native born felt that foreigners did not understand the American scene as well as they did, and were anxious to keep the Corporation in the hands of those who thought like they did. At this time the Corporation was deeply in debt, and the trustees were trying to make all the economies they could. Now with an archbishop who had never belonged to the Society, they did not feel a responsibility to continue the annuity they had paid to his predecessors. The twelve hundred dollars they had paid the archbishop annually would be a great help to stem the tide of red ink which was drowning them. Rumors of their intentions to discontinue the pension began to spread.

In the Spring of 1818, the new archbishop began his first diocesan visitation to Southern Maryland. He arrived in St. Inigoes on May 24, where he met Father Carbery, the pastor, and Father Roger Baxter, S.J.. After dinner, the archbishop visited the church. It impressed him as handsome and clean. Two days later he confirmed eighty-one persons there. Father Baxter preached on that occasion. The archbishop met the congregation on their way out of the church. Their evident piety also impressed him. That evening he dined at St. Inigoes Manor with Father Leonard Edelen, S.J., from Newtown, Mr. R. Neale, Mr. Smith, Mr. Coombs, and others. The following night he dined at the home of Elwiley Smith of Cornfield Harbor. Captain Benjamin Williams and a Mr. Duncanson were among the invited guests. While a guest of the Smiths’, the archbishop had a chance to ride to Point Lookout. The amicable politeness of his hosts impressed the archbishop. On the following morning he set off by boat from Mr. Smith's at about eight o'clock for St. Nicholas. The people there processed down to Mr. Combs’ wharf singing to greet the archbishop’s boat. Arriving at the church, he confirmed fifty-four persons. Father James Whitfieldand Father Baxter preached. Again the archbishop made note of the distinguished piety of the congregation and the neatness of the church..

When he arrived back in Baltimore an alarmed archbishop wrote to the trustees of the Corporation. Somewhere along his journeys he had heard the rumors that the Corporation was contemplating discontinuing the annuity that it had given to his two predecessors. Though it would be a boon to the Corporation, it would be no small loss to him. Up to this point he had not entertained any fear that the pension which his two predecessors had enjoyed would be withdrawn. Now all of that changed.

Firing his first shot across the bow of the Corporation, the archbishop wanted the trustees to know that the pension was founded on the very act of incorporation that gave them legal standing. He reminded them that in 1792 the Maryland legislature, in creating the Corporation and reposing in it the ownership of the grand mass of ecclesiastical property, expressly stated that the property was for the maintenance of the ministers of the Catholic religion in Maryland. The archbishop could not see how that clause did not manifestly include the maintenance and support of the first and principal minister, the archbishop himself. Furthermore, he maintained, Archbishop Carroll and Father Molyneux, then superior of the Society in the United States had made a positive and formal agreement to that effect. On many occasions, Marechal claimed, Archbishop Carroll had asserted that his successors should receive the same annuity from the Corporation that he did. He would never have accepted it, were it limited just to himself.

The archbishop’s position was based on a fundamentally different understanding of the manors and their relationship to the Jesuits than that which the Corporation had. To him all the properties had been given for the support of the Church, not the Jesuits. The Jesuits had merely been the trustees for the property. As such, the archbishop claimed that thehis Archdiocesesee of Baltimore had a residual claim on the proceeds from the manors since the claim of the pension was invested in the . In his eyes every disinterested person with whom he spoke agreed that the pension was an unquestionable right belonging to the see of Baltimore. It was lodged in the office of the archbishop, not in the person who occupied the office.

Having sent his letter of protest, the archbishop sat back to await the Jesuit reply. It was a long time in coming. The trustees first had to resolve their difference with their superior, Father Kohlmann, over the administration of the farms before they could deal with the archbishop. To do this they voted on August 23, 1818, to let the superior be the agent of the Corporation with full power of transacting business for the corporation, employing such sub-agents as he deemed fit. In this way the Maryland superior was put effectively in charge of the Corporation for the first time. This arrangement served for a while to ameliorate the situation. Nonetheless, friction soon arose between Father Kohlmann and the trustees. Prior and subsequent to becoming the agent of the Corporation, Father Kohlmann took various actions which, when coupled with the lack of sympathy and cooperation which he encountered, defeated all the purposes of reconstruction which he and the General had in mind.

The land issue was not the only point of conflict between the Jesuits and Marechal. The archbishop objected to the practice of the superior transferring priests holding diocesan positions without the approval of the archbishop. On September 2, at the urging of the archbishop, Father Kohlmann had allowed Father Benedict Fenwick, S.J., together with Father James Wallace to undertake the mission of Charleston, South Carolina. This mission ended badly, and caused further strain in the relationship of the archbishop to the Society. To review and remedy the entire situation in America the General in Rome, Father Brzozowski, appointed Father Peter Kenny, S.J., of Ireland, as Visitor to the Maryland Mission. Father Kenny visited all the missions of the Society and then prepared his report. The trustees of the Corporation met with him at St. Thomas Manor on April 18 to 20, 1820. Present at the meeting was the superior of the Mission, Father Kohlmann. Together the board reviewed a number of observations the Visitor made regarding the management of the manors. Nothing had distressed him more than the contrast between their apparent wealth and real poverty. Nowhere did he find a regular and uniform of bookkeeping. Almost everywhere he found complaints of bad management, unprofitable contracts, useless and expensive experiments and speculations. In Father Kenny’s opinion only Conewago, Newtown, and St. Thomas’ were the only places where even the priests were lodged and maintained as they ought to be. His report was remarkable for what it did not say as well as for what it did. St. Inigoes was conspicuously absent from his list of well-managed manors. It appears that Father Kenny was not happy with Brother Mobberly’s treatment of the slaves at St. Inigoes and his general management of the farms. As a result, the trustees decided that his services there were no longer needed. He was reassigned to St. Thomas Manor.

Father Kohlmann also laid before the board the archbishop’s demands. After careful discussion, the board could not discover any grounds for such rights that the archbishop had claimed and were unanimous in the opinion that they could not admit it without a breach of trust and a violation of duty.

As part of his report, Father Kenny also suggested to the trustees of the Corporation that they be restored to their former position as having chief responsibility for the farms with an agent distinct from the Superior. He hoped in this way to end the continuing conflict between the board and Father Kohlmann. The Visitor thus stripped the superior of his role as agent of the corporation, and appointed Father Adam Marshall, S.J. to be the new agent, subject to the board and not the superior.

After the meeting, Father Leonard Edelen, S.J., in his capacity as secretary of the Corporation, wrote the archbishop the response he had been long awaiting. The letter outlined in very respectful language the board’s position that the Corporation was not responsible to pay the pension. To support his position, Father Edelen appealed to then Bishop-elect Carroll’s renunciation of any claims on the former Jesuit property, a copy of which he enclosed in his letter. Father Edelen offered the archbishop, however, an olive branch. He pledged to attend immediately to the promise the board had earlier made to pay the archbishop five hundred dollars annually for three successive years. After that the board gave a very diplomatic assurance that they would feel no less inclined to manifest the same friendly disposition to him, as far as their pecuniary resources would allow and the archbishop’s situation mighty require.

On April 24, Father Kenny wrote to inform Father Louis de Barth, S.J., the manager of Conewago, that all the trustees were quite content with these arrangements and were desirous to have them carried into effect. Although he left them free to decide what to do about the slaves, they seemed inclined to agree with him that it would be better to do without the slaves and to rent the land to share-croppers, or to manage them without slaves. He recognized that such a change could not suddenly take place and without a sure prospect of its being for the better. In the meantime the Jesuits sold only a few slaves. The superior of the Mission allowed the managers of the manors, with his consent, to exchange women among the various farms to give them an opportunity to marry. Moreover Father Kenny suggested that St. Inigoes and St. Thomas Manors should use any surplus money to erect farm houses for tenants. In this way they would be preparing for the time when there would be no more slaves.

Once he had received Father Edelin’s letter, the archbishop lost no time in answering him. On April 30, ten days after Father Edelin wrote his letter, the archbishop fired off his answer. The archbishop had a direct style that was far less diplomatic that the one Father Edelin used. Though he did not welcome the Jesuit position he thanked Father Edelin for at least relieving him of the painful state of suspense, in which he had been kept for so long. The copy of Carroll’s renunciation which Edelin had enclosed in his letter failed to impress the archbishop. Had he been at hand when Father Edelin took up pen to send him the copy he would have begged him to spare the effort, the archbishop assured him. The archbishop was so confident that he possessed all the facts that he proceeded to recite them for the benefit of Father Edelin. According to the archbishop, in the beginning of April 1790, Father Ashton visited Bishop-elect Carroll shortly after he received the bull of his nomination to the See of Baltimore. The new bishop read the brief of appointment to him. According to the archbishop, when Father Ashton heard that Pius IV not only had appointed Carroll the bishop, but also charged him with the care of administering all its property, he was quite frightened. According to Marechal, Ashton ran out of Bishop Carroll’s room, panic stricken, as if the Pope had invested Carroll with full power of seizing all the property the ex-Jesuits possessed in this country. Father Sewall tried to dispel his fear by reminding him that Father John Thorpe, then the agent of Dr. Carroll in Rome, assured them that the sentence so obnoxious to Ashton was a mere matter of form, used by pontifical secretaries from time immemorial. Marechal said that Ashton would not listen to any reason of that kind. Instead, he returned precipitately to White Marsh. Then he began writing frightful letters to several members of the Society, as enlightened as himself, and succeeded in infusing into their minds the same wild fears by which he was day and night tormented. It was to calm this man and his associates, troubled with these fantastic terrors, that Bishop Carroll wrote the above mentioned letter. So opined the archbishop. However, he was a seminarian in France when these events allegedly happened. Where he got the details of his story he did not say, but he had no doubt that they were true and supposed that all knew of Father Ashton’s lack of respect for the Holy See. Since the act of the Corporation only passed the Legislature of Maryland on December 23, 1792, Marechal did not know how it was possible that Bishop Carroll could have written a document to the trustees of the Corporation in 1790, two years before that body existed. The truth was, insisted the archbishop, that Dr. Carroll wrote his renunciation to Father Ashton and his associates, not to the Corporation.. Marechal insisted that Carroll was merely attempting to calm the fears of the ex-Jesuits. Given the fact that the three principals in Marechal’s lively account were all dead, it is hard to resist the judgment that the archbishop’s imagination was a match to the one the archbishop alleged Father Ashton had. Then for the first time the archbishop raised the possibility of a lawsuit over the issue. The archbishop warned Father Edelin that if there were a law suit against the Corporation, the proofs and arguments produced before the competent tribunal would be of a very different nature and force from those which the extravagant imagination of Father Ashton drew from the brief of Pius IV.

Now that he had the Jesuit answer, the archbishop gathered up his papers and drew up a petition and put the issue before the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith in Rome. The issues which divided the Jesuits and the archbishop included the practice of the Jesuit superior of removing priests from the care of congregations without the archbishop's consent. Eventually Marechal refused to recognize the Neale-Grassi agreement. Kohlmann, in turn, resisted any attempt to interfere with what he saw as the internal affairs of the order. In a tartly written letter to the archbishop in 1820, he threatened to withdraw the Jesuits from America and send them where ecclesiastical authority did not make such demands rather than submit to what he considered to be an insufferable pretension on the part of the archbishop. Considering the extend to which the archdiocese depended upon the services of the Jesuit, this was no small threat. For his part, Archbishop Marechal was unmoved. He was not about to allow himself to be intimidated by anything. Instead he prepared to travel to Rome to press his claim before the congregation in person.

Meanwhile, the trustees of the Corporation met again on August 22. It was the first meeting since they received the report of Father Kenny. The removal of Brother Mobberly created the need for a new manager at St. Inigoes. The trustees decided to appoint Father Carbery to that position. In addition they elected him a member of the Select Body of the Clergy. This meant he was now one of the trustees of the Corporation that was on a collision course with the archbishop.

In 1820 the economy went into a slump. The debts of the Corporation grew worse. In August of that year, Father Marshall wrote to Father Enoch Fenwick, S.J. that the Corporation’s situation was alarming. The treasury was empty. Immense tracts of land went uncultivated and resembled more an Indian hunting ground than lands inhabited by men acquainted with the arts of civilized life. All the plantations were in the same wretched condition. Nevertheless, by 1820, the Corporation had managed to pay the archbishop six hundred dollars and turned over to the new cathedral corporation the land in Baltimore belonging to St. Peter’s Church. This property became the site for the new cathedral that Marechal was building.

Father Kenny continued his visitations in America until 1820, when the Jesuit General in Rome died and the visitation was broken off. Unquestionably, the single most important change the Visitor introduced in his attempt to restructure the way the temporal affairs of the Mission were run was to limit the Superior’s authority by divesting him of his role as chief agent of the Corporation. Perhaps without fully realizing what he was doing, Father Kenny restored the old system of duel administration by restoring the board to its administrative role with a chief agent different from the superior. If Father Kenny had deliberately set about to structure the fomenting of conflict, he could not have done a better job. The new agent, Father Marshall, had the gift of stoking the fires of conflict. The Visitor had managed to make the overbearing procurator a general manager of everything and everybody, especially of the superior. Archbishop Marechal now found himself confronting the likes of the two Neale brothers, Charles and Francis, Benedict Fenwick, Joseph Carbery, all entrenched in a civil corporation with Adam Marshall for their executive agent. The battle lines were drawn.

In Rome Father Aloysius Fortis, S.J, became the new General of the Society. He advised Kohlmann that it would be preferable to give the pension to Marechal if he persisted in his demands. At the same time the new general was doing all that he could to obtain a favorable decision from the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith. The Jesuits and their supporters gathered documents and sent them to Rome to assist him in this task. Fortis advised the congregation that he did not have direct control over the temporalities of the Mission. If the congregation upheld Marechal’s claim, the Pope himself would have to order the Maryland Jesuits to obey since only he had such authority.

In 1821, Father Fortis appointed Father Charles Neale to be the superior of the Mission. This was the third time he had served in that capacity. He continued to live at the Monastery of Mount Carmel near Port Tobacco where he was chaplain for the Carmelites. The fact that he was a native, the sole surviving member of the old Society in America and the senior member on the board of trustees for the Corporation may have all been points in his favor. However, even though his selection may have helped overcome the conflict between the Society and the Corporation, the conflict between the natives and those of foreign birth, but it did little to ameliorate the conflict between the Jesuits and the archbishop. It probably made it worse, for it put in place a superior who was psychologically incapable of bending on the issue of the lands.

The Catalog of Missions of the Society of Jesus for 1822 listed an additional mission of St. Inigoes, besides St. Nicholas. It appeared listed under the name "congregation of Mr. Smith’s", and was located some twelve miles from the residence. This must refer to a Mass station in a private home. The home of Elwiley Smith of Cornfield Harbor that Archbishop Marechal visited during his visit in 1818 would seem to be the best candidate for this description.

In 1822, in accord with Father Kenny’s suggestions, Father Carbery began to build suitable houses for tenants on St. George’s Island and on the other farms, preparing for the day when the farms would no longer be worked by slaves. He also initiated an experiment in managing the manor. He divided the manor into smaller farms and arranged to have various families responsible for the management of each "farm". Those who made a profit on this share-cropping basis were allowed to keep the profits. In this way Father Carbery hoped to provide the slaves with incentives for personal responsibility, thus preparing them for their eventual freedom. He reserved one of the farms for the use and benefit of the priests on the manor. This was referred to as the "glebe farm". At the same time, the Jesuits began to use St. Inigoes Manor as the site for their theological seminary. Among the students was Aloysius Mudd, the son of Thomas Nathaniel and Ann Mudd of Charles County.

In October 1821, Archbishop Marechal left Baltimore for Rome, the first American bishop to make an ad limina visit to Rome. He was thus in the Eternal City in June of 1822 when the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith ruled in his favor on the first of the issues he had raised. The congregation decreed that the Jesuit superior could not remove one of his subjects without the archbishop's consent and approval of the replacement. The following month the archbishop won again. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Father Fortis had written privately on July 13 to Father Kohlmann to prepare him for the bad news. The General said that he had defended the American Jesuits to the extent that he was able and begged them to receive obediently whatever the congregation decided. The decision was not long in coming. Ten days later, in a decree dated July 23, 1822, the Holy See ordered the Maryland Jesuits to surrender the 2,000 acre core of the White Marsh plantation to Archbishop Marechal. As soon as the General in Rome received word of the decision, he wrote to Father Charles Neale, then the superior of the Maryland Mission. He informed him only of the fact that the Holy See had ordered White Marsh to be delivered to the archbishop. The archbishop was to communicate the details of the settlement when he returned to Baltimore. The triumphant archbishop left Rome on July 27, carrying with him the decree of the Congregation and another letter from the Jesuit General commanding obedience. In a second letter, written to Father Neale three days after the departure of Marechal, the general instructed him once again to comply with the instructions of the papal brief which the archbishop would convey to him. The general wanted them fulfilled without delay or excuse. The archbishop made his way through his native France, leaving LeHarvre on October 1. After a stormy voyage he arrived in New York on November 21. He took a steamer to Baltimore, but during a stop at Philadelphia he twisted his ankle on the pier. He was hobbling when he arrived back in Baltimore. From his bedroom where he was confined for almost two weeks he immediately sent off a letter to Father Neale, to announce the Roman decision. The letter arrived at Georgetown College on November 29. The next day Father Francis Dzierozynski, S.J., carried the letter to the little chaplain’s cottage at the Carmelite Monastery at Port Tobacco where Father Neale lived. Father Neale was dumbfounded when he read it. He had had some intimations of the archbishop’s designs, he said, but they had not prepared him for the manner in which the archbishop intended to proceed. Neale now found himself facing a two-sided battle. He wanted to oppose the archbishop, but in doing so he found himself in opposition to the instructions from his Jesuits superiors in Rome. He refused, however, to acknowledge defeat, and his refusal ignited an even more bitter phase of the controversy.

The trustees of the Corporation hastily met in Washington on December 5. They unanimously voted to appeal the decision. They were convinced that the Sacred Congregation that ruled against them did not know all the facts. On December 7 Father Beschter told Father Kohlmann that the archbishop has an annual income of 1800 dollars. Father Beschter had heard the archbishop himself say that he received 800 dollars from the cathedral, 500 from the fund left him by Archbishop Carroll, and an additional 500 dollars from a source that Father Beschter could no longer remember. Before they could take a second breath, a second letter from Marechal, dated December 14, arrived. In it Marechal demanded instant obedience to the provisions of the papal brief, allowing one month from the date of his former letter for compliance. Since he had written on November 27, that meant the archbishop wanted the Jesuits to vacate White Marsh by December 27. On December 21 Father Neale sent off a forty-four page appeal to the Jesuit General in Rome. He argued that White Marsh did not belong to the Jesuits, but was rather the property of the Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen. The archbishop would have to collect it from them and not from him.

On December 23, Father Neale wrote to the archbishop acknowledging his letter of the fourteenth. Even as he outlined his position, Father Neale askedHe asked the archbishop not to be angry with him. and assured him that he had no resentment against the archbishop. If it came to the point where they had to go to law over their difference, he wanted it to be with Christian charity as St. Francis de Sales recommended. Father Neale outlined his position. He felt that as superior he had no more power to hand over the property of the Corporation than did the grand Turk. He feltmaintained that the General, Father Grassi, Father Kenny, and others who had written to Rome, were not well acquainted with the affairs of the Corporation in the first place. After all, they were all foreigners. He, for one, had not known that Rome was going to try the case. If the American Jesuits had know, Neale was sure that proper information would have been sent in due time. Two days earlier he had sent the General the needed information. Father Neale was going to supply the archbishop with duplicates. In the meanwhile, Father Neale did not want the archbishop to think that the Jesuits would be packing to leave White Marsh any time soon. Since it would be very unreasonable to require a general to deliver up a town only to have to fight to get it back later, Father Neale did not want to forego his advantage. Possession in this case was equal to nine-tenths of the law. Although the trustees could not meet till after the Epiphany, and since the archbishop was demanding an answer before the 27th, Father Neale wrote to outline the nature of what would be the Jesuit response. The Jesuits believed that the brief was based on the false supposition that the property belonged to the Jesuits. Neale held that it belonged to the Corporation. The cause had been prejudged, he said. The Jesuits had received no notice beforehand of the Roman trial, he insisted. As a result, the necessary information was lacking. The Jesuits held that the grant by the pope of administration to Bishop-elect Carroll was null and never took effect. Long before the re-establishment of the Society, the Maryland legislature established a corporation to hold all the property in the State of Maryland that a few individual citizens had held in their own name. It enjoyed all the rights of ownership and was subject to all the civil laws of the state, since state laws from the time of Lord Baltimore did not allow churches to own property corporately without the sanction of the Maryland legislature. The Act appointed trustees to administer the property. It required them to take an oath to do their duty and defend it against all invaders acting contrary to the laws of the State. Archbishop Carroll and his successor, Archbishop Neale, were commonly chosen to be trustees. They took the prescribed oath and religiously observed it, without any pretensions to any thing more than what the Corporation could afford to give. The trustees could not, he maintained, without a flagrant violation of their oath, consent to part with so much of their property. It would ruin the Corporation. Its debts were so great that Neale doubted whether it would be able to pay them and live, without making very great sacrifices. If it lost White Marsh with all its appurtenances, it would lose nearly one third of all its property. The archbishop would eat well, but the Corporation, and the Jesuits who sat around its table, would starve. Father Neale insisted that the Corporation was not the same as the Society. It consisted of secular priests as well as religious. With the passing of time it may consist of religious only, but for Neale that would not change a thing. The distinction would still remain. Searching for arguments wherever he could find them, Father Neale insisted that the property of the Corporation was civic property, not ecclesiastical property. As such they were on the same footing as all other civil property in both in Maryland and in England, and had to abide by civil law. Even if the property were ecclesiastic, and there were a concordat or agreement between this country and Rome concerning it, Father Neale maintained that it still would be a crying injustice to take it from those who legally purchased it by their money and labor, planted the vineyard of the Lord, cultivated by themselves for hundreds of years, and whose care had diffused the faith from Maryland throughout the Union. Such was the substance of his protest. Father Neale was very sensitive to any suggestion that the Maryland Jesuits were somehow violating their vow of obedience to the pope. Neale felt that the archbishop’s understanding of obedience was a bit too simplistic. As far as Neale was concerned, the Maryland Jesuits could protest this injustice without violating their oath. And protest they did. The deadline came and went without anything happening. The door at White Marsh remained barred to the archbishop.

Once the Christmas season was behind them, Father Carbery and the other trustees gathered at Mount Carmel Monastery in Port Tobacco and endorsed Father Neale’s position.

On February 17, 1823, Father Beschter, the former master of novices when the novitiate was at St. Inigoes, wrote to Father Neale after the archbishop visited his parish in Baltimore. In conversation the archbishop had raised the issues with the Jesuits. Father Beschter interrupted him to tell him that he was tired of that topic and that he was even tired of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The archbishop had argued at Rome that during colonial times, due to the Statute of Mortmain, there was no means to secure donations for the Catholic Church except by giving them to individual priests. Since there were no secular priests in Maryland then, all the donations for the Church were given to the Jesuits. Times changed and the situation of the Church along with it, the archbishop said. He insisted there were now bishops who were poor, and that he was one of them, exposed to the caprices of laymen. For this reason he wanted part of the Jesuit property to be invested in the bishops. His principle was that the property left to the priest was left for the Catholic Church were he lived at that time. Those who had it in trust secured it for the Church by the act of incorporation. This was the substance of the archbishop’s argument. While Rome might have accepted it and disposed of the property in the archbishop’s favor, Father Beschter was not buying it. He objected especially to the conclusion that since professed Jesuits could not hold any property as belonging to them, the property which they obtained from Lord Baltimore, at the destruction of the Society, became the property of broader church, the diocese.

In the middle of his defiance, Father Neale’s premonition about his health came true. He died suddenly April 27, 1823. He was the sole surviving Jesuit who belonged to the Society before its suppression in 1773. His death removed the last link with the old Society. His history helps to explain his fierce determination to defend the properties. Due to its caustic comments about the archbishop, his memorial was not well received in Rome, even within the Society. Whether Roman canonists would have understood his contention that civil rights were not to be touched, no one would have missed his appeal to the authority of the State against the authority of the Church. His brusque manner and intemperate statements gave ammunition to his opponents. One of his bon mots which has come down to us drew upon the archbishop’s spectacled appearance. Neale is credited with having said of Marechal: "I was not born in a woods to be frightened by an owl." Father Francis Neale, his brother, succeeded him pro tempore until a successor could be appointed from Rome. In 1823, Father Rantzau returned to St. Inigoes where he taught the theological students.

On November 7, 1823, Father Fortis wrote to appoint Father Dzierozynski as the new superior. The General directed that he obey the papal brief and show all benevolence and reverence in dealing with bishops. The new superior was also to secure the conveyance of the Corporation’s trust to the Society. Otherwise, he warned them that if they continue to hold and administer the property as true owners, they cannot be recognized by the General as religious, much less as religious of the Society. The trustees remained adamant.

On December 6, the General responded to a request of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith for a report on the progress in resolving the impasse. The General was able to report that the Maryland Jesuits had received all the documents and instructions, but that he has discovered that he has no direct authority over the Corporation. The Jesuits were members of it only as American citizens. Father Fortis repeated his promise to obey any order he received from the new pope, Leo XII.

On March 13, 1824 Father Carbery wrote to Archbishop Marechal to seek permission to build a new church on a plot of land that Captain Benjamin Williams had given him as a gift. The plot supposedly consisted of eight acres and was in Lowerendtown. But when Father Carbery had John F. Wathen survey it on May 25, 1838, it was found to contain eleven acres and 22/100 of a perch.

Father Carbery wanted to build a church on it and to set apart a section of it as a cemetery since the area was far from St. Inigoes. The archbishop responded on March 22, giving permission, but inquiring whether Williams had given the land to Father Carbery personally or for the use of the Catholics of the area. If the later were true, the archbishop, true to his principles, insisted that the property never be diverted for the donor’s original purpose. Father Carbery assured the archbishop that it was a personal gift. On May 17, 1824, Captain Williams formally deeded Father Carbery the eight acres. Elwiley Smith was the witness. As is the custom with these deeds, it was for value received, that is for services done which he conceived to be equivalent to three hundred dollars. This donation may have been connected with the congregation of Mr. Smith’s. Father Carbery does not appear, however, to have ever built upon it as he had planned.

Father Dzierozynski met with Archbishop Marechal during the latter’s visit to St. Inigoes on June 4, 1824. The bone of contention between the two this time was who would own the new church to be built in Upper Marlboro. The archbishop presented Father Dzierozynski with a memorandum which stated that if the Catholics of Upper Marlboro gave the title of the proposed church to Father Neale or any other individual, the archbishop would insist that the deed expressly state that the property was conveyed only as a trust for the benefit of the Catholics of Marlboro and its vicinity, and that the spiritual jurisdiction of the archbishop on that church should remain as full and entire, as on any Catholic church in the diocese of Baltimore. Two days later, Pentecost Sunday, the archbishop confirmed one hundred and thirty-one persons in St. Inigoes Church. Two days later he rode to St. Nicholas. Parishioners on horseback came to meet him and escorted him to the church where he confirmed one hundred and twenty-nine people. The following day he dined at Mr. Henry Sewell's home at Mattapany. Although a bachelor, Sewell provided the archbishop and his company a fine fish dinner as well as agreeable company.

Father Carbery had a great interest in history. It was this interest that lead him to attempt to recover the guns of the old Fort Saint Inigoes which had been built by Governor Leonard Calvert as a fortification for St. Mary’s City. He believed that the Governor brought down to this fort the guns which had originally come over on the Ark and the Dove and which had been used in the first fort constructed at St. Mary’s City. Abandoned some time after 1650, Fort St. Inigoes fell victim to the erosion of the land caused by the St. Mary’s River and the great guns had slowly fallen into the river ooze. On August 17, 1824, with the help of his brother, Captain Thomas Carbery, Father Carbery succeeded in bring to St. Inigoes four guns from the shallow water off Fort Point and covered with sand and oyster shells. Three others were lying on the beach near St. Mary’s City. Among those recovered were three nine-foot demiculverins weighing approximately 3000 pounds each, two ten-foot sakers weighing approximately 2500 pounds each, and one six-foot falcom weighing about 800 lbs. These guns were used as decoration around the Manor.

On June 19, 1824, the General met in Rome with Francisco Cardinal Castiglione and Cardinal De Gregorio to review the progress to date in resolving the impasse between Marechal and the Corporation. Considering the options available to them, the three agreed that simply to insist on the trustees obeying the authority of the General was not going to work. The Corporation was a creature of American civil law, not directly subject to the General. If the General were to command the individuals of the Corporation to obey under pain of dismissal from the Society, there would be a public scandal if they refused. In that eventuality the Church stood to lose the property. It would remain in the hands of the civil Corporation from which Marechal would be unable to obtain anything. Simply to recall the Jesuits to Europe would leave them without means of support. The way of persuasion was not likely to prove very effective either, given the difficulties under which the Americans labored. From the reports already communicated to Msgr. Caprano, the Secretary of the Propagation of the Faith, it appeared that White Marsh accounted for one-third of all they possessed. To deprived the Jesuits of it would force them to liquidate all the other manors to satisfy their creditors. Nevertheless, the General professed his readiness to execute any orders the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith gave. He was willing to give up not only White Marsh, but everything, and recall from America all the Jesuits there, especially the Europeans, who had nothing to do with the Corporation.

The Congregation met on July 26 to consider the results of the conference with Fortis the month before. It proposed a compromise solution first suggested by Father Fortis. The Congregation proposed that the Maryland Jesuits pay the archbishop a thousand crowns a year with arrears, till he took actual possession of the farm. The brief of Pius VII was still to remain in force. However, the Congregation proposed to suspend its operation until the Congregation could determine whether the Jesuit claim that the surrender of White Marsh would ruin their Society was true or not. The General had already sent news of the offer to the Maryland Jesuits on July 1. Such an arrangement Fortis considered to be "provisional".

Marechal had an agent in Rome who was handling business with the Roman Curia for him. He was Father Robert Gradwell, the rector of the English College. He wrote to Marechal from Rome on August 5 to report on this new development. Father Fortis, Gradwell reported, was well satisfied with it. Gradwell himself did not like it. He thought it betrayed a want of firmness on the part of the Curia. To him it was watered milk. He did not expect the Jesuits to pay the money. In the meantime, the delay gave them, he thought, the chance to strip the farm and reduce it to half its value. On August 14, Msgr. Caprano, the Secretary of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, reported to Father Fortis the results of the July 26 meeting.

As the controversy dragged on, the possibility of others being involved in it increased. There appears to have been an attempt to appeal to the American government to take such a step. On October 15, the archbishop wrote to his long time friend, Daniel Brent, the First Clerk at the State Department. He wanted to know whether there was any basis to the rumor that the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, had intervened in Rome regarding the controversy. On October 24, Brent wrote to Archbishop Marechal to inform him that it was true that the year before someone had approached Mr. Adams in the case. Someone had asked him to protest the intrusion of the Holy See into the workings of a corporation chartered by the State of Maryland. The Secretary was told that the Holy See was attempting to force the Corporation to allot in perpetuity a specific portion of its property for the use of the episcopal See of Baltimore. This person told the Secretary that the superior had no power or authority whatever to carry out such an order. The Holy See had still less right to procure or to enforce it. The legislature of Maryland had invested absolutely the whole property in question in a corporation entirely independent of the superior and the Society of Jesus. It placed it under the management of the representatives and trustees of the Catholic Clergy of Maryland. Not all the members of the Corporation were necessarily members of the Society of Jesus. Adams was told of the oath the act of incorporation required of each trustee. The informant urged the Monroe administration to defend the right of the trustees to use their discretion, untrammeled by orders or mandates emanating from any foreign source what was not amenable in the remotest degree to American laws. Mr. Adams had promised that he would consult with President James Monroe. If the President gave permission, Mr. Adams promised to write a letter to Ercole Cardinal Gonsalvithen the Papal Secretary of State for foreign affairs, to express the regret of the executive government of the United States for the Holy See’s involvement with the affairs of an American chartered corporation. Circumstances at the time prevented Adams from doing as he had promised, Brent reported . As a result Mr. Adams had neglected the matter. Recently, however, someone again approached the Secretary to ask him to write such a letter. If he should, Brent promised to furnish the archbishop with a copy, in compliance with the archbishop’s request, if Mr. Adams gave permission.

Adding a personal observation, Brent expressed his deep regret and mortification concerning this entire affair. He offered to do whatever he could to find a suitable accommodation. He was eager to spare the Church the scandal that would come from appeals to Rome or American civil courts. Brent also added an ominous note. He was fully persuaded that the Monroe administration would never view with indifference any future appeals to such foreign states that touched the administration of temporal concerns under its jurisdiction. That concern extended to the jurisdiction of the individual States of this Union. He believed that the administration would oppose any interference directly or indirectly by foreign states, regardless of the grounds for such appeals or whatever motivated the procurement of that interference.

Brent’s letter confirmed Marechal’s suspicions that the case had been placed before Mr. Adams from the Jesuit point of view. It also raised fears that the American government might interject itself into the controversy. To counter this possibility, Marechal consulted with Mr. Roger Taney, his attorney. They met after Mass one day and the archbishop showed him Brent’s letter. Together they developed a strategy to counteract what they considered to be the distorted presentation given to Mr. Adams of the archbishop's actions and the possibility of interference. The following day the archbishop wrote to Mr. Brent to inform him that the notion that there might be something improper in the archbishop appeal to Rome in this case had deeply effected Mr. Taney. The archbishop stressed for Mr. Brent’s benefit how Taney had spoken on the subject with so much force and precision that, as the conversation ended, the archbishop had asked him whether he would be willing to give him his opinion in writing. He answered that he would do it with pleasure. Lest Brent or any of his superiors in the State Department should miss the point, Marechal recalled how, to avoid the scandal of a lawsuit, he resolved to submit the decision of the controversy between himself and the Jesuits, as a matter of conscience and natural equity, to their common superior, Pope Pius VII. Although he was convinced that this step did not in the least degree compromise the jurisdiction of the United States, for greater security the archbishop had consulted with several eminent legal minds on the subject. These included Mr. John Scott, a member of the Maryland Senate. Marechal went to pains to impress Brent with the fact that Taney shared that opinion also. All his advisors had unanimously assured the archbishop that the course he intended to pursue had nothing inconsistent with the principles of the American government. When he received Taney’s written opinion, he wanted to share it with Mr. Brent so that he could prudently communicate it to Mr. Adams. He reminded the clerk that he had said he would be happy if he could resolve amicably the existing differences between the archbishop and the Jesuits. He assured Brent that during the nearly five years this controversy had dragged on, he had proposed in vain to the Jesuits every mild means he could think of to settle the matter amicably. Even now, the archbishop assured him, he was willing to try any avenue to resolve the matter that he might suggest. He was even willing to sacrifice any advantage he might have if he carried the case before the courts of this country. Brent never mentioned who it was who approached Adams. Yet Marechal felt sure it was the Jesuits themselves. The same day he wrote to the superior, Father Dzierozynski demanding to know the names of the Jesuits who had done this. Dzierozynski wrote back that he had no idea who was involved. Marechal demanded that he find out by questioning Father Marshall, Father Matthews, the pastor of St. Patrick’s in Washington, or even better, Mr. Brent. The archbishop was sure that one of the three would know.

Marechal also wrote to Gradwell to explain what he had learnt. He wanted him aware of the line of defense that he and Taney had agreed upon to prevent any interference from the American government. If Adams should sent his letter to the Papal Secretary of State as Marechal feared, the archbishop suggested to Gradwell a way the Holy See could respond. It could say that it was case of conscience that had been presented to it. What the Holy See had done was simply to find that the Jesuits were guilty of an injustice to the Archbishop of Baltimore and had ordered them to make reparations.

On November 12 Marechal wrote to inform Gradwell of another development. He had just learnt that someone has approached the Governor of Maryland trying to involve him in the resistance to the Holy See. Marechal found it unbelievable that any Catholic would try to create a prejudice against the Holy See in the minds of the officers of government, especially since most of them were Protestants. He was willing at this point to accept an offer of one thousand dollars a year with the arrears accumulating since the day of his consecration.. Failing this he saw no alternative but to resign. If the Holy See failed to defend his rights and required that he renounce them, he would do it without a murmur, he protested to Gradwell. In that case it should be prepared for his resignation also, for the failure to defend his right would be equivalent to the destruction of the See of Baltimore. Such was his state of mind on the 12th. The next day, however, things got worse. Philip Laurenson, a respected member of the cathedral parish, passed along to the archbishop a letter he had received from Father William Matthews. The pastor of St. Patrick’s in Washington, had written to tell him that the editors of two Washington papers had copies of the brief of Pius VII and were going to publish them. The archbishop was left ringing his hands at the scandal threatening the Church. He immediately wrote to Dzierozynski to ask if there was anything he could do to prevent it. Then, as now, nothing could prevent publication when editors have a mind to do so. Publish they did. The papers had a field day for themselves, publishing the brief both in Latin and in an English translation.

Meanwhile the General was urging Father Dzierozynski to persuade the trustees of the Corporation to assume the obligating of paying the one thousand dollars. The superior responded with a proposal whereby the Corporation would agree to come up with the one thousand dollars, but would subtract four hundred dollars that they would have had from a property in Baltimore that they had recently ceded to the archbishop. The net effect would be to reduce the obligation to the archbishop to six hundred dollars per year.

The archbishop was not in a mood to bite the bate. On November 24, 1824, he responded to Dzierozynski’s offer by expressing his satisfaction on hearing the Jesuits were willing to give him as well as his successors one thousand dollars annually. He had a deaf ear to everything else. He said was not sure what Dzierozyski meant to say in the fine print. Did he mean to offer him one thousand with four hundred dollars added? If that were the case, considering that the Jesuits had not given him anything since he became archbishop seven years earlier, he was willing to show some flexibility. He would be willing to accept an indemnification for his loss of seven years’ pension. On that score he was willing to be reasonable. He did not understand, however, where Dzierozyski came up with the notion that the Corporation had given him property sufficient to produce an income of four hundred dollars annually. The only thing the archbishop could think of was St. Peter’s Church in Baltimore. In point of fact, this was what the superior had in mind. Marechal could hardly bring himself to believe that Dzierozynski was suggesting that the four hundred dollars be part of the thousand! If it were so, Marechal was not interested in such a deal. The Corporation had given the church to the cathedral, not to Marechal personally. He had never received a penny from it, nor was it generating rent receipts. On the other hand, by ceding St. Peter’s Church to the cathedral, the Corporation undercut its contention that it was bound by a civil oath not to cede property. On the one hand they portrayed this donation as a sign of their prior generosity with the archbishop, even though this property was covered under the same oath that they appealed to avoid surrendering White Marsh. If they could do one, why could they not do the other? The Maryland Jesuits seemed to be trying to have it both ways. This was a point that did not go unnoticed in Rome.

Marechal’s efforts to discover who it was who had spoken to Adams continued unabated. On November 28, he wrote to Gradwell to ask him to try to obtain copies of any papers that a certain George Ironside might have sent to the Congregation in Rome. He suspected, with some reason, that he was the person who had approached John Quincy Adams on behalf of the Corporation. Ironside, was a layman who was friendly with the Jesuits and who worked for the State Department. When the archbishop received Taney’s opinion, he forwarded it to Brent at the State Department. Brent responded on December 20, acknowledging the letter the archbishop had written to him. He informed the archbishop that Mr. Adams had not yet written to the government of the Holy See. Brent did not believe that he would write, even though the gentlemen of the clergy had repeated their request. If he should decide to write, however, Brent was sure the Secretary would let him know. This would give him the chance to bring Taney's opinion to his attention. Nevertheless, Brent observed that those who were requesting the interposition of the government had never suggested that the Holy See could or would eventually interfere in any way other than Taney had defended. On the contrary, they insisted that even the course that Taney was defending was dangerous. They contended that it assumed jurisdiction in a matter that did not pertain to the head of the Church. As such they felt that it should be resisted. They were hoping that candid and friendly representations and explanations, as Brent put it, by the American government would accomplish this. In this way they hoped to preserve the independence of the Corporation and protect it from church censures that might lead to other assumptions of authority equally or more repugnant to the character of American institutions and laws. It was to obviate such interference that they had invoked the good offices of the Secretary of State. Such was Brent’s understanding of their position.

Marechal wrote to Brent on December 29. He was not pleased with what Brent had written. The archbishop did not want to rehash the issues raised by his adversaries. He was more interested in finding out who they were. In the most circumspect way that he could think of he asked Brent to tell him who had made the application to the Secretary of State. He promised that he would respect as sacred any conditions laid upon the use of that information. Adopting the position he worked out with Taney, he professed not to be able to understand how anyone could seek to impede a spiritual authority pronouncing its judgment upon the morality of a civil transaction. He could not see how such an exercise would hurt any right of citizens, much less lead to the assumption of authority repugnant to American institutions. He wondered aloud how anyone would dare to utter such a principle before the officers of a free government.

Despite his best efforts, Marechal never seems to have gotten proof of the identity of the person or persons in question. On February 27, 1825, Gradwell, wrote to Marechal the disappointing news that he had been unable to discover any papers that George Ironside had sent to the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. What Gradwell did not know, and what Marechal never discovered, was that it was Ironside who gathered the documents the Jesuits used in presenting their side of the case in Rome in the first place. He sent them to the Jesuit Curia at the Church of the Jesu, not to the Roman Curia. Gradwell had been looking in the wrong place.

Meanwhile, Father Dzierozynski was eager to settle the jurisdictional lines between the Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen and the Society of Jesus. The membership of the two were not exactly the same, even though they overlapped extensively. In May 1825, Dzierozynski prevailed upon the corporation to cede the properties back to the Society. In doing this the corporation ceased to exist as an independent entity. This was a major breakthrough in the settlement of the dispute.

On May 29, 1826, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith met. Since the Maryland Jesuits still refused to comply with the brief of Pius VII, or give a sum of money in place of the farm because their debts and the condition of the farms rendered them incapable of raising enough money, the Congregation decided to try a different solution. It decreed that pontifical authority should oblige the Society in Italy to pay the pension to the archbishop. The Secretary of State, Cardinal Della Somaglia, who was also Pro-Prefect of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith called Father Fortis to a meeting on June 20 to communicate this decision. Four other Cardinals deputed for the purpose were also present, as well as Archbishop Pietro Caprano, the Secretary of the Congregation. Father Fortis took Father Kohlmann with him as his companion. Father Kohlmann had recently arrived from America and had first hand knowledge of the controversy. After hearing the decree Father Fortis said a few words on behalf of the American superior. Then Father Kohlmann received permission to speak. He enlarged a great deal on the state of the poverty of the Maryland Mission since he had witnessed this himself. Father Fortis saw that the mind of one of the five Cardinals could in no wise be altered. When his turn come to speak, Father Fortis, aware that continuing this controversy would create a public scandal, proposed to the Cardinals a possible solution. Since the Congregation was not convinced by the arguments he had deduced, even after the documents stating the Jesuit side had reached them from America, he realized that there was no way to settle the case except by paying the pension. Since the Americans had said they did not have the means to do so, Father Fortis had concluded that the Lord wanted him to assume the burden of paying it to the extent he could afford. He merely asked the Cardinals for a few days to think over the best form of settlement. Some days later, on June 27, he wrote to Msgr. Caprano, making his counter offer to the Congregation. He proposed to send the Archbishop of Baltimore a yearly stipend of eight hundred Roman crowns from Jesuit funds in Rome, two hundred less than first proposed. This was to be an annuity lasting only for the life of the incumbent archbishop. This proved highly acceptable to the Congregation. On July 2 the Pope accepted the compromise. Letters were sent across the Atlantic to get the archbishop’s reaction. By November 1826, the Archbishop of Baltimore had sent his approval with the proviso that the annuity extend also to his successors. Included among the articles of the settlement was the provision that the Archbishop of Baltimore should appoint some one to be his agent in Rome to handle the matter. Marechal duly appointed Dr. Gradwell to receive the quarterly payments.

This settlement should have settled the matter for ever. However, this controversy had nine lives. As soon as one aspect was stamped out, another burst into flames. The first payment was to cover the quarter consisting of November, December, and January. When Gradwell went to collect the first payment in January 6, 1827, he mentioned his expectation that he would receive the second installment for the second quarter at the beginning of February. This was the same impression at Msgr. Caprano also had. When Gradwell stopped by at the Jesu Church in Rome, the headquarters of the Jesuits, Father Manucci, the procurator, told him there had been an error. The payment was not due until the end of the quarter, the end of April.

Archbishop Marechal died a year later on January 29, 1828, without ever fully reconciling with the Jesuits. Shortly before he died, Marechal revealed to his vicar general, Father James Whitfield, that he had recommended him to the Holy See as his successor. Marechal said that it was not because of their friendship that he had done this. Rather it was because he could see no one else who was as likely as Whitfield to keep things in their then prosperous state and to improve them. Whitfield was surprised. He had intended to return to England after Marechal died. Marechal urged him to reconsider. He was afraid that after his death the Jesuits would intrigue to have one of their own appointed as the successor. In his last sickness, he had spoken to Whitfield of this annuity as pertaining equally to all his successors. He directed Whitfield to collect the balance of what should be due him in Rome at the time of his death. He also left a testamentary memorandum for his successors describing his side of the controversy with the Jesuits.

The Archbishop had for a few years, had been receiving from the Sulpicians of Canada considerable sums from France and Italy. A few days before he died he remarked that being a poor man he would not use money given him for himself. He had begun some time since to give a part towards extinguishing the forty dollars due by the cathedral. In his will Marechal left everything he had for religious and charitable purposes. He left the cathedral $2,400. $1,200 went to a home for girls, $1,200 to a home for boys, another $300 to another orphanage and several other sums to different religious and charitable purposes. Thus ended the earthly career of Ambrose Marechal.

If the Jesuits entertained any hope that the death of Marechal would terminate the annuity, they were in for a disappointment. On the evening of February 3 Father Dzierozynski and Father Beschter met with Father Whitfield for a frank exchange of views. Dzierozynski said he had official documents to prove the annuity being paid was intended only for the life of the former archbishop. Whitfield said that he had better ones to show that the provision was made in perpetuum. He professed to know that the deceased archbishop did not consider not want ever to receive the allowance of 800 crowns annually as meant for himself alone, but also for his . Instead he regarded it was to be without prejudice to his successors. According to Whitfield’s account, tThe two Jesuits were highly offended when heWhitfield expressed agreement with Marechal’s position. One of them replied that if Whitfield were archbishop and received that pension, he would no longer be his friend. Whitfield bit his tongue and said nothing. Whitfield had no doubt that they would inform their friends in Rome of what they might expect from him if he became the new archbishop. Two days later, Whitfield wrote to warn Gradwell that the Jesuits might use the considerable property he owned as a reason to discontinue paying the annuity. These holdings had generally provided him an income of six to eight hundred dollars a year. However for two or three years it had given him no income, and the same thing could happen again. Even it he personally did not need the annuity, he felt, if he did become the archbishop, he had the responsibility of providing for his successors. In any event, the diocese was growing and would always want for various institutions to meet its needs.

Three weeks after the archbishop died and before he was appointed the successor, Father Whitfield visited again with Father Beschter in Baltimore. The Vicar General expressed the wish at that time, that if ever he did become Archbishop of Baltimore, he wanted to live in friendship with the Society. Father Beschter assured him in his usual diplomatic way that nothing was easier, provided he allowed the Jesuits the freedom to live according to the regulations of their institute and respected their privileges. Writing to Gradwell on March 29, 1828, Whitfield confided that Father Beschter had shown him a letter of Father Dzierozynski in which the superior expressed his satisfaction that the archbishop had time in his long illness to repent of what he had done against the Jesuits..

As expected, the Holy See appointed James Whitfield as the new archbishop. Once installed, Whitfield proved to be a successor to Marechal in more ways than one. On May 27, 1828, he wrote to the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith. He asked that the Prefect, Bartholomew Cardinal Capellari, write to Father Fortis regarding the annuity and remind him of his obligation to continue the annuity so as to avoid further harm to religion and scandal to the piety of the faithful.

Meanwhile, life continued at St. Inigoes. On September 3, 1827, Father Carbery planted three of the smaller cannons recovered from the river as boundary markers between St. Inigoes Manor and Cross Manor. He put one in a marsh at the head of Molls cove on St. Inigoes Creek. Another end up at the head of a cove on the northeastern branch of Smith Creek. The third lay somewhere between these two, separating the lands of Thomas Smith and Peter Gough.

The following month Father Samuel Newton, S.J., arrived at St. Inigoes. He stayed from October 12, 1827 to September 10, 1828 and cared for St. Nicholas. He was succeeded that year by Father Thomas Finegan, S.J., who was assigned there because of the delicate state of his health.

In 1828, the rector of the English College, Dr. Gradwell, became a bishop, and Father Nicholas Wiseman, also from the English College , took up his duties as the archbishop’s agent in Rome. On February 14, 1829 Wiseman reported to Whitfield on the state of his effort to have the annuity renewed. He had begun by applying to Father Manucci, who used to pay the pension to Dr. Gradwell. Manucci told him that he would have to take the matter up with the General. Accordingly, Wiseman wrote a polite letter to the General to inform him of Whitfield’s succession to the See of Baltimore and that he had appointed Wiseman as his agent to collect the pension. After some delay Father Fortis responded that it had been sufficiently understood, when the last arrangement was made, that the pension was merely a life pension which ceased with the death of Marechal, and that this view had even then received the sanction of the Pope. Turned down by the Jesuits, Wiseman drew up a memorial to present to the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith stating the nature of the request to the Jesuits and their refusal to pay. Since there was strong interest and influence favoring the Jesuit side, Cardinal Capellari was unwilling to trust it to a private decision, but decided to bring it before the general Congregation. The death of Pope Leo XII, which occurred three days before Wiseman wrote caused all business to be suspended in the Congregation. Several days before the Pope died, Father Fortis also died. God had now removed all the principal figures who had participated in the earlier ill-fated settlement with Marechal which was proving to be no settlement at all. Nevertheless, Wiseman was confident that the final outcome would be favorable. In the end he had the satisfaction to learn that Cardinal Capellari shared the same opinion. The conclave elected Cardinal Castiglioni as the new pope. He took the name Pius VIII.

On June 10, Msgr. Castracane, the Secretary to the Congregation, wrote to Father Pavani, the Vicar General of the Jesuits, who was conducting business until a new General could be elected. He communicated Archbishop Whitfield’s claim that he had made repeated claims for the pension. The Secretary, by the commission of the Prefect, requested that Wiseman be paid as he wished. If there was any difficulty the Jesuits were requested to communicate the nature of it to the Sacred Congregation. A few days later, Father Pavani replied that he understood the congregation’s letter as an intimation of the Pope’s wish. He asked for a formal expression and promised that the Society would consider itself under an obligation to obey.

On July 28, the Secretary of the Congregation, Msgr. C. Castracane, formally conveyed this wish to the newly -elected Jesuit General, Father John Roothaan, S.J.. The new Pope, Pius VIII, wished that the annuity that the College of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus in Maryland paid to Archbishop Marechal continue to be paid to his successor. The General accepted this command without protest. Since the Americans were still not able to pay, every quarter Wiseman faithfully paid his visit to the headquarters of the Jesuits in Rome to pick up the payment.

The continuing controversy had hurt the image of the Maryland Jesuits formed by people in Europe. Father Stephen Dubuisson, S.J., returning from Rome to America, wrote to Father Roothaan during the stop at Lyons on October 5, 1829. He had met with little success in his efforts to raise funds for the Society in America that he was about to visit. He was forced to give an explanation to one of the contributors. People there were describing the Maryland Mission as scarcely belonging any more to the Society. It appeared to them as almost separated and withdrawn from the authority of the General as a result of the affair with the Archbishop of Baltimore. At LeHavre on October 23, just before he departed to America, he met with the association for the Propagation of the Faith. Dubuisson judged it imperative to introduce the General as an intermediary in receiving alms for Maryland. It was the only way he could reassure them that these Americans were true Jesuits.

Two months later, on December 23, Father Dubuisson left Washington, D.C. to assist in giving the Jubilee Mission in St. Mary's County. He had planned to stop at Newtown, but a dense fog on St. Clement's Bay forced him to continue on to St. Inigoes. On December 25, Christmas Day the missionaries began, with the assistance of God, their sacred labors, which lasted without interruption for thirty-three days. From the very beginning they were led to look forward to abundant and consoling results. The weather was unpropitious. Nevertheless, on Christmas Day the people crowded into church. They celebrated the last Mass at eleven o'clock There were many who approached the Sacraments, and during the sermon many were deeply moved. The following day the weather could not have been worse. A heavy, chilling rain fell. Yet there were one hundred and fifty persons in church, of whom fifty received Holy Communion, a very fair number considering that St. Inigoes was then a parish of four hundred communicants at most.

The following day was Sunday. The weather had somewhat improved, but was still unfavorable. The church was filled and again many faces were bathed in tears during the sermon. Surely, the Spirit of God was diffused; their hearts were ready. It seems that there was not a Catholic who had not resolved to gain the indulgence. Fifteen persons of various denominations were reconciled to the Catholic Church. The new converts who approached the altar for the first time on this occasion numbered twenty.

The missionaries passed on to the parish of St. Nicholas; here there was the same zeal, the same eagerness on the pat of the faithful. The parish was larger than that of St. Inigoes, and the confessions were more numerous.

In 1830 Father Kenny came back to America to finish the visitation, broken off in 1821. He busied himself going around to all the plantations. He examined the account books, added up columns and struck balances. When there were no books because the superior kept everything in his head and the rest in his pocket book, the examination was not quite so satisfactory perhaps but very easy. He would then examine the farms, the houses, barns and quarters and everything else, and put an evaluation on them, as if the Jesuits were going to sell out. The fact was that is just what they intended to do, until the General in Rome sent word that they had better hold on to their lands and improve them.

On November 30, 1830, the sickly Pius VIII died and the conclave elected Cardinal Capellari his successor. He took the name Gregory XVI.

The sense of history that moved Father Carbery to raise the cannon from the St. Mary’s River also moved him to purchase the great Council Table of Leonard Calvert. Impressive with its oval shape, it was able to seat comfortable eighteen or twenty so that all were in full view of the others.

It was the elliptic table of English oak capable of seating twenty persons that was the prized possession of St. Inigoes Manor for many years. According to tradition, it was brought over in 1634 by Leonard Calvert, as his dining table. After passing through a variety of hands, it finally became the property of Mr. Daniel Campbell of Rosecroft. After he died Father Carbery bought it on January 7, 1832 for ten dollars.

It was the manors and their need for hands to work them that involved the Jesuits in sponsoring prospective colonists too poor to pay for their own passage. These migrants bound themselves to servitude for a number of years in order to work off their passage. From there it was only a small step to pass to employ workers bound to servitude for life - slaves. Once having crossed that line, it was difficult to get out. By the 1830’s, however, the keeping of slaves had become an increasing dilemma for the Jesuits, but more an ecomonic one rather than a moral one. It seems to have been conceived more in terms of how to be free of the slaves rather then how to free the slaves. This should be surprising given the environment of the day. The moral aspect, however, was not missing. Nevertheless, the focus even here was on the obligation to care for the old and infirminfirmed. Outright emancipation for the young and healthy might be a possibilitypossibliity, but for the old and infirminfirmed it would simply mean abandonment when they most needed an environment of support. Simply selling the slaves outright was not much of an alternative. Even if the Jesuits had sold their slaves for a term of years with the condition of freedom, such sales would have deprived them of the young and stout men without bringing any relief to the old people and the children, as no one would purchase the weak and helpless for a term of years only. In addition, the lot of the freedman was not a happy one. Economically they were often worse off than slaves. At least the slaves had the security of the manor and someone to be responsible for the care of their old age. Freed Negroes were often harassed and at risk of being sold back into slavery.

Various solutions were proposed to deal with the problem. One of them was to sell all the slaves as a group so that families could be kept together and the old and infirminfirmed would not be left as a burden on the Jesuits. When the slaves saw Father Kenny going around from plantation to plantation and making all kinds of inquiries, they became suspicious. In fact, some of the Fathers also became anxious. Father Peter Havermans, S.J., wrote from Newtown to Father George Fenwick, S.J., in 1832 that the slaves had heard they had been sold or were going to be sold. They were in suspense. As a consequence Father Havermans was concerned about whether they would continue to work. These suspicions that the slaves were about to be sold were not without foundation. Father Kenny was already thinking along those lines. He wrote to Father Francis Neale at St. Thomas requesting him to let him know how many blacks he had at St. Thomas Manor and what kind, a strange turn of phrase. It’s use shows us how easily the institution of slavery changed the way people thought of one another. Slaves were no longer persons, but things, commodities to be classified according to kind. Father Kenny wanted such information because a certain Mr. John Lee and a Mr. Horsey had offered to purchase slaves for plantations in Louisiana.

In the meanwhile, in 1833 the Maryland Mission reached a milestone in its development. It was erected into a province of the Society of Jesus. From 1634 to the suppression of the Society in 1773, it had been a mission of the English province. Since the restoration in 1805 it had been a mission dependent on the General in Rome directly. On July 8, with his work now at an end, Father Kenny gathered the community together in the dining room of St. Thomas Manor and announced that the general, Father Roothaan had created the American mission a province of the Society. Father William McSherry, S.J., was to be the new provincial The decrees were read along with the patents for the new province. At the conclusion Father Kenny delivered them into the hands of the new provincial with a profound bow. At the end the usual prayer was recited , and Father Kenny motioned for the new provincial to go first. At Father Kenny’s suggestion, Father McSherry made St. Thomas Manor the provincial’s official residence.

In October 1834 Archbishop Whitfield died. He was succeeded by Archbishop Samuel Eccleston. The stage was now set for the final solution to the controversy.

On December 18, 1834, Father Fidel de Grivel, S.J., arrived at St. Inigoes to assist Father Carbery. He belonged to a distinguished French family, and had joined the Society of Jesus in Russia in 1803. His superiors sent him to America to help in the re-establishment of the Order, and he had served as Master of Novices at White Marsh. He discovered that the business of a missionary in Maryland was scarcely harder than life in England, except that the roads were worse and sick calls were at a greater distance. He thought the manor provided every comfort of life. It was a solid brick house, with twelve rooms. It had about eighty slaves, comprising fifteen families. The farm consisted of three thousand acres of good land, which were quite flat. There was plenty of cattle, poultry, fish, and wheat. He noted that Father Carbery was more partial to European fashions than many others. Grivel was amazed that the Americans, a newborn nation, were almost as tenacious of their customs as the Chinese of theirs, three thousand years old. He did not disapprove entirely of it, because every nation must have its own features. He felt they went too far in many things, especially in farming; and in pronunciation of language. While they professed to conform to Walker's Dictionary, in practice they followed their own way. In February he accompanied Father Carbery to Mattapany. The congregation of St. Nicholas there had grown from only one hundred in 1817 to six hundred. Father Carbery had increased the numbers by some five hundred. The Sewalls were its great benefactors. Their manor, Mattapany, was situated on a hill on the south side of the Patuxent River, about two miles above its mouth on the Chesapeake Bay.

The slave question continued to vex the new province. In 1835 a man by the name of Hoover came along and purchased from the Jesuits ten to twelve slaves for $6,000. In May of that year the Maryland province held its first congregation, a general meeting of delegates for the various houses of the province to chart the direction of the province. The ten delegates to the congregation fell into two groups. There were those like Thomas Mulledy, James Ryder, George Fenwick, Stephen Gabaria, Francis Vespre, and Father McSherry himself, who saw the future of the society in the great cities and the colleges that had been the traditional focus of the society in Europe. They wanted to establish a Jesuit presence in the great cities of the North, and feared that if the Union dissolved over the slavery question, the Jesuits would find themselves barred from access to the urban North. They wanted to sell the plantations and their slaves and use the money for education. Dubuisson and de Grivel represented the minority view. They looked to the past and the traditions of rural life. They wanted to retain the manors and opposed the sale of the slaves.

Father McSherry had visited St. Inigoes and prepared a report on the situation there. He found that there were ninety slaves, forty-three of whom were capable of work. This included twenty-four men and nineteen women. The rest were either too old or too young to work. Nevertheless they all had to be supported, clothed, and their doctor’s bills paid. He found that the average produce of the 1200 acres being worked by the forty-three hands, had not been higher than 1500 bushes of wheat and twelve hogsheads of tobacco. No revenue had been received from the sale of horses, cattle, sheep or hogs. The corn had produced nothing to mention. All the corn received from the tenants was used to support the "servants," as the slaves were euphemistically called.

The delegates deliberated on the proposal to sell the rest of the slaves. They were concerned that the priests who cared for the farms and slaves neglected their spiritual duties. Father Louis de Barth, the manager of the manor at Conewago, blamed the "farming devil" for this situation. His trick was to give the Fathers a passion for farming. In order to hinder them from becoming good missionaries, de Barth argued, he would try to make them bad farmers. Thus he would accomplish two ends. He would get them to neglect the spiritual while they ruined the temporal. The consensus among the delegates was that the slaves were unprofitable. The priests felt that if they hired out the farms to tenants, the farms would be more productive. The congregation voted to recommend selling the slaves. McSherry’s urbgan view had won the day. The decision was then forwarded to Rome for the approval of the General, Father Roothaan. The answer back from Rome, however, was that the matter needed further deliberation and could not be decided on the spot. So tThe Jesuitspriests of the Maryland province went on deliberating what to do about the slaves for another year.

The burden the Roman Province had assumed of paying the annuity to the Archbishop of Baltimore was becoming more burdensome each year. During the five years from 1829 to 1834 Wiseman had come every quarter to collect the annuity. When he arrive in May of 1835 to receive his accustomed payment, the procurator asked him to wait until due consideration could be given to a new proposal from the General. On the following July 7, Father Roothaan wrote to the archbishop. He asked him to confer with Father McSherry on the possibility of giving him a farm or an annual payment from a farm in place ofto the payment from the Roman province. At the same time the General also wrote to Father McSherry to say that even though the archbishop’s agent never failed to be punctual in collecting the payment, the Jesuits in Rome never hear a word from America in answer to their requests for help in meeting the payments. The one thing the General wanted was that the matter be settle locally between the provincial and the archbishop and that the Society in Rome no longer have any thing to do with it. On August 17 Wiseman wrote to the archbishop that the Secretary of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, Msgr. Mai, had requested that Wiseman not urge the matter until the General received an answer as he expected would happen. Msgr. Mai said that, since it was an invidious case against the Society, to which he was very attached, he would not take any active steps, but simply report Wisemen’s statements to the Congregation. This effectively ended his involvement in the case. The scene now shifted from Rome to Maryland.

Finally on December 27, 1836, the Father General in Rome approved the sale, but only under certain conditions. The slaves were to have the free exercise of the Catholic religion and the opportunity of practicing it. They were not to be sold except to proprietors of plantations so that the purchasers would not separate them indiscriminately and sell them. Above all, husbands and wives were not to be separated under any condition. Children, in so far as it were possible, were not to be separated from their parents. If a servant, male or female, had a wife or a husband on another plantation, they were to be brought together. Otherwise, they were by no means to be sold into a distant place. Those who could not be sold or transported on account of old age or incurable diseases were to be provided for as justice and charity demanded. The General also insisted that the money received from the sale not be in any way spent to make purchases, or pay debts. He wanted it put into an endowment fund for the education of future scholastics. It was thought the best way to do this would be to invest in real estate in the big cities of Pennsylvania and New York. Once these conditions were met the General would give his permission for the sale.

Father Carbery vigorously opposed this "solution" to the slave problem. He and the other managers of the plantations wanted the families to remain on the manors. He had St. Inigoes parish praying that the slaves would not be sold. The final meeting to decide what to do was held at Georgetown College. Father Carbery attended this meeting to plead against the sale. He could not dissuade them. When he finally arrived back home at St. Inigoes, he was very quiet and subdued. He sat down to eat. Harry Mahoney was waiting on table. Father Carbery couldn’t eat. Mr. Mahoney sensed that something had gone wrong. "We’re sold!", he exclaimed. "Yes", was the sorrowful answer. The decision to sell caused great grief in the parish.

On January 28, 1837, Father McSherry wrote to Father Vespre, who was now in Rome, to report that the archbishop had not said a word about the pension since the spring of the preceding year, and apparently did not want to speak about it. The archbishop had said then that if he were certain that the property the Jesuits had was not given for the benefit of the congregations, he would not make any further demands on them. Father McSherry assured him that St. Inigoes and the other manors were not given for that object. He referred the archbishop to the public archives to back up his statements.

The Panic of 1837 and the ensuing depression caused a further delay in selling the slaves. On May 13, McSherry wrote to the General to report that under the current conditions he would only receive one-tenth of what he would have received the year before. A month later, on June 19, 1837, the archbishop wrote to McSherry regarding his suggestion of a final adjustment of the annuity question along the lines suggested by the General. Eccleston said that he was willing to accept the offer of property for which $8,000 had been offered. He was willing to accept the offer if the Society still wished to make it. He hoped that he could leave enough from his own personal means or other resources so that hise successors would have not cause to complain.

A few months later McSherry reported to the General that the archbishop had spoken to him recently about the pensions, adding, however, that he had not been in want. The provincial told the archbishop that he could not pay him in cash. He was thinking of offering a tract of land, perhaps more than one thousand acres in extent, about twenty miles distant from Baltimore. But the archbishop seemed to intimate that land would be of very little use to him. Some short time afterward, Eccleston had made a number of friendly observations. He thought that it was a pity that so much property should remain comparatively unproductive. If the Jesuits would sell all their landed property and slaves, and devote the proceeds to purposes of education., he saw a double advantage. The land would be better utilized by those who were professionally farmers, and the priests would be freed to devote themselves to their spiritual work. As it was , the archbishop felt that concern to obtain a meager support for themselves and their slaves occupied too much of the missionaries’ time. McSherry confessed to the General that he was too much in favor of the prelate’s opinion to disagree with him.

In October 1837, the General, Father Roothaan, appointed Father Mulledy the new provincial. One of the first things he did was to discuss with his councilors the possibility of extinguishing the whole question of the archbishop’s pension once and for all, by paying the archbishop a lump sum of $9,000. Since the one thing the archbishop did not want was a farm, Mulledy’s council agreed to make the payment even if it meant that they would have to sell a part of White Marsh in order to do it. A comedy of errors then took place. On January 24, 1838, the archbishop wrote to the new provincial to complain that the Jesuits had failed to pay the annuity for the past three years. He then proposed two propositions to solve the issue conclusively. The first was that the Jesuits pay the arrears. The second was that he was willing to accept $8,000 that Father McSherry had first mentioned. Eccleston was going to be in Georgetown on February 5. The two of them would then have a chance to talk.

Just as he was completing his first letter as Provincial to the General in Rome on February 7, Mulledy was summoned to see the archbishop at Georgetown Visitation Convent. When Mulledy went over from Georgetown College, the archbishop outlined his terms to settle the question. Not knowing that the Jesuits had already decided among themselves to offer $9,000, the archbishop repeated his offer to accept $8,000. Nothing was said about the arrearages. The General wrote on April 3, but before Mulledy received an answer from Rome, he wrote again on May 1 to say that the archbishop was willing to settle for $8,000. He was, as Mulledy put it, making the Society a present of one thousand dollars. The letters crossed in the mails. The General’s answer to the first letter was that he had nothing to say against the proposal. The problem for Mulledy now was how to raise the money. It was at this point that the two issues of the annuity to the archbishop and the slave question finally began to come together. The sale of the slaves became the answer to the problem of the pension.

In contrast to Father Carbery, who was native of St. Mary’s County and who clung to the rural traditions of the Society, Father Mulledy was heart and soul in favor of selling the slaves. He had, however, difficulty in finding the proper purchasers. He began the disagreeable work by selling a boy from St. Thomas Manor for $450 on May 4. A few days later Governor Henry Johnsonof the Parish of St. James, Louisiana, and Dr. Jesse Beatty of the Parish of Terre-bonne, Louisiana, went down to St. Mary’s County by stage coach. Both had large plantations, There they met Father Mulledy and looked at the slaves. He had a list prepared on each of the estates, giving the names of the slaves with their ages and relationship. It also indicated if the husband or wife belonged to another estate. There were two hundred and seventy-two slaves in all.

On June 12, Father Mulledy wrote to Father John McElroy, S.J., the superior of St. John’s College in Frederick, Maryland, that he was so busy in trading off the slaves, that he did not know when he would be in Frederick. He found it a difficult task to dispose of the servants to persons in a Catholic neighborhood. He had recently received what he considered a fine opportunity to sell them as a group if they could agree upon prices. The prospective purchasers wished to price each servant, giving high prices for the young and stout and diminishing prices for the elder and children. The day before one such buyer offered eight hundred dollars for young men, twenty years old. For women of the same age he offered six hundred and fifty dollars. The prices for the others diminished somewhat for every one above twenty-five and under eighteen. Mulledy told him that he wished an average price. On the spot the man made a bid by adding his different prices together. They amounted to $345 per head. Father Mulledy told him he must make the average come to $400 at least before he would even deign to consider his proposition. Mulledy was eager to get other opinions. Father McSherry, for one, thought $400 was a fair price. Mulledy himself was leaning towards $450.

On June 19, 1838, Father Mulledy signed agreements with Dr. Beatty and Governor Johnson. They had both agreed to the Jesuits’ conditions of sale. In turn the Jesuits were to deliver all two hundred seventy-two slaves to them at Alexandria, D.C.. Fifty-one of them were to leave as soon as possible. The rest were to leave between October 15 and November 15, together with their clothes and bedding. In return Beatty and Johnson agreed to pay $115,000. The first $25,000 was due on the delivery of the first fifty-one slaves. They were to pay the other $90,000 over ten years with interest of six per cent. This would amount to $18,000 per year. From Alexandria they planned to transport the slavers to Ascension and Iberville Parishes, in Louisiana. There they were to be distributed on two or three big sugar cane plantations, about seventy miles north of New Orleans on the Mississippi River.

To prevent the local procurators no chance to forewarn the slaves at St. Thomas Manor, Mulledy arrived unannounced with Johnson and the sheriff of Charles County. Father Thomas Lilly, who opposed the sale, was enraged. He later wrote to the General that they dragged the slaves off by force to the ships bound for Louisiana. He was certain that the danger to their souls was real since, no matter how slaver owners promise to treat their slaves in a Christian manner, the laws and customs of the South would make it very difficult to keep those promises. Similar scenes were repeated at Newtown. Father Peter Havermans, the superior there, was pushed to the brink of despair when one old woman sought his blessing on her knees and begged to know what she had done to deserve being sold. Others came seeking rosaries.

When the boat came to collect the slaves from St. Inigoes, Father Carbery evidently had warning and told the slavers. Louisa Mahoney and her mother ran off into the woods. They spent several days there, without food, until they were sure the brig had sailed away. Only then did they return to their quarter. Father Carbery received them with open arms, so glad was he that they had escaped. Father Carbery returned the price of one female servant, and Louisa was allowed to remain on the manor. Some others who dreaded the trip to Louisiana ran away also, but only one or two ran far enough to get away.

At the end of June, fifty-one slaves boarded a brig at Alexandria. Twenty-seven came from St. Inigoes and twenty-four from White Marsh. In reality there were three more from the latter place, but as they were babies they counted as one with their mothers The expenses of bringing them from White Marsh to Alexandria amounted to $21. The expenses for the St. Inigoes people came to $143.06. None of the slaves from either place was over 45 years of age. Twenty-six of them were under eighteen. One family from St. Inigoes consisted of twelve persons. Another consisted of nine. The other six were unmarried men. The White Marsh families consisted of five persons each. On June 27 Dr. Beatty wrote to Father McSherry at the Georgetown College to inform him that one of the slaves named Eliza still had not arrived. He was hoping that he would send her down immediately, since it was necessary that the brig should clear the custom house that very day. Eliza never arrived, however, and the brig sailed without her.

On July 6 Johnson paid a total of $23,214 for the slaves he had received. Two days later when Archbishop Eccleston was visiting Georgetown, Father Mulledy gave him $8,000 from this sale to extinguish the claims of the See of Baltimore against the Jesuits once and for all. In return the archbishop gave the provincial a receipt which acknowledged the extinction of the principal and annual pensions due to the Archbishop of Baltimore. He declared that the Society of Jesus in the province of Maryland absolved from any and every obligation of contributing, in virtue of the brief of Pius VII, to the support of the Archbishop of Baltimore. However, due to a lack of time, the archbishop declared that he wished this receipt to be understood in the context of a letter that he would write under the same date once he returned to Baltimore. Mulledy accept the receipt and the archbishop left for home where he wrote the promised letter.

Father Mulledy wrote to the General, Father Roothaan, on August 9 to inform him that he had received $25,000 for the forty-nine slaves already delivered to Senator Johnson. From this money he sent eight thousand to the Archbishop of Baltimore and received from him a full quittance of the duty of paying anything to him or his successors - for ever, unto everlasting. Father Roothaan had insisted repeatedly that papers should be sent over to Rome, and the matter be finished with the archbishop with proper formalities, so as to forestall the possibility of any future claims.

On the following November 10, Doctor Beatty bought the next installment of sixty-four slaves. The price was $27,057, to be paid in five installments with a mortgage on land and slaves. On the same day Henry Johnson bought fifty-six Negroes for the same amount, $27,057 payable in five installments with mortgage.

On November 29, Henry Johnson bought the last group of eighty-four more Negroes for $29,163, also payable in five installments. In this last sale there were more old people than in the former ones. This final shipment consisted of those who could not leave earlier because of some mishap, and those who ran away, breaking up the family, and thus delaying them also. These events left a deep scar in the parish.

Reaction was not long in coming. Mulledy had been blissfully unaware of the odium for himself and the Society the sale of slaves on this scale would provoke. In the end the scandal was so great the that Eccleston and McSherry both counseled Mulledy to resign. Eccleston wrote to Roothaan on June 27, 1839, urging that he not dismiss Mulledy from the Society. In shock at the reaction when it finally came, Mulledy resigned and hastily left Georgetown for Rome to defend himself in person before the General.

Several months later, in 1839, Pope Gregory XVI issued his landmark condemnation of slavery, forbidding Catholic theologians to defend its morality.

The formal papers extinguishing the claim of the See of Baltimore against the Jesuits that Father Roothaan requested never arrived in Rome. The General wrote to Father Francis Vespre on this subject on December 31, 1839. He had returned to America and was now the procurator of the Maryland Province, stationed at Georgetown College. In his reply on May 5, 1840, Vespre told the General that in his judgment nothing could be done to rectify the formalities of the transaction. Given the susceptibility of the archbishop, not even a simple letter from him to the Propagation of the Faith could be hoped for. If asked to do so, Father Vespre feared that the archbishop might refused to authenticate the receipt. In Vespre’s opinion, the entire matter had been handled badly. He was afraid that matters were very much as they had been, so that future claimants might begin all over again. In point of fact, they never were, and the whole controversy quickly fell into a well deserved oblivion.

In 1840 William Coad, a parishioner and a delegate to the Maryland General Assembly, suggested to Father Carbery that he donate one of the cannons taken from the St. Mary’s River to the State of Maryland. William Grason, whose family owned Cross Manor, the manor next to St. Inigoes Manor, was governor at the time. Father Carbery was happy to oblige. In this way one of the cannons made its way to Annapolis the following year.

For many years the contributions of the founders of Maryland had fallen into oblivion. The first attempt to revive interest and awareness on the part of Catholics occurred on May 10, 1842. The Philodemic Society of Georgetown College marked "Forefathers Day" with a pilgrimage to St. Mary's County. It began with a procession from St. Inigoes Manor to the church. There Bishop Benedict Fenwick of Boston, one of the first novices received into the restored Jesuits, offered Mass. Afterward the group went on to St. Mary's City, where the procession regrouped. Led by Archbishop Eccleston, they marched to the old mulberry tree where tradition said that Leonard Calvert bought the site for the colony from the natives. William George Reed the orator for the day, kept the large crowd spellbound for nearly two hours. George Washington Parker Curtis of Arlington composed an ode for the occasion. A Jesuit from Georgetown, Father George Fenwick, sang it to the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner". Among the participants, no one was more ardent or took a more prominent part than Father Carbery. This pilgrimage became an annual event for a while, but the tradition eventually died out in the 1850’s.

Father Carbery’s final years at St. Inigoes were passed in tranquillity. One by one his associatesd died. Father Daniel Barber, S.J., died at St. Inigoes in 1842, as did Brother Christopher O'Hare on May 19, 1842. Brother John Sparks, S.J. took his place. On September 17, 1844, Father Robert Woodley, S.J., joined the Jesuit community at St. Inigoes. He served at St. Nicholas, and lived part of the time at the residence at Mattapany. The following year Brother Sparks died on September 4. Brother Bartholomew Lane was assigned to St. Inigoes in 1847 and died there January 14, 1848. Father Carbery’s own death came suddenly on May 25, 1849 as he sat beneath a fig tree near the manor house. He suddenly collapsed about 11 o’clock that morning. Dr. Roach was quickly summoned and found him sprawled outside the house. But there was nothing he could do. He was already dead. Word was quickly sent to Father Woodley who was at St. Nicholas. Before he left for St. Inigoes, Father Woodley wrote a brief dispatch to inform the provincial.

Father Carbery’s long and fruitful ministry of thirty-three years at St. Inigoes set a record for longevity that has never been equaled. A beautiful monument marks his final resting place in St. Ignatius Cemetery. One of the windows in the old church is dedicated to his memory.

As soon as the provincial heard of the death, he wrote to Philadelphia to direct Father Ignatius Combs, S.J., to leave immediately for St. Inigoes. He was the logical selection for the emergency, since he was a native of St. Inigoes parish, born and raised in the Great Mills area. His sister was married to Dr. Roach. Father Combs did, however, have serious health problems. In June 15, he wrote to the provincial from St. Inigoes hoping to receive some assistance. To datTe, he felt, the St. Inigoes congregation, he felt, had not been disappointed with what he had been able to do. He had said the late Mass and preached the last two Sundays, but with great difficulty and, he thought, some danger. He felt that if Father Woodley would remain home at St. Inigoes two Sundays in the month, the people would be satisfied until better arrangements could be made.

A matter of pressing importance was the matter of Father Carbery’s will. Continuing a long tradition, Father Carbery had important Jesuit property in Pennsylvania in his name. Father Combs wanted Father Lancaster to bring the will from the depository in Georgetown and probate it in Leonardtown.

Father Combs own assessment of his health was quite positive. He was glad to have the employment in a county which was then quite healthy, without a sign of the cholera. This assessment was not shared by Father Thomas Lilly, S.J., the superior at Newtown. He had been to St. Inigoes for a High Mass for Father Carbery. He returned to Newtown convinced that Father Combs could not laststand it down there very long. Afterwards he had heard reports that Father Combs either fell from the altar the prior Sunday or had to be helped from it. The provincial eventually came to the same conclusion that Father Lilly had. On July 24, Father Lilly wrote to the provincial because he had heard by the grapevine that the provincial wanted him to go to St. Inigoes as Father Carbery’s permanent replacement. He told him that he was perfectly willing to do, if the report was correct. The only thing he asked was to make the move as soon as it was convenient.

Thus it was that Father Lilly came to St. Inigoes. As the superior of St. Thomas Manor, he along with Father Carbery and Father Combs, who was then at White Marsh, had opposed the sale of the slaves. In 1848 he was moved to Newtown. On August 29, 1849, he left Newtown on the steamer Columbia bound for Piney Point. From there he took a rowboat across the St. Mary’s River and arrived at the manor at 8 p.m. Father Combs, who had been in charge since Father Carbery’s death, was not at home. The next day Father Lilly went with Dr. Roach and some others to Col. Combs’ for dinner and spent the day there. The following day Father Combs was due back from Washington, so Father Lilly went over to Piney Point to meet his boat. Together they arrived back at St. Inigoes about nine in the evening.

Father Lilly met the parish for the first time that Sunday. He had the late Mass and preached. He later confided to his diary that he did not have a very good impression of the people because of what he considered to be their too great propensity for talking scandal. He prayerfully hoped they would correct their habits. The next day Father Lilly set out with Father Combs to his new assignment at Newtown from where Father Lilly had just come. He got back to St. Inigoes the following Thursday.

Father Combs did not last too long at Newtown either. He died there on June 21, 1850, and Father Woodley was reassigned to Newtown to take his place. The care for St. Nicholas then devolved on Father Lilly.

One of the crosses that Father Lilly had to bear while at St. Inigoes was Father Finegan. He was somewhat of a mental case, given at time to violent outbursts of rage. In one report to the provincial several month as after arriving he reported that he cwould not get Father Finegan to do anything except what he pleased. A few days earlier he had attacked Father Lilly as the later was starting out for St. Nicholas. Father Lilly was a large man, and so it was not hard for him to subdue his confrere. Though he was not afraid of him, Lilly told the provincial that he still considered him dangerous.

During Father Lilly’s pastorship at St. Inigoes, the Jesuits sold Saint George’s Island to Ennels Rozelle and John H. Robrecht for $10,000 in 1851. The island had been a part of St. Inigoes Manor since the time of Father Copley. At one time it was calculated to contain a thousand acres, but over the years erosion had greatly reduced it. Its chief use seems to have been as grazing meadows.

That same year the Jesuits, acting through their agent, Father Lancaster, entered into a contract with the partnership of Rozelle and Robrecht to allow them to set up and operate a steam saw mill on St. Inigoes Manor. They intended to cut trees and saw them on the spot, using four acres on the farm operated by Basil Tarlton for their operations. This venture, however, had a stormy life. At one point the partners had a falling out in their relationship. Then all the men, both white and black, who worked the mill quit, refusing to work under Robrecht’s management. Robrecht then imported Irish immigrants, but they too quit after working only a few days. Rozelle was furious when he discovered that Robrecht had brought some whiskey to the mill.

The main section of St. Inigoes was in the First District of St. Mary’s County. The Saint Mary’s River separates it from the Second District, which then included the Valley Lee area and Saint George’s Island. All agreed that a church more conveniently located for the people of the Second District was needed. The few Catholics in that area were generally poor and unable to get to the church across the river. In 1851 Father Lilly began to celebrate Mass in the Second District, apparently in private homes.

The new Archbishop of Baltimore, the Most Reverend Francis Kenrick, arrived for his first confirmation at St. Inigoes on Sunday, the Fourth of July, 1852. He confirmed twenty-six persons and afterwards had dinner with several members of the parish. Father Lilly took him over to Piney Point the following day to catch the boat back to Baltimore. When he got back to St. Inigoes, Father Lilly found that someone he refers to simply as "Black boy Bill" had returned home, having been in jail for several days.

The next day the demands of the farm claimed Father Lilly’s attention once again. He had to finish culling the oats, then haul in the wheat. To help him with running the farm, Father Lilly had the assistance of Brother Benjamin Hutchins, S.J., who acted as the overseer. Another lay brother, Brother Joseph Flaut, S.J., helped with the mill. His late and irregular hours at the mill proved to be a bit of a trial for Father Lilly. Exasperated, Father Lilly on one occasion locked the doors to the manor house when Brother Flaut still had not appeared by ten o’clock. Brother Hutchins had to get up to open the door for him when he finally showed up. Father Lilly was a man of disciplined habits. When he was at home he habitually said daily Mass in the manor chapel at 5:30 a.m. Brother Flaut habitually slept in, missing Mass and meditation. This brought a stern lecture from Father Lilly who forbade him to have any whiskey at the mill. A repentant Brother Flaut promised amendment.

William Coad, his brother George, his son Edwin, and a few other gentlemen (including Cornelius Combs) originated the idea of building a church for those who could not get to St. Inigoes. Father Lilly gave his support to these efforts. On July 29, 1852, he went over the Second District to confer about the church with Col. Coad in his home known as "Cherryfields."

On September 16, 1852, Mr. John Shadrick, a non-Catholic well disposed toward the Church gave land for a church. He wished his family to have a place of worship. Father Lilly pushed ahead with plans for such a church. According to Miss Ida Carroll, who cared for the altar and devoted her long life to the loving care of St. George’s, William, George and Edwin Coad, with the help of their slaves, cleared the ground and built the first portion of the church.

On September 29, 1852, Father Lilly went to Baltimore to get the iron columns for the side galleries of St. Inigoes Church. At the same time he procured lime, bricks, and other materials needed for the underpinning and plastering of the new church lately erected in St. George’s. He returned three days later by way of the Patuxent, stopping to see a Mrs. Freeman who was very ill. The next day was Sunday. There was a large crowd that day at St. Inigoes. Father Lilly preached his usual half-hour sermon. After Mass he went back to see Mrs. Freeman and anointed her for death. Rather than return in the dark to St. Inigoes, he stayed all night at St. Nicholas Church. On Monday evening Father Lilly had Perry Combs and John Flower for dinner at St. Inigoes. That night Mrs. Freeman died. Father Lilly went to St. Nicholas for her funeral on Wednesday. The church was quite full. Back at St. Inigoes, he rowed over to "Cherryfields" to see Col. Coad again, presumably about the progress of the church.

One of the distinctive features of St. Inigoes Church is the gallery which Father Carbery had added during his renovations. Mr. Raley had been working during the month of September to install the new iron columns to enlarge their seating capacity. On September 27, he finished the work, and the following Sunday, September 301, in accord with the custom of the times, the colored people occupied the new pews. There were no white people, Father Lilly tells us, but the renovations permitted more of the choir upstairs. This indirect reference by Father Lilly to a choir is the first time we hear mention of a choir at St. Inigoes.

For many year Father Charles C. Lancaster, S.J., was the agent for the Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen, the civil corporation that still held title to all Jesuit properties. In this capacity, Father Lancaster was deeply involved in the financial side of the Mission. He often visited the missions throughout Southern Maryland and had many contacts. Early in 1854 he wrote to Fr. Lilly on business. At the end of his letter, he said he had heard that a trustee of St. Nicholas had mentioned to one of the Jesuits at Leonardtown that they intended to write to the archbishop asking for another pastor. because they did not think that Father Lilly tookdid not take sufficient interest in the congregation. Needless to say, this greatly upset Father Lilly. Not a man to beat around the bush, he immediately contacted the board of trustees to receive an explanation. The trustees at the time were John B. Russell, Henry I. Carroll, W. T. Tarlton, and a Mr. Combs. They trustees were startled to hear the rumor and hastened to reassurme Father Lilly that he was misinformed. None of them to the best of their knowledge had ever used such language. They had instead expressed the wish that for an assistant priest because they always considered it difficult for one priest to attend to the wants of two large congregations such as St. Inigoes and St. Nicholas. The trustees at the time were John B. Russell, Henry I. Carroll, W. T. Tarlton, and a Mr. Combs.

That summer of 1854 the wish for an assistant was realized when Father Peter Miller, S.J., arrived to assist Father Lilly. He was suffering from health problems, as did many of the priests who were assigned to assist at St. Inigoes. The provincial evidently had thought that St. Inigoes was light duty.

When he compiled his report on the spiritual state of the parish in August 1854, Father Lilly mentioned that there had been about forty marriages that year, but not all of them were recorded. He was obliged to officiate privately at the marriages some slaves due to the fact that some of their Protestant masters would not permit them to be married, even though they would allow them to live together, as Father Lilly described it, like brutes. This situation was, in Lilly’s opinion, one of the curses of slavery. Though they might have had slaves themselves, the Jesuits drew the line on concubinage and insisted on the natural right to marry for slaves.

Father Lilly always had the dream to establish schools - male and female - at St. Inigoes. What he lacked was the means and the working materials. He had been hoping to secure the services of a German family who would be able to play the organ, and teach school and catechism classes. Schools were important, he felt, because in a poor county like St. Mary’s the young were growing up badly. In December 1854, he wrote to Father Charles H. Stonestreet, S.J., the provincial, that he had some prospect for the school. He was hoping to begin it in April of the following year. His prospect evidently was a Dutchman who could also play the organ. Whatever happened to him is unknown, as there is no further mention of a school.

St. George’s Church was another matter. After more than a two year struggle it was finally finished All it wanted now was a formal opening. Lilly asked the provincial to set the date. He was hoping that he would be able to come in that winter. But before the church was dedicated there was another funeral. Brother Flaut died at St. Inigoes on January 1, 1855.

The provincial preferred a summer visit, but that did not delay using the church. By the beginning of 1855, the church was far enough along that services were already being held in it. On January 28 Father Lilly said his customary Mass at St. Inigoes. After breakfast, he went to Col. Coad’s, then on to the new church. Father Miller was already there hearing confessions. Father Lilly could not help but think that the pretty little church reflected credit on those who built it. That summer, on August 5, Father Stonestreet dedicated the new church under the patronage of the martyr St. George. Father Lilly sang a High Mass. Father George King, S.J., and Father Miller, S.J., assisted. Mrs. Mary Combs directed the choir.

Father Miller was succeeded by Father Augustine McMullen, S.J. in 1856 as Father Lilly’s assistant, caring for the two missions, St. Nicholas and St. George’s. That summer was a particularly troublesome one for Father Lilly healthwise. He made a special trip to Saratoga, New York, in an attempt to recover his health. His doctor assured him that his treatments were the only thing that saved him, considering the amount of bile they drained from him.

It was a very cold Sunday morning, December 7, 1856. Father Lilly had a large crowd at his Mass at St. Inigoes. Father McMillan reported a small crowd at the Mass he said at St. George’s. That evening Father Charles Bague, S.J., arrived from Baltimore aboard the steamer Columbia. He was the newly appointed superior of the Mission sent to take the place of Father Lilly. For some time Father Lilly had been suffering sever spells of illness, bilious fevers, gout, to name but a few. The provincial, Father Stonestreet, finally decided to relieve him of his responsibility for St. Inigoes which was by then in its eighth year. For his part Father Lilly was ready and eager to go. But first there was the matter of the hogs. The next day, the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was also a very cold day. Anyone who has lived in the country knows what that means. It was time to butcher the hogs. Eleven hogs died that day, weighing a total of 1963 pounds. Added to the 220 pounds of the two that had been killed a few days before, that brought the total that year to 2183 pounds. Two days later Father Lilly left for his new assignment in Philadelphia.

The new superior, Father Bague, had been a refugee from Switzerland and the revolutions that swept throughout Europe in 1848. When the Jesuits were expelled, he was sent to America. His coming to St. Inigoes introduced another period of transition during which St. Inigoes had three pastors within three years. Father Peter Miller, S.J. returned in 1858 as pastor and superior. Father Placidus de Maestri, S.J., arrived the same year and served as an assistant at St. George’s in Valley Lee. Brother Hutchins continued to serve as oversee for the farm. In 1859 another change brought Father James Moore, S.J., replacing Father Miller. Father Aloysius Janalick, S.J., succeeded Father de Maestri at St. George’s.

Although the year 1859 was also the 225th anniversary of the founding of Maryland, nothing was done to mark this event. The Catholic Mirror of the Archdiocese of Baltimore lamented this omission.

THE COMING OF THE ROADS (1889-1902)

By the end of the nineteenth century a simple but profound change began to make its impact of the life of the Mission. Roads began to rival the waterways as a means of transportation. It happened gradually, and those who lived through it may not have fully realized what was happening. But it meant that churches like Saint Inigoes, which were on the waterway, became increasingly isolated. Those that were on the main roads, like St. Michael’s, began to be the preferred place for parish activities. Father Describes taught the children at St. Michael’s parish every Saturday. Now that the church was at Ridge, there was no further need of William’s Gift, as the old site was called. He sold it on March 13, 1890 to Mrs. Priscilla Biscoe of St. Inigoes.

When the scholastics returned to the Villa in July 1890 they were greatly surprised to find that a number of improvements had been made. Father Describes had sunk an artesian well two hundred feet deep and had installed four fire escapes on the large Villa building. He also placed a large bell on St. Michael’s Church. One of the scholastics gladdened his heart by tuning the large organ in the parish church.

Another sign of the growing prominence of St. Michael’s was the compliment of its choir that The Beacon of February 26, 1891, carried. Mr. John Saxton was the organist and the choir members included Mrs. Rosa Yates, Miss Idell Courtney, Misses Kate and Ella Clarke, the Misses Ridgell and Mr. Maurice Evans.

All during this time blacks continued to be a vital part of the St. Michael’s congregation. On March 1891 they conducted a successful entertainment for the benefit of St. Michael’s. The managers were Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Langley, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Butler, Moses Bennett and Columbus Smith. That same year St. Michael’s received a new priest. He was Father Andrew Keating, S.J., who succeeded Father Busam at St. George’s. Besides St. George’s and St. Michael’s, Father Keating also served St. Nicholas.

The State of Maryland decided to build a memorial to the memory of Leonard Calvert. The site selected was a spot in the cemetery of Trinity Episcopal Church at St. Mary’s City. There, until recently, the old mulberry tree under Calvert had made his bargain with the Indians for the land for his new colony had stood. The dedication of the handsome obelisk was scheduled for June 3, 1891. The planners of the event had invited Cardinal Gibbons to give the opening prayer for the ceremony. Two days before the event, the Cardinal took ill during his confirmation trip in Charles County. He had to call Bishop Alfred Curtis, his auxiliary, to complete the confirmation schedule.

On the dedication day white sails of all sizes dotted the St. Mary’s River from shore to shore. The steamer Excelsior had left Baltimore the night before to bring a large delegation. The steamer, Sue, was also there with a large crowd from Leonardtown. The oyster police steamers McLane and Thomas, the sloops Nelly Jackson, Daisy Archer, Louise Whyte, and Katie Hines were all swinging at anchor. The unveiling ceremony opened at noon. Due to the cardinal’s illness, Rev. Joseph Cunnane of Upper Marlboro read the Cardinal’s invocation prayer in his absence. As a preparation for the event of the day, Rev. Charles H. Henisler read Colonel J. Thomas Scharf’s account of the founding of Maryland. At the conclusion of this very lengthy reading, Wright’s Band played a selection. The dramatic highpoint of the day that all had been waiting for arrived when Miss Julia Steuart Calvert, a descendant of the founding family, stepped forward. With a tug on the cord, the flag draping the monument fell away and disclosed the gleaming shaft of the obelisk. At that moment the vessels in the river fired a rousing salute. The young ladies of the seminary sang Maryland, My Maryland, with words written for the occasion. The Attorney-General of the state, Mr. William Pinkney Whyte, then delivered the oration of the day. At its conclusion, the choir sang America. The assembly then stood and bowed their heads for the benediction. The Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, the Right Reverend William Paret, stepped forward to deliver the final benediction. He announced that the chairman had given him permission to made a few remarks before the benediction. He had an interesting view of history, and to bring all present into a greater harmony and sympathy as they gave thanks, he proceeded to develop it. He felt that it was well worth considering that in securing this great gift of liberty of conscience, God had wondrously used men of various religious traditions. Mr. Whyte had just reminded the audience of the role that Baptists and Quakers played in the founding of Maryland. Bishop Paret asked all present to remember the role the Church of England had played. It was in this church, he reminded the crowd, that the first Lord Baltimore had received his training and character formation. The bishop delicately reminded his audience that it was while he was still an Anglican that George Calvert first sought and obtained the charter that a Protestant king had granted, glad to give the relief the distressed sought. Just who the distressed were was not mentioned. The bishop did note, however, that the Calvert family after a while returned to the church of their earlier allegiance, and almost all their lineal descendants then belonged to the Protestant Episcopal Church. He used the opportunity to thank God for bringing men of different religious persuasions together to accomplish His purpose, and let no one party claim all the honor. Believing his audience equally divided among Roman Catholics and others, the bishop expressed his gratification that they could meet for this purpose. He asked all present to join with heart and voice to say together the "Lord’s Prayer" and the "Apostles Creed". The audience complied in full tones. Having corrected what he evidently felt were omissions in the story of Maryland, the bishop then proceeded to the benediction.

At the end of the month the Jesuit scholastics arrived as usual for their summer vacation. On the evening of July 3, 1891, a few days after their arrival, tragedy struck at the Villa. A cyclone struck without warning about half-past seven. It ruined a large shade tent, tore the canvas from the bathing stalls, unmoored the boats, and beat against the house violently enough to tear away blinds and doors. The community stood watching the peril of the dozen men who were trying so bravely to save the tent. The effort to let down the canvas had injured two scholastics. One suffered a bad cut about the jaw. The pouring rain coming through roof and walls wet the bedding of fifty men. To provide dry mattresses and covering from the limited supply at their disposal, they prolonged the recreation. Some noticed how the storm had headed for the Chesapeake. They began to be anxious for the safety of the rector of Woodstock College who was spending the night on the bay, returning from a provincial consultation in New York City.

Once the points for meditation and examination of conscience were over, the community retired for the night. It was a quarter past ten. Several remained up, bolting and barring doors and windows, mopping the chapel floor, or hanging wet clothes and bedding in suitable drying spots. Though nearly all were in bed by eleven o’clock, not many could sleep. Another storm had come up, and the wind was by this time blowing a gale from the southwest. With every door and window closed, only few could see the vivid flashes of lighting. The heavy rain pounding against the building soon aroused everyone's attention. The force of the water again penetrated the roof and walls. Many feared it would tear away a weak portion of the roof. Again the south and west sides of the attic and large dormitories were so wet that, in places, shoes would not keep one’s feet dry. The only thing to do was to remove beds from those sides to the middle and eastern side of the dormitory. About twenty of the thirty-eight men lodged in the attic that night along with three men from the dormitory below began to make room for the dozen or more beds already rain-soaked. Knowing that this removal would be necessary, the young Father John Wynne, S.J.,^. went upstairs to help. He was the minister of the house and, in the absence of the superior, the one in change that night. Going up, he met a few coming down to seek refuge in the corridors or chapel. He noticed that many theologians were moving about in the dormitory. As he reached that attic stairway, the wind and rain were beating furiously. He stopped thinking of giving aid, and began to think of the danger and the possible need of a priest’s services. In spite of the general annoyance and apprehension and moving about, there was no confusion in the dormitory. Men were helping one another with kindness and good humor, ready to relieve in every way the south and west side lodgers. The beadle of the philosophers had gone along the west side, directing every man to remove his bed. A theologian begged Father Wynne to summon the community to the chapel. Some three or four were already making their way down the stairwell. The noise on the roof was now so loud that it drowned out everything. He dreaded the alarm a summons to the chapel would have caused. Mr. Quinn told him that every bed had been removed from underneath the only weak spot in the roof. Thus reassured, Father Wynne thought it best for all to retire again and trust to divine protection. At this point an electric shock in the left arm made him jump away from a joist against which he was leaning. He started towards the southwest corner, aware that the building was highly charged. His only concern was to reassure the men who now seemed very uneasy. He could hit upon nothing better than the villa weather cry, "cheer up." In spite of the general alarm, those to whom he spoke obediently went back to bed.

Owing to a sudden lull in the storm, wind and rain seemed to cease. With quiet restored outside, things seemed to calm within the house. Just then, about a half past eleven, there was a blinding flash. The noise was deafening. A lightning bolt entered through the roof in the southeast corner of the attic dormitory, throwing at first a brilliant flash downwards and crosswise, than bursting into about thirty or forty sparks. As seen from the dormitory below, directly under where it burst in the attic above, it fell in two balls or clumps of fire. One was the size of a baseball, the other somewhat smaller. These left streaks of light after them. On touching the floor they burst into twenty-five or thirty good-sized rebounding sparks. Something similar burst outside the middle chapel window. Two of the brothers saw it enter their alcove just below. Everyone heard the noise except one person who slept through the night, and at least two of those struck unconscious. The fireball tore a hole in the layer of shingles that formed the roof. The rent was a foot wide, and ran zigzag from the eave to the gable. The rafters at that spot are not well braced nor mortised. The lightning did not hurt the floor beneath nor any other part of the building, but did fuse some copper wires. The force of the strike sent men plunging forward like divers in every part of the dormitory. A lamp which Brother Dockery was holding just at that spot was knocked out of his hand and extinguished.

Thinking that the lighting had struck most of the men, Father Wynne absolved all in need. He repeated it quickly, and then broke the awful stillness to bid all go downstairs quietly, one by one, without fear because he had given absolution. He added that there was no danger, nor need of alarming those below, that a lamp had burst, and there was no fire. At the time, several thought the only lamp had exploded. The mention of it served to avert the thought and horror of lightning. It saved them from a panic or rush to the stairway. About twenty men moved quietly toward the north stair. Two of them carried Mr. Raley who had fallen near by. He was the first of the stricken to implore Father Wynne’s aid. After absolving him, he absolved two prostrate bodies lying about four or five feet from him. He felt pretty sure, however, that one of them was a corpse. It was the body of Mr. John Lamb. Next he started for the south side of the room where Mr. Walsh was calling for a priest to assist Mr. Neary. As he started, Mr. Doherty warned him to look out for fire. Mr. Doherty and Mr. Wilkinson were already looking after Mr. Quinn and the remains of Mr. Lamb.

Under the impression which many others had that the roof or floor had been ripped, Father Wynne groped his way towards Mr. Neary. Messrs. Hanselman and Mcgrath attended him as he sat on the floor. He was uttering the ejaculations of the dying with so much composure, that Father Wynne hesitated before absolving him. He only did so when Mr. Neary told him that he was burning inside and out and that his heart was crushed. Turning from him, he stumbled over the prostrate form of Mr. Joseph Woods. While Father Wynne was absolving him, Mr. Walsh asked him to absolve Br. Dockery also because they could not find him. They were afraid that the force of the lighting had blown him out of the building. Father Wynne could only pronounce a conditional absolution. He repeated one over another body as he hastened back to the stairway to call for assistance and restoratives. All this had taken less than two minutes. Father Samuel Frisbee, S.J., Father Thomas J. McCluskey, S.J.,and Father John Brosnan, S.J. had already come upstairs to give priestly aid. Two scholastics, Mr. Magrath with Mr. Duane, had discovered the body of Mr. James Waters. From the very first, those who saw the bodies of Mr. Lamb and Mr. Waters were quite sure they were dead.

From the dormitories below all had gathered in the hallways, ignorant of course of the deadly effects of the lightning above. Hearing of the injuries, several offered their services and began at once applying every means -- brandy, hot water, mustard, rubbing, lung and chest movements, Ignatius and Lourdes Waters. Two scholastics, Mr. Woods and Mr. Quinn, recovered consciousness soon after being anointed. Sensibility and speech returned somewhat later. Priests stood by the bodies of Lamb and Waters, awaiting any sign of returning consciousness. The warmth of the bodies and a fancied heart-beat or breath-dew on the mirror were taken as sufficient signs to give extreme unction and absolution. Father Describes gave the plenary indulgence in articulo mortis. Around midnight two men searched the dormitory carefully and found nothing out of order. Two others did the same about an hour later as a neighbor set off for Dr. Miles. In the darkness no one else could attempt to reach his home over some eight miles of badly flooded roads through the woods. Two scholastics made the rounds twice to lock the windows and to make sure there was no sign of fire.

About 1:30 in the morning, the wind began to rise again. To avert anything like the panic another storm would cause, the Blessed Sacrament was brought from the residence chapel to the Villa chapel. The community assembled before it to pray for the injured. Few yet knew that anyone had been killed. Even when Masses began, as early as 2:15 a.m., it was thought advisable not to use black vestments. Most were not prepared for the shock it would have caused. The presence of the Lord renewed the confidence of everyone very visibly. Those who remained below grew less apprehensive. Those who were working in the dormitory above, disregarded the return of the storm as they continued to work to revive Mr. Lamb and Mr. Waters. By three o'clock, with no sign of life to repay their efforts, they gave up. Unseen by those in the chapel, they carried the bodies to a room below to prepare them for burial. Soon after a light breakfast, some retired exhausted. Others began their meditation, for it was past daybreak. Father Francis Casey, S.J. went to meet the rector whose steamer was now heading up the St. Mary’s River. Boarding the Sue at Bacon's Wharf, two wharves above St. Inigoes, he had time to tell the rector the sad news. The rector told him to remain on the steamer and hasten to New York to inform the provincial. Dr. Miles arrived at about five, before the boat docked. He examined both bodies, and pronounced them "dead from electricity". In his judgment they had died instantly. He had scarcely finished when word came from the upper dormitory that another corpse had been found. Mr. William Holden was dead. His body had fallen not at either side of the bed but beyond it. The head lay far under the eaves. It was full clothed, the hands as if in the act of tying his cassock cincture. His left cheek was slightly bruised from the fall. The fresh shock caused by this discovery was more painful by the thought, had they found his body earlier, they might have done something to save him. Mr. Downs had only noticed it when he was in making his bed. He turned the mattress and exposed the feet. Dr. Miles, however, assured them that it would have served no purpose, since Mr. Holden had clearly died instantaneously. News of this new loss reached the rector as he was leaving the steamer. He arrived with Father Galligan a few minutes later to comfort the community, even though their sympathy with him renewed the bitterness of their first grief. He quickly noted that none of the preservatives at hand, such as ice or spirits, would keep the bodies long. The lightning alone, apart from the great summer heat, the rubbing and the free use of restoratives, would cause their speedy decomposition. The funeral, therefore, took place that evening about half-past five. The only service was the burial prayers. They were conducted amid external demonstrations of grief seldom shown by a body of religious for departed brethren. The three graves may still be seen in St. Ignatius Cemetery next to the final resting place of Father Walton and Father Carbery. The Villa was repaired by removing the old roof and adding a fourth story.

In 1891, Father Describes bought an additional eight acres for St. Michael’s from Mr. John T. Forestell. An additional acre was obtained from Mr. J. Thomas Milburn on September 8, 1891. Mr. Milburn donated it as the site for a future hall. It was the property on the west side of Three Notch Road, across from the church lot.

Entertainments and dinners had always been a feature of parish life. Tragedies do not stop them. The following month the white people held a great tournament at St. Michael’s. The judges for this event were Col. S. J. Wailes, Dr. James H. Miles and Robert Pembroke. The marshall was Joseph V. Richardson, the herald was G. Edgar Smith. Speechmaking was a prominent part of these affairs, and the orator for the day was George W. Joy.

In January, 1892, R. Beauregard Roach of Baltimore presented the church two handsome lamps. George W. Welch gave a gong for the sanctuary. That same year Father Richard E. Ryan, S.J. succeeded Father Keating at St. Nicholas. By the summer of 1892 the contractors, Mr. Forrester and Mr. Ingram, started building the church on Saint George’s Island. Its name was to be Saint Francis Xavier.

In May, 1893, Father P. J. Mulry, S.J., organized a Sunday School at Saint Michael’s. He appears to have been stationed temporarily at St. Inigoes. Mrs. Anastasia Benville, Mrs. Emma J. Goodrich, and Miss Annie Williams were the teachers.

Father William J. Tynan, S.J., succeeded Father Describes as pastor and superior in 1893. When he officiated at St. Michael’s on September 3, 1893, and the seating capacity of the church failed to accommodate those present. Three weeks later, on September 24, the new Saint Francis Xavier Church on Saint George’s Island was dedicated. It was a small, neat, wooden building which measured sixty by forty feet, with two vestry rooms in the rear. The Jesuit provincial, Father Thomas J. Campbell, S.J., officiated. Father John A. Morgan, S.J., a visiting Jesuit, and Father Tynan assisted him. After the dedication ceremony was over, Father Morgan celebrated Solemn High Mass. Father Tynan and Father Giraud were deacon and subdeacon. Father Campbell preached a very fine sermon on the life of St. Francis Xavier which held the attention of a crowded congregation. Many people stood at the open windows outside, unable to find room inside. There were approximately one hundred parishioners, about equally divided between blacks and whites. Approximately three hundred people attended the dedication ceremonies and many boats were required to care for the crowd. People from all around the county came for the dedication. William Smith, Joseph Morgan, Clement Mattingly, Charles Abell and others represented Leonardtown. From Valley Lee and Drayden came Cecie Gardiner, Lewis and Mamie Combs and Arthur, George and Annie Pettit, and Charlie Guther, Charlie Watts and a good many more. There was a big crowd from St. Inigoes. It included Mrs. Anastasia Benville, Alexander Beall and his wife, who had been a Miss Dunbar, Harry Greenwell, Capt. Kennedy of Rosecroft, and Miss Mamie Milburn, a school teacher.

Another sign of the growing importancet of St. Michael’s was the introduction for the first time of Holy Week services in April 1894. That year Father John M. Giraud, S.J., arrived at St. Inigoes and was assigned to St. Nicholas. Another great tournament and dinner were held at St. Inigoes Villa in August 1894, for the benefit of the churches of St. Ignatius and St. Michael. Fathers Tynan and Giraud were present. The victors in the tournament were Ford McKay, first honor, B. S. Clarke, second, William Jones, third and Edward Tennison, fourth. Miss Eugenia Smith was named Queen, Miss Myrtle Beal, first maid, Miss Maria Lunday, second maid and Miss Cullison, third maid. Washington Wilkinson was the orator for the day. By the 1890’s the date of the colored festival of St. Inigoes parish was traditionally the Sunday before Labor Day.

In April 1895, Cardinal Gibbons visited Saint Mary’s County to administer confirmation at the various parishes. His first stop was Saturday, April 20, at St. Inigoes where he confirmed at 10 a.m. The next morning he was at St. Michael’s. There a large congregation assembled to greet him. This was the first time at the Cardinal had visited the new church. He praised the people for their great zeal they had shown in erecting a church that would do credit and honor to any community. As he spoke all eyes involuntarily turned toward Mrs. Anastasia Benville and her household, whose generosity and untiring efforts had contributed so much to the effort. The Cardinal confirmed more than eighty, both adults and children. The majority of them were black. After the confirmation, Father Tynan celebrated Mass. Following the Mass, the Cardinal was a guest in the Benville home. In the afternoon he traveled to St. Nicholas and confirmed there at 4:00 p.m. On Monday he went to Holy Face for confirmation at 9:00 a.m. At 11 a.m. he was at St. George’s in Valley Lee.

Teachers in the Sunday School St. Michael’s at this time included Mrs. Emma Goodrich, Miss Annie Williams, Miss Katie Foxwell, Miss May Foxwell, and Olla Ridgell, who were all white. Mrs. Charity Lee, Mrs. M. Bennett, and James Bennett were the black teachers.

Father William F. Hamilton, S.J., arrived in 1896 and replaced Father Giraud at St. George’s. The following year he also replaced him at St. Nicholas. In May of 1897 Father Hamilton organized an entertainment for the benefit of Saint Nicholas Church. He had just replaced Father Giraud as the pastor of that church too. The Beacon complimented him not only on the quality of the affair, but also for his excellent flute playing. In 1898 Father Tynan (Father Tynie, as the children called him) was succeeded as Superior by Father Hamilton. Father Andrew Rapp, S.J. arrived to replace Father Hamilton at St. Nicholas and St. George’s.

Father Hamilton served only one year as superior of the house with Father Tynan returning 1899 to take his place. Father John H. Finnagan, S.J., replaced Father Rapp at the upper missions of St. Nicholas and St. George’s. The Beacon of March 16, 1899, commented on the lively faith and devotion of the people of St. Nicholas’. In the absence of the parish priest, the parishioners gathered at the church for the Stations of the Cross and the Rosary. The following year, 1900, Father Francis S. Fullerton, S.J., took Father Rapp’s place.

Around 1900 Father Tynan organized two sodalities in the parish, one for blacks and one for whites. They were both Sodalities of the Immaculate Conception distinguished only by their secondary patrons. The black sodality had St. Peter Claver for its patron, and the white sodality had St. Michael. The St. Peter Claver Sodality met and organized in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Biscoe. It proved so successful that within a year it outgrew the ample Biscoe homestead on Smith’s Creek. The Biscoes agreed to give the parish an acre of land at the head of Smith Creek that faced the main road from St. Inigoes to Point Lookout. The Sodality erected a hall there during 1901. The deed dated January 25, 1902, formally invested title to the property in the Archbishop of Baltimore. At that time it was called Hilly Road. The rest of the Biscoe holdings surrounded this parcel. The foundations are in the now wooded area some two hundred feet to the north of the present parish church. The hall came to be called St. Peter Claver’s Sodality Hall. The prefect of the sodality was Mr. William Webster Biscoe, the son of Benjamin and Maria Biscoe. Membership in the sodality was between sixty and seventy. It had its own choir. Its organist was Mrs. Alice Biscoe, the first wife of Mr. Randolph Biscoe, another of the Biscoe sons. The spiritual activities of the sodality were centered at St. Michael’s Church, the mission church in Ridge, which at this time was beginning to overshadow the main church of St. Inigoes. Around this time it became customary to refer to the church as St. Ignatius. A separate post office called Beachville had been established to serve that area near the old church..

A lecture on "Fabiola" or "The Church of the Catacombs" was give at St. Nicholas’ on June 15, 1902, before an audience that packed the church and filed the churchyard. It had been given at the various parishes throughout the County. Lectures of this type were very popular and the Fathers missed no opportunities in bringing them to their parishioners.

The development of the roads seemed to mark St. Michael’s Church as the logical focus for parish life. That expectation, however, would fail to take account of the effect of the sodalities. Relations between the sodalities at St. Michael’s were a reflection of the general relationship of blacks and whites at the time. There were tensions between the two sodalities because of a disagreement about a policy governing their monthly Communion Sunday. It was the custom of the time for sodalities to receive Communion in a body each month. The white sodality, however, did not want the black sodality to receive together with them.

An additional point of conflict developed after Father Tynan came up to the hall for Vespers on Sunday and heard the choir. He thought it would be a good idea to have the choir sing at Mass at Saint Michael’s. He did not count on the objections of Mrs. William Bayne, the organist who played for the all-white choir at St. Michael’s. She felt it was unhygienic to play the same instrument that a black person had used. The story is told that she would wear gloves and used disinfectant on the keys. This naturally did not sit too well with the sodality choir.

All these tensions came to an explosive head on Christmas Day, 1902. To avoid difficulties between the choirs, Father Tynan had asked the white choir to sing at the Midnight Mass and the black choir to sing at the 5:00 a.m. Mass. This way the organ would not be infected and there would be some semblance of peace. Things were not to work out that way, however. During the Mass Mrs. Agnes Biscoe (another of Ben Biscoe’s daughters-in-law) sang the hymn Glory Lit the Midnight Air so beautifully (so the story goes) that people began talking about it as they were coming out of church. Some of the white parishioners complained about the unbecoming prominence given to the black choir. Before long an ugly dispute was going on in front of the church. Things started to get out of hand when people began to dismantle the picket fence that ran along the driveway from the church to the main road. To show his distress over the display of animosity, Father Tynan closed the church and suspended all services there. He hung a black crepe of mourning over the front door of St. Michael’s. It stayed there for about a month, long enough to begin to worry the sacristan, as Father LaFarge recalled. To prevent further scandalous acts, Cardinal Gibbons allowed Father Tynan to have a separate Mass in the Sodality Hall for those members of the parish who refused to accept segregation any longer. For them Father Tynan, S.J. celebrated Mass in the Hall for the first time on Sunday, January 18, 1903. Nothing could have pleased Ben Biscoe more. For the first time in their lives the black parishioners experienced the liturgy without the hassle of pew segregation and other forms of humiliation. They were reluctant to give up their newly found peace and return to conditions as they were at St. Michael’s. An insoluble impasse ensued. Since there was only one priest available for Mass in the Ridge area, Father Tynan would say Mass one Sunday in the hall while the whites would stay home. The next Sunday he would say Mass at St. Michael’s while most of the blacks stayed home The great schism at the Ridge mission had begun.

The split was actually a three-way split. Not only was there a split between blacks and whites, but the black community itself split. Not everyone welcomed this development. Those more dependent on the white community continued to attend Mass at St. Michael’s. Any show of resentment put them more at risk. There was a certain amount of resentment toward the Biscoes and their economic independence.

While the Fathers were scrambling to put out the fire at Ridge, they faced the need to replace the church at St. Nicholas. The old frame church in use for over a hundred years was in bad condition and needed replacement. About this time a drive started in the parish to raise money to build a new church, and by February 1903, the fund totaled $1152.

Father Tynan’s agony did not last long. He was transferred in April of 1903. We have no way of knowing to what extend his attitude toward these events hastened his departure. It would appear that the parochial school, having again lost its main supporter, quietly closed shortly after his departure from St. Inigoes. Father Fullerton succeeded him as Superior. Father John Scully, S.J. succeeded Father Fullerton at the Upper Missions.

Father Fullerton carefully avoided anything that would upset the delicate status quo in the racial situation. By the end of the year there was Mass at St. Michael’s Church and at St. Peter Claver’s Hall on the same Sunday. Father Fullerton was so zealous for the kingdom of heaven that he was able to communicate his enthusiasm even in the midst of trying circumstances. Separate Sunday Schools classes were held at St. Michael’s Church and St. Peter Claver’s Hall and were well attended.

St. Michael’s annual Spring festival at the end of May in 1904 was a success. The money was raised to repair the enclosure and beautifying the immediate grounds. Part of that planned improvement included erecting a much needed hall sometime during that year.

A witness to those days is Father Laurence J. Kelly, S.J. Only a week after his ordination in 1904, when the priests and students from Woodstock College were spending their vacation weeks at St. Inigoes Villa, he was assigned to officiate over the weekends at St. Peter Claver’s Hall. There he heard his first confessions and had his first baptisms. That Sunday afternoon he witnessed his first marriage, that of a Mr. Green and a Miss Bush. Mrs. Benville, a life-long friend of the colored Catholics of Ridge, offered her parlor for the ceremony. The Sodality of the Blessed Virgin continued to flourish. On Sunday, June 5, some fifteen new members were received at the annual reception.

On Monday, June 13, 1904, Father Kelly, who was now the newly appointed assistant at Leonardtown, accompanied Bishop Curtis to St. George’s Island to begin the tour of the St. Inigoes mission churches to administer confirmation. They arrived on the steamer from Leonardtown at 8:30 a.m.. Father Kelly celebrated Mass coram Pontifice in Saint Francis Xavier’s Church on the Island at 9:00 o’clock. Confirmation ceremonies began at 10 o’clock. The Bishop spoke on the theme: "The Holy Spirit the Soul’s Sweet Guest." He confirmed five adults and a class of ten children. Afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Hobbs entertained the bishop and his party at their home. In the party were Mr. John F. Duke and Clarence Duke of Leonardtown and Mr. Godfrey Mattingly, principal of St. George’s Island School. After lunch Joseph and Harry Robrecht took the bishop across the St. Mary’s River to Saint Inigoes. There the morning’s scene repeated itself, except for the Mass. The sacred rites began at 3:30 p.m.. This time the bishop confirmed a class of twenty-nine. Father Fullerton, Father Kelly, and Father Patrick H. Kelly, S.J., assisted him. Mrs. Ernest Bohanan, the organist, lead the parish choir in the hymns of Benediction. That evening the bishop was the guest of the Jesuit Fathers at dinner in the residence. The Jesuit Fathers had also invited Dominic Raley, Alexander Kennedy, Hon. Charles S. Grason, and Dr. Louis F. Tippett.

The next day it was the turn of St. Michael’s to receive the bishop. At that time the church at Tall Pine housed one of the largest congregations in lower St. Mary’s County. Bishop Curtis confirmed thirty-five that morning, including one adult convert. With the help of Miss Lena Trossback and Miss Emma Wood, Mrs. Pembroke Smith had prepared the children for confirmation. Prior to the confirmation rites, the newly ordained Father Kelly sang a High Mass coram Episcopo. Mrs. Bayne played and directed the choir.

No one fortunate enough to be present at the solemn ceremonies in St. Michael’s failed to notice the beauty and brilliancy of the altar and sanctuary. This was the work of Mrs. Philo Herbert, the sacristan, and her corps of faithful assistants. Mr. Louis Courtney loaned the committee of ladies of St. Michael’s beautifully variegated potted flowers for which they were very grateful.

Afterwards the bishop and his party went to the "Evergreen", the residence of Mrs. Benville, where they partook of the famed hospitality of their generous hostess. In the afternoon the Knights of St. Jerome escorted the bishop’s horse and carriage to St. Peter Claver’s Hall. The parish brass band under the direction of Captain John Thomas Gant greeted him at his arrival. The bishop confirmed a class of forty-eight, including eight adults, the largest group on the tour. He spoke on the symbolism of Confirmation and explained to the children the meaning of his episcopal vestments, of the raising of hands, and of the solemn and sacred anointing with the Holy Chrism. The exercises closed with the Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Webster Biscoe and Cecilia Biscoe had prepared the classes for confirmation with the aid of Roxanne Langley.

That summer Father Fullerton’s health was a growing source of concern. The provincial wrote him with offers to change his assignment so that he could convalesce. However, that was not to be. Father Fullerton died suddenly in October 1904. All who knew him mourned him as "truly a saintly man and priest." Father James Brent Matthews, S.J. succeeded him as superior. A native of Charles County, he was a direct descendant of Thomas Matthews, Father Copley’s attorney. He also descended from Giles Brent, another friend of Father Copley. His family had given Father William Matthews, mentioned above, to the church a century before.

In those days the missions of St. Inigoes were divided into the "Upper Missions" (Saint George’s, Valley Lee; Holy Face, Great Mills; and Saint Nicholas, Pearson) and the "Lower Missions" (Saint Francis Xavier, Saint George’s Island; Saint Michael’s, Ridge; and Saint Peter Claver Mission, Saint Inigoes.). During the year 1904-1905, Father Maurice Prendergast, S.J., served the upper missions while Father Matthews served the lower missions. The following year they switched places. The first time that the name St. Peter Claver appears in the Jesuit catalog of appointments is 1905. Father Prendergast is listed as the priest in charge of the lower missions. In 1906 Father Timothy O’Leary succeeded him

St. Michael’s was the scene for confirmation when Bishop Curtis returned to Ridge in 1908. There was only one ceremony that year instead of the two that had been held in 1904. The custom had been that the boys would be confirmed first and then the girls. Some of the white parents wanted all of the white children confirmed first. But Bishop Curtis would not hear of it. So, in the face of some disapproving looks, the Holy Spirit came down that morning on the boys first, white and colored, then on the girls, white and colored.

The two hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of Maryland was duly observed at St. Inigoes on May 23, 1909. Groups in Baltimore organized a pilgrimage, chartered a steamer, and sailed down the Chesapeake to St. Mary’s County. The visitors had planned to land at Grason’s Wharf, and go from there to St. Inigoes by foot. The initial plan was to have Mass in the open, as did Fathers White and Altham and the original pilgrims. The heavy rain that day, however, made that impracticable. Even to use the church was out of the question. The way there was so wet and muddy that the walk of three quarters of a mile from the wharf to the church would have been too trying, especially for the ladies. In the end they decided to celebrate Mass on the steamer. The service was so solemn and impressive, and the music was so tender and exquisite, that the vessel became for a time a real sanctuary.

There were two Masses that day. Father Francis Xavier Brady, S.J., president of Loyola College, said the first, and Father Peter J. O’Carroll, S.J., of Leonardtown, the second. At the conclusion of these Father Matthews made a brief address. He emphasized the world’s debt to Calvert for the establishment in a new land where every man might worship God according to the promptings of his own conscience. He spoke stirringly of what this had meant and what it meant now.

Present at that time were two individuals who had been to earlier such celebrations. Mr. John F. Duke, president of the St. Mary’s County School Board, was the only one present who attended exercises of the first pilgrimage held 50 years earlier. Mr. Francis Xavier Hale, director of the Cathedral choir, who took down a selected choir to sing the music of the Mass, had performed the same duties on the pilgrimage of twenty-five years earlier.

That summer, while the scholastics were at the Villa, Aunt Louisa Mason died. She lived to be ninety-seven years old. In her later years she lived with her daughter and son-in-law, Josephine and Daniel Oliver Barnes, in their home on Three Notch Road (the present Route 235) in Dameron. Shortly before her death in 1909, Father Joseph Zwinge, S.J., the procurator in charge of the farms, visited her. She never recognized emancipation and still consisted herself a member of the Jesuit household. She made him renew the promise every procurator had made her, namely, to pay for her burial. When she died, Father Zwinge said there had never been such a big funeral at St. Inigoes since its foundation.

In 1910, when Father Abraham J. Emerick, S.J., a veteran of the Jamaican missions, succeeded Father O’Leary at the lower missions, major changes were in the offing. Since the days when Father Copley first moved to the farm from Saint Mary’s City, the Manor was a very convenient place to live for the Jesuits. It commanded the many ramifications of St. Mary’s River, St. Inigoes Creek, the nearby Potomac, and St. George’s Creek and straits for water travel. Living on the manor in the era when they depended on the farms for their livelihood enabled the Jesuits to supervise them directly.

By the early years of the twentieth century, however, things had changed greatly. Living at the manor had become a great hindrance. The building of the new State Road ushered in a new era of travel. The obvious means of communication was now the land and not the water. First came the horse and buggy, later automobiles, the institution of daily mails, and bus and freight lines to the city. Time had gradually but surely made the manor inaccessible. In addition, the residence itself was a problem. It was full of rooms, but they were cramped and unsuitable for winter weather. The house could accommodate two men in the opposite ends of the upper story. They could even stow away a guest in a third, inhabitable, little room. To defy the January winds of Priest’s Point, the priests had to cultivate the company of a good, big coal-stove. To eat, they had to bundle themselves in ample wraps and pick their way through the dark and mud to Mrs. Dominic Raley’s house. She was the cook and served supper for the priests in her dining room, summoning them with her faintly heard bell.

To remodel or add to the house was impractical. The house was incredibly drafty, a condition aggravated by an all-pervading dampness. It was easier and more economical to build a new one than to try to remedy the old one. In addition, the question of location presented another difficulty. The priests increasingly felt the isolation of the old residence. Other places seemed more convenient to the actual needs of the mission.

In 1911, Father Matthews submitted a plan to the General in Rome that divided the Mission into two parts, each with a separate residence. Since St. Michael’s Church, at Ridge, and St. George’s Church at Valley Lee, were the largest churches, he proposed to make them the site for the residences. In that way the priests would have the immense advantage of living at one or the other of the larger churches, in much closer touch with the people, and with their work. This arrangement would build up the parishes more effectively. Both localities were able to support one or two priests.

In making this proposal, Father Matthews had the enthusiastic support of Father Emerick. He was intensely devout and ceaselessly active. In anticipation of a forthcoming approval of the plan, he undertook to build a hall and residence at Saint Michael’s. On Easter Sunday, April 16, 1911, he held a meeting at St. Michael’s to secure support for the project. Both Father Emerick and Mr. J. Frank Smith, a parish and community leader, strongly urged support for this project. Those attending contributed a total of $378. The resulting Saint Michael’s Hall was a two story frame structure, the first floor of which was a large open room with kitchen facilities. The second floor was an auditorium with stage. It was built in the hope that one day it would become a school. The residence was an eight room frame house. To hasten completion of his projects, Father Emerick was not above leading a hand himself. His rounds to the sick were long and regular. In his buggy, with the Blessed Sacrament hidden on his breast, he would drive the six miles to Wynne Wharf. There in the home of Mrs. Evans he would light a candle and leave Blessed Sacrament in the care of this saintly lady all day. Theny he would go to the wharf, take off his coat, go aboard the schooner, and hand up the lumber with which Mr. Robert Wise built St. Michael’s Hall and Rectory.

At the same time, Father Matthews had charge of the Upper Missions. He was devoting himself to the spiritual and material up-building of Saint George’s. One of its most notable parishioners was J. Edwin Coad. On Friday, October 13, 1911, Father Matthews went immediately after breakfast to anoint Mr. Coad who had suffered a stroke at 4:30 that morning and was lying paralyzed at his home "Cherryfields" across the St. Mary’s River from St. Inigoes Manor. The following day Father Matthews went to St. Nicholas. After the normal Sunday services there, he arrived back at St. Inigoes about half past six in the evening. It was then he learned that Mr. Coad had died at 9.30 that morning. In his eighty-seventh year, he was the oldest white Catholic of the missions. His death removed an old land-mark, the last of the old generation of educated Catholics. All who knew him, black and white alike, mourned him. He was kind, genial, and generous to all and devoted to the Catholic Faith in which he was reared. That a Catholic should fear death was to him a contradiction. Fortified with the rites of the Church he loved, he quietly passed into eternity. On Tuesday Father Matthews went to "Cherryfield" for the wake. The next day, Wednesday the 18th., he said a Requiem Mass at 10:30 a.m. and buried Mr. Coad in the cemetery at St. Inigoes. A large crowd of friends and sympathizers attended.

Around this time Father Matthews began to build a one story wooden hall next to St. George’s Church. He completed it around 1912.

On April 16, 1912, the Jesuit General in Rome, Father Wernz, wrote the Maryland provincial, Father Hanselman, disapproving the plan that Father Matthews had submitted to him regarding a change in the residence. He felt it would not be suitable for the priests to live separately. He wondered if it would be possible to select a single site more central and convenient for the people rather than divide the Mission. In writing to Father Matthews directly, the General reiterated his concern about a life of solitude for the priests. He said that it would not be possible to staff each house with two priests, since there were none available at the time. Since no such site was available, Father Matthews had to abandon his proposal.

In the meantime, the Fathers were giving their attention to the black parishioners who attended Mass twice a month at the Sodality Hall. They were using the hall as they had since the time of Father Tynan as a temporary solution to the racial tension in the parish. The hall had a small stage area and movable benches. They moved a portable altar to the front of the stage for Mass and arranged the benches as pews. Father Emerick was eager to supply a more permanent and dignified place for the celebration of the liturgy. With this in mind, the parish bought from the Biscoe family on August 11, 1913, three acres to the south of the hall to construct a church.

While all of this was going on at St. Peter’s, Father Emerick was also actively caring for the newly arrived Slovak community that had recently settled in the Saint Mary’s City area. To meet their needs, Father Emerick planned to build a hall to serve as a catechetical center and a social hall. Mr. Charles McKay, a local storekeeper, generously donated land for the project on December 15, 1913. The site was in the area then called Fairfield. Shortly thereafter with the help of volunteer labor Father Emerick constructed a small hall. He called it St. James Hall in honor of Father Matthews.

On March 12, 1914, Father Matthews published a letter in the Beacon supporting restricting operation of saloons in St. Mary’s County. This seems to have been the opening gun in a campaign to eliminate saloons.

Father Emerick laid the cornerstone for the first Saint Peter Claver’s Church on May 7, 1914. At the same time the plans to pave the road from Leonardtown to Point Lookout rerouted the road to eliminate the hill on which the church was to be built. The church ended up on a side road with the main road running behind it.

The story of this transitional period of the parish history would not be complete without mention of the very faithful sacristan, Mrs. Henrietta Chisley Hawkins. She had been the wife of Mr. Lewis Hawkins, a founding member of the Knights of St. Jerome. She was sacristan at the hall from the first Mass there in 1903 until her death in July 1914. Her tombstone in St. Inigoes Cemetery extols her as a model Catholic wife and mother.

On September, 2, 1915 a new priest, John LaFarge. S.J., arrived at St. Inigoes to join Father Matthews and Father Emerick. The son of the famous American painter of French extraction whose namesake he was, he was a direct descendant on his mother’s side of Benjamin Franklin. Educated at Harvard University and the University of Innsbruck in Austria, he had entered the Society of Jesus when he was already a priest. He was immediately placed in charge of the new hall in Fairfield. This gave him his first contact with the Slavic community. Endowed with a facility for languages, LaFarge set about to learn their language. He succeeded to the point where he was able to preach in their native tongue.

Father Matthews was planning at the same time to replace the old frame church at Saint Nicholas’ that Father Walton had built around 1795. The cornerstone for a new cement-block building, the first of its kind in the county, was laid on December 19, 1915, and the exterior of the church was completed in 1916. Around this time the Knights of St. Jerome added a larger hall to their home on Trappe Road, doubling its size.

Both Father Matthews and Father Emerick had longed hoped to establish parochial schools in the parish. In the Spring of 1916 they pointed out to Father LaFarge the need for a school at St. James. They also encouraged two members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society of St. Michael’s Church to write to the cardinal requesting from him a one thousand dollar donation to fund this undertaking. On July 15, 1916 the cardinal responded by assuring them that he shared their desires. The problem was that he did not have the money. The best he could do would be to divert funds from the Colored and Indian Mission Collection to help open schools for the colored of Southern Maryland.

Father LaFarge grabbed the ball and started to run with it. As a result of his private efforts to raise funds among his family and friends in New York, Rhode Island and elsewhere, he opened a parochial school in St. James Hall on September 18, 1916, something the Mission had not seen since Father Tynan’s time. At the same time Father LaFarge transformed Saint James Hall into Saint James Chapel by beginning to celebrate Mass there every other Sunday. With the financial help of Mother Katherine Drexel, he added a sacristy with an upstairs priest's room. It was here that the second school for white children opened. A canvas screen separated the altar from the rest of the hall where the younger children met. A second class for older children was taught in the sacristy. The school had about sixty students. Miss Nannie Hebb taught with Miss Clementine Clarke as her assistant. At the same time Father LaFarge was applying to various congregations, attempting to find one that would be willing to come to Ridge. A friend of his, Father John W. Casey, S.J., a native of Lee, Massachusetts, suggested that he contact the Sisters of St. Joseph in Hartford Connecticut. Father LaFarge visited Hartford to plead his cause with the superior general, Mother Josephine O’Connor, S.S.J.. She listened to him kindly, but could not make an commitments because of a lack of sisters.

In September of 1916 a school for black children opened at St. Peter Claver’s Hall with Mrs. Ruth Green as the teacher. The enrollment was very small at first, but it was not long before the school required two teachers.. Mrs. Cecilia Biscoe, the wife of Webster Biscoe and another daughter-in-law of Ben Biscoe, became the second teacher.

With financial help from Mother Katherine Drexel and Cardinal Gibbons, Father Emerick began building two new schoolhouses in 1916. One was located south of the St. Peter Claver Church (then itself under construction) and the other on a piece of land that Father LaFarge had bought on September 29, 1916 adjacent to St. James Chapel.

The colored school at St. James was finished by the end of the year. It opened on January 2, 1917, as Saint Alphonsus School, with Mrs. Jennie Barnes Beale the teacher. It was a rainy day and Mrs. Beale, had only one pupil. This would have discouraged most people, but not Mrs. Beale. With unfailing instinct she knew that once the school started it could only grow. She was placid, imperturbable in her manner, with a gentle voice and a fine sense of humor. She had attended the convent school of the colored Sisters, the Oblates of Providence, on East Chase Street in Baltimore. She never lost her love of culture and her boundless belief in the capacities of the colored children.

The new building for St. Peter Claver’s School opened around February 1917. The lay teachers who taught in the school in those early years included, besides Mrs. Green and Mrs. Biscoe, Mrs. Ellen Grayson, Mrs. Ethel Brown, Mrs. Lulu Harper Brown, Mrs. Sadie Biscoe, and Mrs. Gertrude Williams Davis.

In 1916, Father LaFarge became interested in establishing an Industrial School for black teenagers. One Sunday afternoon in November, Father Matthews, Father Emerick, and Father LaFarge piled into Father Matthew’s rickety Ford and made their way from the manor to St. Peter Claver’s Hall, a few miles distant. The Maryland Assembly had recently passed a bill providing for industrial schools in the different counties of Maryland. Around the county the colored people were meeting to discuss various proposals to implement the bill. After the plans for the state school had been proposed, the three priests gave their opinion. They showed what they saw as the impracticality of many features in the state plans. They stated that they had long been considering the need and possibility of a colored industrial school for boys of eleven or twelve years. Such a school under Catholic auspices could obtain the patronage of Cardinal Gibbons and help from other sources. It could obtain the services of teachers who would be far more competent than those the state would hire. Many in the audience, including some Protestants, responded with considerable enthusiasm to their proposal. They invited the proponents of the state school to join them in the work. Since the priests were determined to continue with their plans, they suggested it would be better if everyone worked with them.

Father LaFarge planned to structure the school like St. Mary’s Industrial School in Baltimore which the Xaverian Brothers operated as a reformatory. Father LaFarge then met with their provincial, and on December 7, 1916, the Brothers agreed to undertake the work. Father LaFarge presented the plan to Cardinal Gibbons, who gave his approval and encouragement. Acting under the direction of the Cardinal, the three priests selected the old Milburn Farm on Smith’s Creek, for the school. It contained one hundred and eighty-six acres. It was across from St. Peter Claver’s Hall. Two months after the entry of the United States into World War I, on June 11, 1917, Father Laurence Kelly, S.J., the provincial of the Maryland-New York Province, together with Father Matthews, and Mr. Lawrence P. Williams, a prominent business man in Ridge, bought the estate. The eight thousand dollars to purchase the land came as a gift from the Cardinal. The involvement of this country in the World War, however, forced the Fathers to put aside these plans for the time being.

Father LaFarge was absent from the Mission for a year beginning in September 1917, to do his tertianship, a year of formation that is part of Jesuit tradition. During his absence Father Matthews decided to reopen the issue of the residence of the priests. The building of the schools and the consequent expansion of parish activities had only served to reenkindle the issue of a more centrally located residence for the priests.

Father Matthews was convinced change should be made, even though it entailed trouble and expense. The more desirable change, from his point of view, would have been to divide the missions into two districts, with two priests being assigned to each district. Since such a division was apparently out of the question then because of the lack of priests, the question became where to find a suitable central location. Because of the winding creeks and estuaries a central location hardly existed. Places quite near as the crow flies were often half a day’s journey away by road. The spots that came nearest to being central were St. Mary’s City, Park Hall, or Great Mills. Respectively, they were three, nine, and twelve miles north of St. Inigoes Post Office on the state road. All had some disadvantage. St. Mary’s City was an isolated spot, away from nearly all but the little colony of Slav settlers. Park Hall came closest to being the geographic center of the area served by the Mission. However, it had no church near it, and not many people lived nearby. Great Mills was miles away from any wharf, and was up at the other end of the Missions. Other spots, such as Fairfield that came next to being the most central point, were not on the state road with its conveniences. Father Matthews favored putting the residence at St. Michael’s. It combined the two-fold advantage of being practically on the State road and of being situated at one of the major churches of the mission. It also had one especial advantage over the two other possible locations, St. George’s or St. Nicholas’. Father Emerick had already built there a small parish residence in 1911-12 when the possibility of dividing the mission was first considered.

After Father Matthews first proposed the plan of settling at St. Michael’s as a substitute for dividing the mission, the consultors of the province had advised the provincial to ask for more information.

Father Matthews replied to this request by describing the house and the advantages of its location. The first and obvious point in favor of St. Michael’s was that it already possessed an imposing house of eight rooms. The first floor consisted of a parlor, chapel, dining-room and kitchen. There were four living rooms on the second floor. Father Matthews thought that one of them could be partitioned off for bath and toilet. A seven foot hall-way ran the length of the building on both floors, opening on porches front and rear. The rear porch had a verandah, which contributed much to the comfort of the building. Two stairways led to the upper floor, and one to an attic. The structure had been painted inside and out, and would be ready for immediate use once the heat and water systems were installed. In addition there was a bedroom over the sacristy in the church that could be used if needed. He recommended an addition to the back of the building for a library, clothes-room, and a spare room or two for visitors. He wanted it to have a basement along with a larger stable. Part of the lumber for this was already on the ground and paid for. He roughly estimated the cost of these improvements to be about $2,500 or $3,000 with a possible increase for heat and water. To give more exact figures, he promised to get a detailed design and a bill of materials to send later. They did not need the addition so urgently that they could not do without it awhile. That way they would be able to go about it gradually. Father Emerick thought that they could raise the money without overtaxing themselves once they were living at the mission itself.

The second point Father Matthews stressed was location. In his former letter, he had spoken of the proximity of the place to the new state road, the conveniences of post office and telephone, which were a five minute walk away. In addition, two large stores were nearby. Miller’s Wharf at Wynne, with its express office, and ice-plant, was not much farther away than Grason’s Wharf was from the residence on the manor. Besides, the facilities for getting sea-food were much greater than what they had on the manor. The proximity to the State road made it possible to use the automobile the year round. The demands of the distant missions had made the automobile a necessity by that time. In this regard Ridge had the clear advantage over the manor. At times the muddy roads made reaching the state road in an automobile from there impossible.

Travel by water was now a thing of the past. They scarcely ever went to St. George’s by water. The distance to there by land from St. Michael’s was not much more, if any at all, than the distance from the manor. The telephone made St. Michael’s more convenient for sick-calls. The priests could answer sick-calls from St. George’s Island by way of Miller’s Wharf. The boat run between the two places was just fifteen minutes longer than between the manor and the Island, and at Miller’s Wharf persons wanting a priest could get him by phone. There was no phone on the manor. The day after the provincial’s letter arrived, two sick calls came to the manor, one thirteen miles away, one about ten miles. The messengers came in auto and buggy. Had the priests been living at St. Michael’s, Father Matthews argued, a phone call would have saved expense and trouble, and the sick would have had the priest’s assistance hours earlier.

Father Matthews felt that St. George's Island should be attended from Valley Lee. It had been customary for some years then to have an evening service at St. Francis Xavier on the Sundays when Mass was said at St. Ignatius’ and at St. George’s. The priest remained to say Mass the following Monday on the Island. On the fifth Sundays Mass was held on Sunday morning on the Island. Weather frequently made it impossible to go there from the manor by boat. The land route from Valley Lee by way of Piney Point never presented difficulties. Father Matthews had thought of taking the Island himself, but the office of superior and the work on the distant missions made it appear impracticable for him to do so.

Father Matthews explained that one of the local tenant farmers could look after the Villa property. After discussing an objection that arose from changes in one of the other missions, Father Matthews concluded that St. Michael’s offered the best solution to the problem. It had all the conveniences of location. It was on an eminence between the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River, commanding a view of both bodies of water. It was also in bell-call of four or five hundred people. With the exception of St. Ignatius Church, St. Michael’s was as near, by land, to the other missions, as the residence on the manor had been. The new residence would allow the Fathers to attend to St. Michael’s with greater efficiency. As things stood then, the Fathers were not living at any of the main missions. Apart from marriages, baptisms and some special occasions, two dozen people did not hear Mass at the Residence in the course of a year. For the prior two years Father Emerick had been saying Mass at St. Michael’s on Thursday, and the number of communicants had more than doubled itself.

Having made his choice known, Matthews asked the provincial to do whatever he would to hasten the move. He wanted to start operations in that direction immediately. The provincial submitted this new plan to the General in Rome. The provincial was able to write to Father Matthews on December 23, 1917, that the General, Father Wlodimir Ledochowski, S.J., had given his approval. Shortly thereafter Father Matthews received an encouraging letter from the General himself. He thanked Father Matthews for his letter of November 1 and informed him that he had already given to the provincial the faculty to transfer the residence to a more suitable place. He was delighted to see that such a zeal for a truly apostolic life animated Father Matthews and his companions. He expressed the wish that his small community continue in those labors, however humble, which contributed so greatly to the welfare of the flock of Christ. So that they might better attain the glory of God and the welfare of the people, the General in Rome added from his heart his special blessing to Fathers Matthews, Emerick and Timothy O’Leary, who had returned to St. Inigoes in Father LaFarge’s absence.

It was easier to contemplate the move, however, than actually to make it. The shortage of labor and high prices during the war, as well as difficulty of settling the affairs of the old residence at the Villa, delayed the actual move. Delay, however, risked further complications. If the move were delayed until after the new Code of Canon Law became effective, additional permissions would be needed. So the break was first made on May 13, 1918. Father O’Leary and Father Emerick went to the house at St. Michael’s to stay. Father Matthews, the Superior, remained at the Villa to take care of the farm and look after matters that he could not abandon just then. Among these were the arrangements for the deed to the Milburn estate. The day before Father O’Leary and Father Emerick moved to Ridge, Father Kelly conveyed title to the property for the proposed industrial school to a new corporation called the Claver Industrial School, Incorporated.

As a formal sign of the transfer of the residence to Ridge, the priests moved the church records and a few other articles to the new house. There was no point in moving much furniture. It would only be in the way during the building of the addition. Life under these circumstances presented many inconveniences, especially since there was no steady provision for meals or help. Were it not for the alertness and enthusiasm of Aunt Pigeon Jones, despite her almost eighty years, living at St. Michael’s would indeed have been a problem. Father LaFarge found her a worthy survivor of old style Catholicism. Her motto, as she once explained it to him, was: "The darker is the night, the brighter you’se got to shine." Her shining, in a culinary way, helped them through many perplexities. Another trusted helper was Sandy Lee. He along with other kind neighbors at Ridge were always ready to give unfailing service.

On July 7, the telephone was installed in the new residence. This was a convenience they had not had at the manor. It proved an inestimable convenience not only for the priests but for the people. July 23, the back porch, upper and lower, of the original house were pulled down, to excavate the cellar of the new addition. The year was advancing rapidly, yet the lumber had not come. This long delay in waiting for the materials to come from the Eastern Shore, with autumn and its short, chilly days always coming nearer, was a trying feature. They lived from day to day as best they could from one happy appearance of Aunt Pigeon, or Uncle Sandy, or old Mrs. Ridgell, to the next. With the construction the house proved too small for two, so, on August 8, Father O’Leary returned to the Villa, to wait there until things were more orderly. Father LaFarge returned from the tertianship in the midst of the turmoil, and remained at the Villa until the others could gain some sort of foot-hold in the new residence.

Finally, on August 12, the lumber the carpenters had been waiting for finally arrived. Work started immediately. Robert Wise, a veteran carpenter, had obtained the help of Herbert Barnes and Leonard Cecil, white and John Medley and William Clayton, colored. Mr. Wise always worked accurately, but that also meant slowly. Time at this point was in short supply. The summer was slipping by.

Gradually the divided community began to reconstitute itself at St. Michael’s. Father O’Leary returned on September 15. Father LaFarge moved over on the following day, leaving only Father Matthews still on the manor. The same day Cardinal Gibbons gave Father Emerick the long desired permission to buy land for the new graveyard at St. Peter Claver’s. Mr. Louis Thompson of Leonardtown surveyed it at the same time.

With Father LaFarge now returned to the Mission, Father Emerick was able to achieve another of his dreams. That Fall a new school for white children opened at St. Michael’s Hall, and classes began on September 29, 1918, with four women religious, Missionary Servants of the Blessed Trinity, as teachers. At the same time, the Fathers had the joy of opening a permanent home for the white school at St. James. Miss Josephine Reville, a teacher at St. Mary’s Female Seminary, taught classes here beginning in September 1918. The new school had only one flaw. The basement leaked water, and no amount of patching seemed to solve the problem.

After an eight month delay, the pews for the new St. Peter Claver’s Church finally arrived, enabling the church to be dedicated on December 1, 1918. The ceremony consisted of Benediction and a sermon, attended by a large and enthusiastic congregation. Constructed of wood with a tin roof, the church could seat three hundred. The lovely interior contained three stained glass windows above the main altar; the center one portrayed the crucifixion and was a gift of the Knights of Saint Jerome.

The following day, December 2, Father Matthews moved out of the manor and joined the other priests at Saint Michael’s. A week later, on December 8, 1918, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Mass was said for the first time in the new St. Peter Claver’s Church. Not everyone, however, viewed the opening of the new church as a step in the right direction. There continued to be a perception in certain quarters that this was the "Biscoe church".

By this time the addition to St. Michael’s Residence was practically completed, although the plaster was not fully dry until near Christmas time. The good Lord had been very kind to them, in allowing them glorious warm, dry weather all through the fall, both early and late. Without it they should have been in considerable difficulty. Stoves could not be put in until nearly Christmas, and windows and doors stood open most of the time. Midnight Mass was celebrated that year at St. Michael’s, St. Peter Claver, St. James, and St. George’s Church, and St. Nicholas’. Mass at the three remaining churches was on Christmas Day.

After the completion of the house, the Fathers were able to use the new kitchen and dining-room. Gradually they transferred their belongings from the Villa. On his first trip down Uncle Sandy Lee was entrusted to judge what might be the most urgent necessity. The priests mentioned particularly the tableware. He accordingly did his best. Unloading the wagon, he proudly carried in what he evidently thought was most valuable to them, the entire set of the "Encyclopedia Britannica". The shelves in the old library at Priest’s Point were taken down and refitted at St. Michael’s. Plumbing arrangements, however, were left there for the benefit of the Villa in summer time.

On January 5 they moved the Blessed Sacrament into the improvised domestic chapel in the new house. They also brought the tabernacle and vestment case, and smaller articles from the chapel of the old residence. The two altars, however, were left there for use during the Villa season when the scholastics would come from Woodstock for their summer vacation.

In contrast to the welcome given the Fathers by the kind folks of St. Michael’s, there were many on the old manor who deeply regretted their departure. Chief among them was that loyal and devout soul, Mrs. Dominic Raley, their near neighbor at the Villa. "The last thing at night, for the greater part of my lifetime," she told Father LaFarge, "I have always knelt down at my window, and gazed at the little gleam of the sanctuary light, as it shone through the windows of the Domestic Chapel, down there at the Point. I would gaze at it and know that Our Blessed Lord was there, and then say, ‘Good Night’ to Him. But now there is no light there, and no dear Lord there to say ‘Good Night’ to any more...."

One of the unforeseen consequences of the move to Ridge was to accentuate the racial division of the Mission. During the period when both Saint Michael’s and St. Peter Claver’s had been missions of St. Inigoes, the same priest had been in charge of both. Now the pattern changed. Father Matthews took charge of St. Michael’s, while Father Emerick continued in charge of St. Peter Claver’s. At the same time both St. Michael’s and St. Peter’s became the centers for the Lower Missions, one for whites and the other for blacks.

One other thing changed at this time. For years the St. Inigoes Colored Festival had been held at the Villa on the day before Labor Day. This festival was now transferred to the St. Peter Claver Hall. This traditional festival still continues at St. Peter’s as the Labor Day Festival. The St. Inigoes White Festival continued to be at the Villa in mid-August each year. Saint Michael’s, of course, already had its own traditional festival.

No sooner had the Fathers settled into their new home then they were busy securing proper accommodations for the religious community that they hoped to interest in teaching in the schools. On April 5, 1919, Father Matthews wrote to Cardinal Gibbons to inform him that they had secured a suitable site for a school and residence for teachers. The property would be put in the Cardinal’s name. Father LaFarge had obtained a gift from one of his New York friends, Mrs. Agnes F. Keys, for the purchase. It was located directly across from the church. On it they built that summer a residence, which they named Brent House.

Father Matthews was not in good health. He suffered for many years from diabetes in the days before insulin. During the summer of 1919, Father David J. Roche, S.J. , succeeded him as superior of the house and pastor of St. Michael’s. Father Thomas Cryan, S.J., came to Ridge to succeeded Father Matthews as the priest in charge of St. Nicholas. Father LaFarge continued at St. James. Sometime in this period he was able to erect a belfry at St. James to give the little hall a church-like appearance.

With the end of World War I, Father LaFarge began again to give his thoughts and energy to the establishment of the reformatory. However, by the time the project revived, the Xaverian Brothers had changed their minds and withdrew their tentative agreement to administer the school. Father LaFarge discussed the problem with Dr. Thomas W. Turner, then professor at Howard University, Washington, and with Professor Eugene A. Clark, Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Washington. Father LaFarge talked matters over with the Rev. Raymond A. McGowan, Assistant Director of the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, Miss Margaret Lynch, Miss Agnes Regan, and others interested in his parish school work. They suggested he should discuss the matter with Arthur C. Monahan, of the N.C.W.C. education division. He had had considerable experience with Negro education in the South. Mr. Monahan was deeply interested in the project, but recommended a quite different approach. He advised against the idea of a reform school. He urged them to organize a school for the promising and fairly talented youth for whom the school would open the doors of opportunity. Mr. Monahan visited the location and was favorably impressed by its physical possibilities.

He stressed several points in particular. First, he felt the school should be co-educational, for both boys and girls. He had found this to be the most practical method. Boys and girls alike would be educated with the same ideals, they would get to know each other under favorable circumstances. The resulting unions would produce a new and more enlightened generation.

Furthermore, Mr. Monahan proposed the idea of a black principal, someone who would himself be identified with the school and take a deep pride in it as an accomplishment of his own race. Moreover, he encouraged the organization of very widespread popular support for the school. He did not think that the curriculum should be narrowly agricultural but favored a broader vocational character of the very successful methods pursued in the South.

As a result of Mr. Monahan’s suggestion, Father LaFarge revised his plan. He abandoned the idea for an institution for rehabilitating delinquent boys. He agreed that a co-educational school offering both academic, industrial, and agricultural courses would be more productive. Under the new plan, the school would be national, not local, in character. It would have a Board of Directors and a student body drawn from all parts of the country. The school would be open to Catholic and Protestant students alike. The faculty would consist entirely of black teachers. The Board of Directors would be a lay board.

At the conclusion of the school year in 1919, the Sisters of the Blessed Trinity withdrew from teaching in the white schools. They felt that their mission in Ridge was too distant from their motherhouse in New Orleans. Father LaFarge was now forced to seek replacements for them. A replacement also had to be found for Miss Reville. A group of Third Order Carmelites was recommended to him and he jumped at the offer as an answer to his prayers. On closer acquaintance, however, the Tertiaries turned out to be malcontent refugees from different communities. They had little knowledge of teaching, no idea of the religious life, and they perpetually struggled with the eccentric superior who had organized the group. Father LaFarge’s impression was that the good lady had simply gathered a group of misfits around herself, clothed them in picturesque costumes, and set out on an adventure. They took charge in the Fall of 1919.

In 1919 Father LaFarge opened the new permanent home for the school at St. James. Father LaFarge had interested Mrs. David McCarthy of Washington in this project. Since she donated the money for a new building on condition that it be named for her late husband, the school was called Saint David’s School.

By November the Carmelites had so little authority in the classes that they had lost effective control of both schools. Father Emerick was obliged to do all the teaching for the boys in St. Michael's, while Father LaFarge had to do the same at St. David's. Meanwhile Father LaFarge had to carry on his funding raising. Saint David’s School became uninhabitable and had to be abandoned because of water in the cellar. Classes were held in the little bedroom over the sacristy. Miss Reville was prevailed upon to return March 12, 1920, to take over at St. David’s to finish out the year. Meanwhile rumors developed about the nuns. Mercifully, on April 26, 1920, Father LaFarge bade farewell to the Mother Superior and her companions as they left for good..

While the Fathers were heaving a collective sigh of relief, they still had to find replacements to finish out the school year at St. Michael’s. At this point, two members of the Department of Social Action of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, a Miss Cook and a Miss Boland, came to the rescue, teaching classes until the end of the school year.

Notable among the accomplishments of this period was the establishment of the Knights of Columbus at Ridge. Under the leadership of Mr. Lawrence Williams of Wynne and Mr. Clarence Bradburn of Ridge, St. Michael’s Council #2065 obtained its charter on March 21, 1920. Father LaFarge served as Chaplain for the group. The first degree of the Order was exemplified for the first time in the Council of March 19, 1919. The second and third degrees were exemplified for the first time on May 2, 1920. The degree team came from Baltimore to St. Mary’s County probably by steamboat. The ladies of St. Michael’s served them a sumptuous dinner. Before the third degree was exemplified, the Council met in Mr. George Burga’s store in Ridge and later in St. Michael’sSchool.

In 1920 Father Marcus J. Smith, S.J. succeeded Father Roche as superior and pastor of St. Michael’s. At the same time Father Emerick’s fruitful tenure as pastor of St. Peter’s came to an end. Father John J. McCloskey, S.J. succeeded him as pastor of St. Peter Claver’s. Father McCloskey encouraged the people to put on beautiful concerts and to conduct large-scale road and ground improvement rallies at the Church.

Meanwhile, Father LaFarge continued his efforts to find a religious community that would staff the schools. Finally in 1920, after applying to sixteen communities, he was able to secure a commitment from the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Hartford, to staff the two white schools. There was one hitch, however. They could not come to Ridge for another two years. Father LaFarge had to find some way to bridge the two intervening years. With the help of Dr. Caroline Martin of Hollywood, Maryland, he was able to put together a team of lay teachers who were able to staff the schools until the Sisters arrived. With Dr. Martin supervising the instruction, Saint Michael’s School opened in September 1920 with Miss Lillian Combs, Miss Gertrude Wise, and Miss Wanita Wilkinson as the teachers. The teachers at Saint David’s were Miss Alberta Wilkinson, Miss Pauline Hayden, and Miss Manie Goldsborough.

In 1921 Father Joseph P. Carney, S.J., succeeded Father Smith as superior and pastor of St. Michael’s. In the school that Fall, Miss Irene Coughlin of Brookline, Massachusetts, took Dr. Martin's place as principal.. Another innovation that year was the "high school" class that Miss Hester Curtis of New Jersey taught. Brent House became home for these dedicated lay teachers who lived a quasi-religious life there.

On October 21, 1921, an organization meeting for the Cardinal Gibbons Institute was held at the National Catholic Welfare Conference in Washington, D.C.. Father Matthews, John W. Casey, and Father LaFarge attended. The newly installed Archbishop Michael J. Curley of Baltimore presided. Father LaFarge presented the board his revised plan for the Institute. The following year on February 6 Archbishop Curley approved the general plan of the school, and on April 25 the first board met in Washington. The board was mixed in every sense of the word. It included white and black, Catholics and Protestants, men and women, local southern Marylanders, Baltimoreans and Washingtonians, and people from other parts of the country. The chairman of the board was the archbishop himself. The vice-chairman was Admiral William S. Benson, who threw himself into the work with the greatest enthusiasm.. The Board met again on June 23, and July 11 visited its proposed location. On July 13, 1922, this new board formally incorporated itself as the Cardinal Gibbons Institute, Incorporated. Two days later Mr. Monahan made another, more careful, inspection of the Ridge site.

In the summer of 1922, Father McCloskey was transferred and Father Emerick took his place again as pastor. At the same time Father LaFarge also took charge of St. Nicholas’ Church. When he arrived, the new church was still only a shell of concrete blocks. At Mass one morning while he was reading the Gospel a black snake fell on his head, and set the ladies of the congregation scrambling for the pews. The snake’s intentions were harmless, but he symbolized the condition of the building, since snakes do not drop from the ceiling of completed churches. Father LaFarge was able to complete the interior of the church thanks to the generous help of Mr. George C. Jenkins of Baltimore, and two spinster sisters from New York, Miss Kate and Miss Julia Austin.

On August 30, 1922, the first contingent of the long-awaited Sisters of Saint Joseph left their motherhouse in Hartford, Connecticut, and began the long trek to Ridge. They were three in number: Mother Euphrasea Carroll, Sister Mary Leona, and Sister M. Anna. They arrived the following day. From Washington they took the Tidewater Bus to Leonardtown. There they had dinner at the convent of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth at St. Mary’s Academy. Father LaFarge contacted Mr. J. Allan Cecil, who was the owner of a Chrysler automobile, the largest car available locally. Together with Father LaFarge he transported the Sisters safely to Ridge. They had expected to find very poor quarters in Ridge when they arrived, Instead they found a modern convent, excellent in every respect. The Brent House had become the St. Joseph’s Convent. Soon afterward, Sister Juliana and Sister Francis Xavier joined them to constitute the original band of teachers. Sister Fabian was also part of this second contingent and served as the housekeeper. That Fall Saint Alphonsus School in Fairfield had a new teacher. Mrs. Jennie Beale had taught for five years. Another lay teacher whose name has not come down to us then replaced her.

The Sisters also undertook to teach catechism to the children of St. Nicholas at Cedar Point. Every Saturday after dinner, rain or shine, they drove in the Ford that Father LaFarge had gotten for them. On their first visit they had no sooner emerged from their car than they were surrounded by shouting children. Others who were playing in the churchyard came running up to be a part of the welcoming committee.

As early as 1922 Father LaFarge began to give thought to the coming Tercentenary. With the twin goals of gaining support for the school at Ridge and interesting a wider audience in the significance of the Tercentenary, Father LaFarge went to New York City to address the General Meeing of the United States Catholic Historical Society on January 16, 1922. The Archbishop of New York, Archbishop Patrick Hayes, attended. LaFarge proposed that a shrine should be built to mark the site of the first Mass in Maryland. His ideas matured to the point that in February of the following year, Father LaFarge helped to organize the Pilgrims of St. Mary’s to encourage interest in the Catholic history of Maryland. He also hoped that it would be a missionary auxiliary by helping to support the teachers of St. David’s School. The founding members included Sarah R. Lee, Mrs. David K. McCarthy, Mrs. Warwick Emile Montgomery, Mrs. Frank Scrivener.

The board of the Institute continued to meet and plan through the winter of 1922-23. The following spring, on June 27, 1923, it made a very important decision. The school would be religious in character, and although it would be open to non-Catholics and would enlist their cooperation, it would be definitely under Catholic auspices and known as a Catholic school. An executive committee was formed and selected Mr. Victor Hugo Daniel as the new principal. His wife Constance was to be the assistant principal. Daniel was a forty-year old native of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. A graduate of Tuskegee Institute, he had taught at St. Joseph’s College, Alabama, Tuskegee Institute, and the State School at Bordentown, New Jersey.

Father Emerick’s return to St. Peter’s lasted only one year. Father Herbert J. Parker, S.J. succeeded him in 1923.

In September 1923, while Father Joseph P. Carney was pastor of St. Michael’s, the Sisters of St. Joseph, with the help of Father LaFarge, expanded their apostolate by starting St. Michael’s High School. It came about rather suddenly, even though they had thought of it for a long time. Mrs. King, a member of St. Michael’s parish, heard that there was to be a public high school at Ridge and went to Father Carney with her information. She suggested that he do something about a Catholic high school immediately. Father Carney promised to do what he could. He told Father LaFarge, and the next day, Father LaFarge took a train to Hartford to see Mother Josephine, who agreed to send one additional sister to teach high school classes. A few days later, Sister Lucy arrived to start the high school. The first class consisted of eight students. St. Joseph’s Convent did double duty as convent and high school. Conditions were very crowded. The English class met in the unfinished attic.

Meanwhile, the board of the Institute had the land, but no money with which to begin to build the school. Mr. William S. Auman, State Deputy for the Maryland Knights of Columbus, appealed to the Knights of Columbus for help. At the meeting of the Supreme Board held in Montreal in 1923, the Knights agreed to do so, and levied an assessment of five cents per capita on the membership. This brought an initial gift of $35,000. On September 3 the check arrived. With this sum in hand, the trustees erected Gibbons Hall, the main building of the Institute.

In 1924, as construction on Gibbons Hall was in progress, Father LaFarge was appointed pastor of St. Peter Claver’s. Father Parker had been there only one year. But in that short time he had visited everywhere by horseback and car. A great believer in the value of a census, he wrote down the names of every family to the latest baby, as well as the members of every parish organization.

The Institute opened in the Fall of 1924 with an enrollment that year of twenty-eight students. In the Boarding Department there were seven boys and six girls, and in the Day School Department there were four boys and eleven girls.

On October 14 a local Cardinal Gibbons auxiliary was organized in Leonardtown. Soon others sprang up among blacks and some whites in different parts of the country. The Federated Colored Catholics, a national black organization, took an active part and soon affairs for the Cardinal Gibbons Institute became a recognized part of Negro life. This first national project undertaken by Catholics on behalf of the Negro gave people a cause.

The Institute dedicated Gibbons Hall on October 26, 1924. It was a Sunday and the day began with a Solemn High Mass in St. Peter Claver’s Church. Father Joseph John of the Society of African Missions was the celebrant Two other black priests, Father J. H. Dorsey, S.S.J., and Father Charles Unkles, S.S.J., assisted as deacon and subdeacon. Father McGown of the Social Action Department of the N.C.W.C. preached the sermon. Following the Mass a procession formed to march to the Institute grounds. A cross-bearer, flanked by two altar boys, led the way. The band of the St. Nicholas Beneficial Society followed behind them. After the band came the children from St. Peter Claver’s School. Reaching the Institute grounds the children stepped aside, singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" and other hymns as the rest of the procession proceeded to the Institute. The marchers included one hundred uniformed members of the Knights of St. John under the command of Colonel G. W. Johnson of the Baltimore Grand Commandary. Next in line were eight or ten other colored societies and fraternities from Maryland and elsewhere. Next were the various visitors and members of the Board of Trustees and their guests. Finally came the visiting clergy escorting Father Carney, the superior at Ridge, who was to bless the building. As the procession reached Gibbons Hall, the altar boys, the choir from St. Augustine’s and the clergy with Father Carney entered the building where he blessed it with appropriate ceremony. Various addresses from the front porch of the building to a gathering of at least two thousand persons followed immediately. Arthur C. Monahan, the Executive Secretary of the Board of Trustees, presided. Admiral Benson, vice-president of the Board of Trustees and chairman of the Executive Committee, welcomed the crowds who had come to witness the dedication. His interest and active work for the Institute, in large part, had made this day possible. In welcoming the visitors, the Admiral outlined the program that the Institute was undertaking and the dreams he had for it in the future. He referred to the training of good citizens and halted long enough for the ceremony of raising the American flag on the flag pole erected on highest knoll in front of the Institute. The flag used was a gift of Commander William Christopher Columbus Smith, SS, Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Maryland. Before he died in May of that year, he had requested that this flag, which he considered his prized possession, be given to the Institute when it opened. An ex-serviceman sounded the call to colors, and an escort in military uniforms solemnly raised the flag. The crowd stood in silence as the flag slowly made its way to the top of the pole. The children of St. Peter’s School then raised their right hands and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Standing at the base of the flagpole, Mrs. Dean, a member of the Music Department of the Washington Public Schools, and a soprano in St. Augustine’s choir, sang the Star Spangled Banner. Following the flag raising ceremony the Admiral turned the school over to the principal, Mr. Daniel.

The list of speakers was long and exemplified the depth and variety of support network that Father LaFarge was able to piece together to provide ongoing support for the Institute. Dr. James Dillard of Charlottesville, Virginia, delivered the principal address. Msgr. George A. Dougherty represented the Catholic University of America. President A. F. Wood, of the University of Maryland, represented his institution. Mrs. Katherine Cook represented the United States Bureau of Education. Mr. J. W. Huffington represented the Maryland State Department of Education. William S. Auman, second vice-president of the board of trustees and past State Deputy of the Knights of Columbus, represented the single largest financial supporter of the Institute. Additional speakers included Professor Eugene A. Clark, of Minor Normal School, Washington, D.C., Miss Caroline L. Cook of the Baltimore Public School System, and president of the Baltimore Auxiliary of the Cardinal Gibbons Institute. Dr. Thomas Wyatt Turner represented Hampton Institute. All members of the Board of Trustees present also spoke.

Other speakers included the Honorable L. Hollingsworth Wood, of New York City. He was a member of the Board of Trustees and of Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes and Fiske University. Mr. Wood was a leading figure in the Urban League. Rev. Felix Kirsch, the head of the Capuchin College, Washington, and Dr. Thomas Donovan, principal of St. Emma’s Industrial School, Rock Castle, Virginia, represented their institutions. Mr. N. T. Velar, of Pittsburgh, chairman of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Cardinal Gibbons Auxiliary, Mrs. Mary Curtis, of the Atlantic City Auxiliary gave brief reports. Additional reports came from Mrs. A. J. Brown of New York, Mr. R. L. Gaines, of Philadelphia, Mrs. Fannie Morgan of Wilmington, Mrs. Mary Carter of Annapolis, Mrs. Ethel Butler, of Asbury Park, New Jersey, Mr. Philips of Frederick, Mr. James Diggs, Prince George’s County, Mr. William Wade of Charles County, Mrs. Mary A. Marks, St. Mary’s County, and Mrs. William A. Prater, Washington, D.C. Father LaFarge, as the recently appointed chaplain to the Institute, offered the closing words and final prayer. Immediately following the dedication, the Institute served luncheon to the delegates, board members, and the invited guests and clergy of the three counties of Southern Maryland.

The inspiration for the design of Gibbons Hall came from George Washington’s home at Mt. Vernon as seen from the carriage drive on the approach opposite from the river. It was a concrete building throughout as fireproof as a building could be made. The side walls were concrete slabs, cast on the grounds. The roof had red asbestos shingles. Heating was by steam. The hall had its own electric generating power plant and a four hundred foot bored well to supply running water. Professor Metzger, the head of the Department of Agronomy of the Agricultural College of the University of Maryland, developed the plan for the farm. The farm supervisor, charged with implementing the plan, was Mr. J. O. Bell, a graduate of Hampton and a former instructor in agriculture at the Penn School, Frogmore, South Carolina.

The Institute had been built from voluntary contributions raised by the Executive Secretary, acting on behalf of the Board of Trustees. Senator David I. Walsh, of Montana, chaired the committee that oversaw the finances of the Institute and worked together with Mr. Monahan. The largest gift came from the Knights of Columbus. Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop of New York, gave one thousand dollars, as did Archbishop Curley. The Catholic Order of Foresters, The Women’s Catholic Order of Foresters, the Knights of St. John and the Ladies Auxiliary of the Knights of St. John were among the heavy contributors. A network of committees of colored men and women in Washington and other cities and towns mentioned above raised significant amounts of money. The most active of these committees were the Federated Colored Catholics of Washington and vicinity. William S. Prater was the chairman and responsible in large measure for its success. In two years it raised some ten thousand dollars.

Two weeks later, another of Father LaFarge’s dreams came true. On November 5, 1924, the first three Oblate Sisters of Providence arrived to begin to teach in the grammar school. They were Mother Mary Celestine, Sister Mary Martin, and Sister Mary Thecla. Mother Thaddeus and Sister Mary Scholastica accompanied them. Father LaFarge, in his search for a stable foundation for the schools, had invited this predominately black community from Baltimore to accept the direction of Saint Peter Claver’s School. According to the contract, they agreed to teach all the grades. For the year 1924-25, they undertook only the First to the Fifth Grades inclusive. Because of the facilities offered by the Institute, it was not certain whether an eighth grade would be necessary later. If it should, it would be part of their work. Two teaching sisters and a domestic sister would come to Ridge in 1924, at the completion of the Sisters’ temporary residence. The following year a third teacher would be added for Ridge. The Sisters were also to teach at St. Alphonsus’ School near St. Mary’s City when they could afford to send a teacher.

The temporary convent was still under construction. Archbishop Curley had given a generous grant to have it constructed. In the meantime the only place to lodge the sisters was in the sacristies of the church, a couple of small rooms, heated by tin stoves, at the rear of the church. The rest of the church, a flimsy frame structure, was unheated save during services. The Daniels were on hand to welcome the Oblate Sisters to Ridge. They had taken over the direction of the Institute only a few weeks previously, and were still whistling loudly to sustain their own courage. When they first met the Sisters, they were standing outside the little white frame church, in their black habits. Their peaceful faces gave no outward sign of the dismay that must have at least momentarily been theirs at finding their promised convent still unfinished. Without a word of complaint, the Sisters set about organizing their temporary quarters.

That winter it was bitterly cold. When Father LaFarge said Mass for them, the Sisters would huddle in the sacristy to keep warm. When the Daniels made their way by starlight from their crowded lodgings at a neighboring farmhouse to the leaky parish hall to start breakfast for the students at the Institute, they had to pass the church. They could see the light in the tiny room above the sacristy that showed that the Sisters were already up and about their Father’s business. Later in the morning, before the Daniels opened classes in the same hall, a creaking of chains would announce that the Sisters were drawing water at the well by the church. They always went to the door of the hall kitchen when they heard the creaking, to wave them a cheerful "Good-morning" with the tea towel. They always received in response a brave flutter of checked aprons, as with veils pinned back and shirts tucked up, the Sisters struggled with the unwieldy buckets at the open well. The Sisters smiled when they chopped wood in the bitter cold. They smiled when they drew water in driving rains. They smiled most serenely of all as they overcame, little by little, the natural hesitancy and questions with which many St. Marians met this intrusion of "foreigners". Still smiling, the first Oblates at Ridge watched the walls of their convent go up, and the walls of reserve go down. They won the respect and affection of the entire community. They brought new life into the black community of Ridge and the vicinity. They set an example of gracious manners, and showed wonderful devotion to the people, their homes, and their children.

The day following their arrival, the Sisters opened school at one p.m. Seventy-five children were present. Mrs. Sadie Biscoe, who conducted all classes until the arrival of the Sisters, was released with honors. Towards the end of February, the Sisters moved into their new convent.

From Sunday, April 19 to Sunday, April 26, 1925, St. Michael’s was the scene of a parish mission in the style of the city parishes. Father William Stanton, S.J., was the invited missionary. No stranger to the county, he had served from 1908 to 1914 as the pastor of Newtown and Medley’s Neck. Each evening the church was packed, requiring additional chairs to be set up. Father Stanton went out of his way to commend the Knights of Columbus for the imposing hall they were then constructing at the juncture of the State Road and Three Notch Road.

The day after the Mission closed a telegram arrived at Ridge calling Father LaFarge to the bedside of his dying mother in Newport, Rhode Island. She died five days later. The very night of the day she died he received a telephone message from the provincial in New York, Father Laurence J. Kelly, who had served many years in St. Mary’s County himself. Father Kelly told him to stop in New York City on his way back to Ridge. He wanted him to see Father Wilfrid Parsons, editor of America. When Father LaFarge arrived in New York, Father Parsons told him that he wanted him to join the editorial staff of America. This came as a total surprise to LaFarge. While open to the idea, he thought that the timing was bad. His sudden departure from St. Peter’s would upset his plans for the schools and for the Institute. He begged his superiors for a bit more time at Ridge. They agreed.

The future plans for the Institute included building a dormitory for the boys. The girls used the upper floor of Gibbons Hall for their dormitory, but the boys had to be boarded with local families. So when the trustees next met on May 25, 1925 in Washington, they decided to build a boys’ dormitory. Archbishop Curley also presented Mr. Daniel with $1,000 to fit up the house which had been erected as the principal’s residence.

Three days later, on Thursday, May 28, the Institute held its first commencement. Many people from Baltimore, Washington, and other towns in Maryland had down come for the day. Father Conrad Bebesher, the pastor of St. Barnabas Church in Baltimore opened the exercises with prayer. He had been particularly interested in the Institute, going so far as to organize a dime club in his parish to support it. He managed to raise a considerable amount of money in this way. Mr. Daniel welcomed all the visitors as did Father LaFarge. Professor Eugene Clark, the principal of Miner Normal School in Washington and a member of the Institute board, gave the principal address. Dr. Aaron Russell, a dentist from Washington, also spoke briefly. He had conducted a dental clinic during the year at the school to treat students and residents of the county. Additional comments came from Admiral Benson, Mr. Monahan, Mrs. Gabrielle Pelham of Washington Community Service, Mrs. Carrie Syphax Watson, of the domestic arts department of the Washington Public Schools, Miss Caroline Hunt, of the United States Bureau of Home Economics, Department of Agriculture, and William Prater, the secretary of the Federated Colored Catholics.

That first year the Institute sponsored a Farmers’ Conference which attracted one hundred and fifty colored farmers from all parts of Southern Maryland. Some came from a distance of sixty miles. The focus of the meeting was greater food production in Southern Maryland. Mr. Rice and Mr. Ballard from the University of Maryland and Mr. Wathen, the count agent for St. Mary’s County, led the meeting. Mr. Lawrence Williams, the treasurer of the Institute and a member of the Maryland General Assembly, discussed the creation of a market and overcoming the transportation difficulties. Mr. Daniel asked for a meeting in the late winter or early spring, just prior to the planting season. Those attending immediately agreed to his suggestion. Thus was born the tradition of the Farmers’ Conferences that were the centerpiece of the Institute’s outreach program.

Father LaFarge also has left another account of an Institute assembly that year in the old Sodality Hall. The guest speaker for the day was Mr. Michael Williams, the editor of Commonweal. Mr. Daniel paced the creaking boards of the stage where Father Tynan had said Mass over twenty years earlier. The editor from New York was delighted and intrigued as Mr. Daniel explained to the assembly the meaning of the name for Mr. William’s publication. "It is not my weal; nor your weal, nor Mr. Williams’ own special weal; but our common weal. Once Catholics in this country come to recognize that all of us have but one great interest, no matter of what race we be - the same God; the same country; and the same Faith - there well be an end of the Negro problem in the United States." To which Mr. Williams added a hearty "Amen!"

The grammar school closed on June 10th that year and shortly thereafter the Sisters returned for the summer to the motherhouse in Baltimore. Two days later Father Carney presided over St. Michael’s High and Elementary Schools’ closing exercises. The students reflected credit on the Sisters of St. Joseph by flawlessly singing the musical numbers on the program. Mr. and Mrs. John F. Gross and Mr. and Mrs. Carroll Hoshell had a hard time to pick the winners of the elocution contest. Father LaFarge addressed the students and encouraged the parents to continue through the elementary and high schools. That summer was a busy one. The dormitory quickly took shape. To finance the new hall, an appeal was made to the Catholics of Pittsburgh. Under the leadership of Mr. Houlihan, the County Commissioner of Pittsburgh, the Catholics of Pittsburgh raised $25,000 for the project.

While the Knights of Columbus were providing a home for the Institute, the local council of the Knights of Columbus at Ridge was busy with their own plans for a new home. During the summer of 1925, Mr. Thomas Ridgell, a local builder, assisted by the members of St. Michael’s Council, constructed a fine new Council home. It still stands as a testimony to their energy and zeal. On Sunday, September 6, at 3 p.m., the Knights solemnly dedicated it. Once again Father LaFarge was on hand to give an inspiring talk. The following day was Labor day, the traditional end of summer, and the Knights observed the day in a traditional country way by having the first of many dinners that were to follow. The next day all the schools began again. However, the dwindling number of children at St. Alphonsus prompted Father LaFarge to close that school and transfer the children by bus to St. Peter’s. The busing of the children from St. James enlarged the enrollment. From this time on, for purposes of diocesan aid, St. Peter’s was considered a consolidated school incorporating within itself the old Saint Alphonsus School The Oblates had returned to St. Peter’s at the end of the summer. When school reopened on September 8, there was an added sixth grade. The larger classroom had been partitioned to accommodate it. Mother Katherine Drexel continued to contribute financial support for the salary of the Sisters.

Dedication Day for the entire Institute was October 18, 1925. On that day the Institute dedicated the handsome, one-story, brick and stucco building, named Boyle Hall, in honor of the Bishop of Pittsburgh, Bishop Vincent Boyle.

In 1926 one school closed and another opened. Father LaFarge tells us that financial considerations and the poor roads around St. David’s School forced him to close it reluctantly. Many of the students had already indicated that they would transfer to a new school then being planned for Great Mills. At Sunday Mass at Saint James he announced that on the following Thursday, June 10, Saint David’s School would close its doors permanently. A few weeks later Father LaFarge himself had to bring an end to his very productive years at the Mission. On July 26, he received word that he was being reassigned to the editorial staff of America. This time there was to be no reprieve. He left for New York and his new assignment on August 16, after having given outstanding service in all the churches of the Mission. His successor at St. Peter’s was Father Thomas Miley, S.J.. St. Michael’s also received a new pastor at this time. He was Father John H. Mulligan, S.J. who also served as superior of the house.

With the closing of St. David’s School, the Sisters of St. Joseph were free to staff the new Little Flower School that opened its doors the following September. Classes were first held in the hall adjoining the church on the Factory Lot, and at the old storehouse building on Fflat Iron Road, about a mile distant from the church. There were 112 pupils enrolled in seven grades. Sister Mary Leona taught 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades. She had a total of seventy-two pupils. Sister Juliana replaced Sister M. Anna shortly after school opened. She taught 6th and 7th grades. The two nuns commuted fifteen miles from the convent at Ridge every day. One lay teacher, Miss Edith Combs assisted them by teaching 4th and 5th grades. Father Thomas I. Cryan, S.J. was the pastor at Holy Face at the time. Father LaFarge obtained money from two spinster sisters in New York, Miss Julia and Miss Katie Austin, and Father Cryan began to build a permanent home for the school.

The county took over the old St. David’s building and in the Fall of 1926 opened a public school there, following a public school curriculum.

In 1927, due to the growth of the Upper Missions, a new residence called Saint Regis Rectory was established at Great Mills. This was the midpoint between St. George’s and St. Nicholas, the two principal churches of the Upper Missions. This meant the Ridge residence now only served the churches of the Lower Missions. These now included St. Michael’s, St. Peter Claver’s, St. Ignatius, and St. James. When there were only two priests assigned to Ridge, the pastor of St. Peter’s had the pastoral care of what were now the two missions, Saint Ignatius in Beachville, and Saint James in Fairfield. When there was a third priest, he had the care of the two missions. A new pastor was appointed for St. Michael’s. He was Father Junius A. McGehee, S.J. He was also superior of the house. In September 1927, the new home for Little Flower School opened at Great Mills.

The responsibility for running the Institute began to take its toll on the Daniels. The first sign came out of the blue on July 1, 1927, when Constance Daniel penned a one line letter of resignation and sent it to Admiral Benson, the chairman of the trustees. Since she gave no reason, he was afraid that she was suffering health problems. Unwilling to accept, he wrote to encourage her to reconsider. He acknowledged that many times he had been discouraged and very recently had been tempted to resign due to his anxiety over the success of the Institute. The only thing that prevented him from doing so was his desire to continue the splendid work which had been so well begun . In the end, Mrs. Daniel reconsidered, and another crisis was passed. Thus the Daniels were on hand the following month when on August 27, 1927, St. Peter Claver received a new pastor to succeed Father Miley.

The new pastor was Father Aloysius Minter Thibbitts, S.J. Like Father Emerick before him, Father Thibbitts was a veteran of the Jamaica missions. Coming to his main church and parochial seat of St. Peter Claver’s, he found it opened only for Mass on Sunday. He immediately provided daily Mass, beautiful sets of all vestments, and devotional and rich adornments of the altar and sanctuary. He filled the church three times weekly for evening devotions with people who in many cases walked two and three miles one way. He was a clear and powerful preacher, a thunderous singer, and a magnificent ceremonialist, if not a liturgist. He roused and enthused the people of the parish and got them into spiritual stride. In addition to St. Peter’s and the Cardinal Gibbons Institute, he also cared for Saint James Church and took an active interest in St. Ignatius Church. He restored the old schedule of Mass there twice a month, and installed the iron fence that still surrounds the church and the cemetery.

Father LaFarge continued to serve on the board of trustees for the Institute in New York. Although the pastor of St. Peter Claver’s was the official chaplain of the Institute, Father LaFarge functioned as the liaison between the Jesuit provincial superiors and the school.

The St. Peter Claver School continued to prosper under Father Thibbitt’s attentive care. On Christmas Eve of 1927 the parish received a new $1,000 school bus through the generosity of Archbishop Curley and Father LaFarge. Sister Humilitas, Sister Annunciata, Sister Agatha, Sister Camillas, Sister Sebastian and Sister Philomena comprised the faculty. Each one added her love and sacrifice to building up and strengthening, educationally and spiritually, the children of St. Peter Claver’s Parochial School. Then one day the principal, Mother Celestine, was suddenly transferred to Kansas. She had won the hearts of the people and many felt loss at her leaving. Aunt Pigeon Jones, then almost a hundred years old, but younger in heart than most, clung to her, crying, "What am I going to do without you! What shall I do without you!" Sister Camillas took her place as principal.

Sister Camillas locked the door of the grammar school on May 29, 1928, after proudly showing to guests of the Institute the results of a year of faithful work. However, sShe did not know that she was doing it forwas the last time. The dreaded cry of "Fire!" woke her and all the other Sisters in the early hours of the next morning. The school was a furnace of flames. They quickly reduced both the school and the year's work to ashes. The Institute boys worked tirelessly to save the nearby convent from destruction. In the morning, the Sisters assisted in moving their smoke and water damaged possessions back into the convent without a word of complaint.

Undaunted by the loss of his school, Father Thibbitts immediately began to rebuild. He abandoned the old site for the school in favor of one nearer to the cemetery. Previously it was very close to the convent. Aunt Pigeon turned the first spade full of earth at the groundbreaking. This arrangement allowed for room to expand the convent. He added the chapel wing and the double porches in the front.

That summer a new pastor, Father Gregory G. Kiehne, S.J, arrived at St. Michael’s. He was also superior of the house. One of the first projects he set for himself was to build a new church to replace the one had had become rickety with age.. He tried to interest his superiors in the project, but they did not see the need. His chance came one day during a visit by one of them to Ridge. The story is told that Father Kiehne sent the sexton to ring the Angelus while the superior was praying in the church. The building shook so much, that by the time the superior returned to the residence, Father Kiehne had the permission he was seeking.

Father LaFarge found himself in the middle of a power struggle. The executive secretary was seeking to have the principal fired. On August 1, 1928, Mr. Daniel wrote to the Board of Trustees of the Institute to defend himself against charges that he and his wife ran the school autocratically. He enclosed twenty pages of instructions he had been given and his response to them. LaFarge sided with the Daniels, and the Archbishop, who preferred to remain above the fray was forced to intervene to support LaFarge.

In the Fall of 1928, during the rebuilding of St. Peter Claver’s School, Father Thibbitts reopened the school at St. David’s. For two years the county had used it as a public school. Now two Sisters of St. Joseph from Ridge again taught in the school. They were Sister M. Marguerite and Sister Jane Frances. Between them they had about sixty pupils. At the same time, five Oblate Sisters returned from the motherhouse in Baltimore and reopened the St. Peter Claver’s School, using again the old Sodality Hall. They made the best of the situation, rearranging things somewhat, and got classes going again long enough to prepare the children for confirmation, which Bishop John McNamara conferred on November 14, 1928. Because the hall lacked proper heating, the severity of the weather caused the suspension of classes during November. Bishop McNamara also laid the cornerstone of the new school building on November 16, 1928. The next day he blessed the enlarged convent. The new St. Peter Claver’s School opened on December 3, 1928, with a full complement of eight grades. The total cost of the new building came to $18,000. Mr. James Mattingly of Hollywood was the builder. Now five sisters, Mother Damian, Sister Helena, Sister Theophane, Sister Philomena, and Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart lived in the enlarged convent. They taught the children of the community, one hundred strong, in a modern school-building, steam-heated and electric lighted.

Meanwhile, the Institute experienced small but steady strides. The generosity of Mr. James Byrne of New York enabled the Institute to add two brick wings to the main building, Gibbons Hall. The new brick industrial wings, that the Institute added to either side of Gibbons Hall, made a very find building of a rather ordinary appearing structure. The Institute hoped to be able to brick the central section to match the new additions at a later date.

Mr. Daniel had been holding conferences with the farmers nearby impressing them with the possibility of developing a program of better farming under the guidance of the Institute and in collaboration with it. Though some of the more conservative met these overtures with suspicion, the majority were heartily in accord. Time proved that the Institute’s plan of providing better homes for the people of the neighborhood by encouraging them to help themselves was a thoroughly practical idea. Mr. Daniel used a simple method in promoting change. He would propose that a wretched one-crop farmer house could become a decent place to live. He would make a practical demonstration. Panes of glass were put in dilapidated windows. Fences were repaired. He would construct proper outdoor toilet faculties according to simple government specifications. He encouraged corresponding indoor improvements for housekeeping routines. Farmers’ conferences and fairs, agricultural exhibits followed in due course. The Institute became, as intended, a center of community life and of renewed hope that somehow or other overcame backwardness and apathy.

On one occasion Dr. George Washington Carver came to the Institute at Mr. Daniel’s invitation. Dr. Carver addressed the students and faculty in his simple, yet unforgettable style. During these early years the Institute staff included, besides Mr. and Mrs. Daniel, many devoted teachers like Mr. Leon Blackiston, and Mr. Lywellan Scott of Washington.

The need for support obliged the Institute, like all such institutions, to seek outside aid. Father LaFarge was able to secure funding from such diverse sources as the General Education Board, the Julius Rosenwald Fund, the State of Maryland, and the American Catholic Home Missions Board. Still they were largely dependent on the contributions of charitable individuals. Many of them were persons who had helped LaFarge with the other schools. Oliver Hazel Perry LaFarge, Father LaFarge’s brother, headed the Executive Committee formed for this purpose. Its members included persons of both races as well as non-Catholics. From the outset, however, the Executive Committee faced a disheartening obstacle of general public indifference to anything connected with the South or with the Negro. The public incomprehension of such a novel type of school compounded the problem. The Executive Committee functioned in New York, remote from the school’s locus, and was also in a somewhat awkward position of being an auxiliary to a project headed by the Archbishop of Baltimore. It was difficult to keep their best friends and even their committee members posted on what they were trying to do, although Father LaFarge took them on various visits to Ridge. A National Advisory Committee was also organized.

Late one February evening in 1929, Father Thibbitts drove his sexton home because of a storm. While returning in the darkness and rain his car failed to make the turn in the Saint Peter Claver Church Road, went into the ditch, and toppled over. Both bones in his forearm broke. The break never healed, and kept him hampered, frequently confined, and in almost constant pain. For his part, Father Thibbitts struggled on at St. Peter’s despite his severe handicap that often hospitalized him.

During the summer, Father Thibbitts arranged for a general renovation of St. David’s School. Wallboard was substituted for plaster, a new roof was put on, and the building was repainted and furnished with modern equipment. Most importantly, a new drainage system was installed to solve the nagging problem of water in the basement. A ditch six hundred feet long and in place eighteen feet deep was dug to allow for the run-off of the water.

On September 22, the Knights of St. John from Baltimore, Washington, and the Maryland Counties held their annual pilgrimage to the Institute. Those who arrived in busses and private cars early waited for Masses by inspecting the grounds and the buildings. They were encouraged to see the physical improvements that had been made. At eleven o’clock Mass was held at St. Peter Claver’s Church. An afternoon program had been planned for the outdoors, but the stormy weather forced everyone to gather in the auditorium of the new grammar school. There Mr. Daniel welcomed the guests, among whom was Mr. Henry LaFarge, the nephew of Father LaFarge. The newly appointed financial agent of the Institute, Mr. Charles Winter Wood, formerly of Tuskegee, spoke feelingly of the need for furthering the work of the school. The band of St. Nicholas Beneficial Society played, and Miss Blanche Biscoe sang a solo. Optimism was running high that day since the rapid development of the student body indicated the future held additional improvements and expansion.

While Father Thibbitts was busy at St. Peter’s and St. James, Father Kiehne was pressing ahead with plans for a new church and a separate building for the high school at St. Michael’s. During the summer of 1929, he had the church torn down. Then on October 1929 the stock market crashed sending the nation into the tailspin of the worse depression this country has even seen. Three weeks later, on November 17, Father Kiehne laid the cornerstone for the new St. Michael’s Church.

In January, 1930 the Baltimore Auxiliary of the Pilgrims of St. Mary’s held a series of luncheons as part of their preparations for the Tercentenary. The first was held on January 7th at Merchants’ Club in Baltimore. Herbert R. O’Connor, the States Attorney for the City of Baltimore and the publisher of the St. Mary’s Beacon, Mr. A. F. King of Leonardtown, were the featured speakers. Miss Agnes Tynan was the vocal soloist for a delightful musical entertainment. Her accompanist on the violin also provided the members with instrumental selections.

Father Thibbitts’ condition worsened. As 1930 began he required more medical attention. Father John J. Scanlon, S.J. was sent down to help him in the parish. In March, Father Scanlon stood in for Father Thibbitts at the Maryland Day program at Saint David’s School. Father Kiehne also attended.

To observe Maryland Day, the Baltimore Auxiliary organized a dinner at the Lord Baltimore Hotel in downtown Baltimore. The guests of honor included Archbishop Curley and the Governor of Maryland, the Honorable Albert C. Ritchie. Miss Sarah S. Manly, president of the Baltimore unit, made the arrangements. Father Hezekiah C. Greenwell, S.J., the pastor of Holy Face and superior of St. Regis Rectory in Great Mills, was the chaplain of the group.

In April the Pilgrims of St. Mary’s elected Mr. William Franklin Sands, of Washington, the distinguished writer and diplomat, as president of their society, at the annual meeting of the trustees in Washington. He took the place of George C. Jenkins, of Baltimore who had died. The other trustees were: Paul E. Johnson, of Washington, vice-president; Charles A. Camalier, of Washington, secretary; William Casey, of Baltimore, treasurer; Father LaFarge, S.J. and Frank X. Butler, both of New York City. Archbishop Curley, was honorary president of the society.

Father Kiehne’s dream of a new church for St. Michael became a reality when Bishop McNamara dedicated St. Michael’s new church on Sunday, May 18, 1930, amid great rejoicing. Father Vincent McCormick, S.J. celebrated the Solemn High Mass. Father Francis Keenan, S.J., was the deacon, while Father Vincent Keelan, S.J., acted as subdeacon. All three were faculty members at Woodstock College. Father John J. Murphy, S.J., of Georgetown University, preached. One of the features of the occasion was the presence on the altar of the two seminarians from the parish, Mr. Linus Robinson and Mr. John Peacock. Mr. James Mattingly of Hollywood both designed and constructed the building.

On May 30, the board of directors of the Institute held one of their regular meetings at the archbishop’s residence at 408 North Charles Street in Baltimore. The scope of the support network for the Institute was apparent in the membership of the board. Those present included the superior of the Josephite Fathers, Very Rev. Louis B. Pastorelli, S.S.J., Mrs. Abram Morse, Miss Agnes Regan, Miss Caroline Cook, Mr. Walter E. Kennedy, Dr. Thomas Wyatt Turner, Mr. J. Leo Kolb, Mr. Charles F. Dolle, Mr. Schuyler N. Warren, Jr., Mr. John W. Griffin, Mr. Oliver H. P. LaFarge, Mr. Victor Daniel, and Father LaFarge. The acting secretary read a letter from the General Education Board to Mr. Agar, the president of the National Auxiliary Committee of the Institute, concerning the extension of the time agreed upon to meet the requirements of the General Board’s conditional appropriation. Father LaFarge presented a motion, that Mr. Kennedy seconded, to include on the board of trustees of the Institute some members of the National Auxiliary Committee. They included John G. Ager, James Byrne, John W. Griffin, James J. Hoey, O. H. P. LaFarge. Henry McDonald, Arthur J. Morris, Dr. Eugene P. Roberts, Percy King, and Frank X. Sadlier. This committee had previously been called the National Advisory Committee. In addition, the election of new officers took place. Those elected were Archbishop Curley, president ex officio, Walter E. Kennedy, first vice-president, Arthur J. Morris, treasurer, Lawrence P. Williams of Ridge, the secretary, and Thomas Wyatt Turner, the president of the Federated Colored Catholics, assistant secretary. At this meeting Bishop Edwin V. O’Hara, of Great Falls, Montana, was also elected to membership on the board.

The archbishop suggested that Father LaFarge extend a personal invitation to Miss Frances Coleman, Miss Louise S. Firth, and Miss Agnes F. Keyes to become members of the board. Each of these were already members of the Auxiliary Committee.

Father LaFarge also moved to enlarge the members of the Executive Committee by including on it the following members: Father Thibbitts, Father LaFarge, Caroline Cook, Lawrence Williams Walter Kennedy, John G. Ager, Perry King, John W. Griffin, Oliver H. P. LaFarge, Dr. Eugene P. Roberts, Henry MacDonald, Arthur J. Morris, and Schuyler Warren. Mr. Warren explained that the point to the enlargement of the Executive Committee was to allow much of its work through sub-committees. These would be taken from its membership and from the general membership of the Board.

Mr. Oliver LaFarge moved, with a second from Father Pastorelli, that all matters pertaining to fund raising to meet the appropriation of the General Education Board be left to the decision of the Executive Committee. Mr. LaFarge explained the new accounting system that was being installed to take care of the finances of the Institute. The Board expressed its approval of the changes. Father Pastorelli, with a second from Mrs. Morse, then moved that the question of the centralization of funds be left to the Executive Committee.

The principal mentioned the need for the board to try to secure a larger appropriation for the Institute from the next Legislature of Maryland. He felt that the character of the service the Institute was rendering to the adult population through its extension service as well as to the children of the state justified such an effort. He also requested approval for a new roof for the principal’s residence. The board agreed to the request and the archbishop agreed to pay for the roof. The acting secretary presented a bill from the Baltimore Catholic Review for an expense incurred before the current fiscal year. The board instructed him to request an extension of time on this account.

Four of the Institute’s teachers, who came from a considerable distance, applied through the principal for the reimbursement of part or all of their traveling expenses from their homes to the Institute. Mr. Kennedy made a motion, which Mr. LaFarge seconded, that the principal set aside two hundred dollars to reimburse the teachers for part of their expenses. The board wished to compensate the teachers who came from considerable distances and who were employed for the school term only for some of their traveling expenses.

At the end of the meeting, Mr. Warren inquired about the religious affiliation of the Institute. The archbishop explained that the school was definitely Catholic. Mr. Daniel added that non-Catholic students had all the privileges of Catholic students, but were not required to attend religious instructions. Such students, however, were required to attend all public religious exercises, as non-attendance would require a Catholic teacher missing such exercises to supervise them. He observed that there seemed to be no unpleasant feeling because of this. In fact the Class of 1930 elected a non-Catholic girl as president, and the same girl was valedictorian of her class. On that note the meeting ended with the blessing of the archbishop.

St. David’s School celebrated its first annual Alumni Reunion at Saint Mary’s City on Sunday afternoon, June 1, 1930. The large and enthusiastic crowd of alumni, students, their parents and friends proved the affection and interest the people of the district had for the school. The students presented a very entertaining program of recitation and songs under the direction of Sister Margaret, the principal of the school. The students showed their dramatic ability by ably presenting a humorous one act play, "The Train to Mauro." Mr. Bernard Carroll stirred fond memories when he read an interesting paper on the foundation and history of Saint David’s. Father LaFarge came down from New York for the occasion. Addressing the group he recalled the pioneering efforts of those who had labored unstintingly and generously donated to erect the school. Father Kiehne followed him to the speaker’s stand to congratulate the students on their presentation and to assure them of his continued interest in their progress. Father Scanlon, the acting pastor, brought greetings from Father Emerick to the assembled gathering. Father Emerick recalled the place the scene of his former labors had in his affections. The program concluded with a reception. Among the guests of honor were Mother Juliana, the former principal of the school, Sister Jane Francis, Sister Fabian, and Sister Charles, all of St. Michael’s Convent in Ridge.

The Institute and the parish suffered another loss when it became apparent that Father Thibbitts was not going to be well enough to continue at St. Peter’s. In July 1930 his temporary assistant, Father Scanlon, succeeded him as pastor. Father Thibbitts left to direct the Apostolate of Prayer, a physically less demanding assignment.

On June 7, 1931 the Institute conducted its seventh annual commencement exercises. The graduates that year included Daniel Hill, Rosa Yates, James Forrest, Clinton Short, Agnes Blackstone, Martha Young, Marie Thomas , Margaret Butler, and James Harry Thompson. The girls choir of the Institute sang at the 10:00 a.m. Mass in the church, then served dinner to forty guests at 12:30 p.m., only to appear in the auditorium cool and unruffled at 2:00 p.m. for the ceremony. The guests included Father LaFarge, his brother, Oliver Hazel Perry LaFarge of New York; Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Wyatt Turner of Hampton Institute; Dr. and Mrs. Eugene P. Roberts and Arthur Logan of New York; Dean and Mrs. Dwight O. W. Holmes, Dwight Holmes, Jr., Miss Dorothy Proctor and Mrs. M. A. Mahoney of Washington; James J. Hoey, Henry MacDonald, and Mr. Brown of New York. Rev. Augustine Walsh, O.S.B., of Catholic University, delivered the commencement address. The members of the executive committee of the Federated Colored Catholics who had come down from Washington to attend the commencement and to plan from their upcoming convention in St. Louis in the Fall also attended.

As the depression deepened in 1931, Father Kiehne managed to complete a new home for St. Michael’s High School. Father LaFarge secured funding for the project from the Austin sisters in New York. It stood on Route 235 opposite to the present school and adjacent to the old St. Joseph’s Convent. Through the efforts of Father Kiehne, the school received state accreditation in 1934.

It was July 1931, the middle of the depression, when illness forced Father Scanlan to relinquish the post of pastor at St. Peters’. Father Horace Bernard McKenna, S.J., a native of New York City, took his place. His interest in the evangelization of African Americans had caught Father LaFarge’s eye. He realized the contribution that McKenna’s youthful enthusiasm would bring to the parish. Ordained in 1929, he had helped earlier that year during Father Scanlon’s illness. Now McKenna was entering his first permanent assignment after ordination. Father Keihne helped him in getting his feet wet by taking charge of Saint James.

For many years Father LaFarge had worked to secure a site for a memorial to the early Jesuit missionaries in Maryland. The site of preference had been the old chapel land on the Broome estate. But he could not persuade the owners to sell. In 1931 Warren and Susette Dunbar generously donated a two acre site overlooking the harbor at St. Mary’s City. The plot lay between the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar and that of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Carr easily accessible from the State Road. had originally been part of the historical "Snow Hill Manor".

By July work had begun on the memorial. The structure was estimated to cost approximately $2,500 which Father LaFarge had raised through donations. The United States Catholic Historical Society of New York City was the major donor with a gift of one thousand dollars.

The noted architects C. Grant LaFarge and his son Christopher LaFarge of New York designed the memorial in the form of an altar. The Washington Auxiliary of the Pilgrims of St. Mary’s with its president, Mrs. David K. McCarthy took special interest in the project. The Baltimore Auxiliary of the Pilgrims of St. Mary’s, under the leadership of its president, Miss Sarah Manly, were planning to erect a stately memorial church at Great Mills near St. Mary’s City. They intended it as another commemoration of the founders of Maryland. The two memorials were envisioned to complement one another. The Pilgrims hoped that both would provide a fit setting to celebrate the Tercentenary of Maryland in 1934.

The mounting debts of the Institute discouraged Arthur C. Monahan, the secretary to the Board of Trustees of the Institute. He resigned in 1931 while the depression was growing in intensity. In September of that year, the Board engaged Mr. George K. Hunton to take his place. He was a friend of Schuyler Warren, who was a cousin of Father LaFarge and a strong supporter of the Institute. Mr. Hunton was also a member of the New York Bar. The Board entrusted him with the vexatious task of trying to work out plans for raising money. At the same time he became the liaison between the Executive Committee and the Institute.

Under the leadership of Mrs. Josephine Thompson, the members of the Knights of St. Jerome gave a concert and entertainment at St. Nicholas Hall to benefit the federated beneficial societies around the county. The participants came from a distance of ten miles. In spite of the cold weather a large crowd was present.

To add to the financial woes of the Institute, on April 15, 1932 a fire broke out in the electric plant and damaged the pump. Damages were estimated at $1800.00.

In 1932, Father Edward F. Gallagher, S.J., came to Ridge and relieved Father Kiehne of responsibility for St. James. The depression grew worse, forcing Saint David’s School to close for the second and last time. The children then transferred to Saint Michael’s.

The Federated Colored Catholics had become strong backers for the Institute. LaFarge had hoped to enlist their support in his efforts to mobilize the Catholic Church in the struggle to integrate American society. To that end he wanted the accent to fall on interracial organization, one that would include blacks and whites equally. While not opposed to the goal of abolishing segregation, Dr. Thomas Wyatt Turner was insisting on the importance an all-black organization with all-black leadership. This philosophical difference led to severe strains on the relationship between LaFarge and Turner. The Daniels sided with Turner at this point. Archbishop Curley, in his capacity as chairman of the board of the Institute, felt himself obliged to side with LaFarge. He wrote to Turner to tell that he was disgusted with the whole debacle. He was particularly annoyed with articles that had appeared in the Baltimore Afro-American which Curley believed were the work of Constance Daniel. In the end, the board of Federated Colored Catholics sided with LaFarge’s vision of the problem and its solution, and Turner retired from the presidency of the board of the organization he had created.

Mr. Victor Daniel attended the annual convention of the Federated Colored Catholics in St. Louis on September 30, 1931. In his report on the status of the Institute, he announced a generous donation to the Institute of five farms in the Leonardtown area amounting to eight hundred and sixty-seven acres by Mr. J. Goddard Mattingly of Baltimore. As part of its efforts to encourage blacks to stay on the farm, the Institute intended to divide the acreage into small farms that it would sell to graduates of the Institute as they worked the land and acquired it gradually.

In the Fall of 1932, the Federated Colored Catholics met in New York for their annual convention. The organizers invited Mrs. Constance Daniel to address the meeting earlier, but she had declined. At the last moment she declined to attend at all. Things were not going well at the Institute, and she was dissatisfied with Father LaFarge. She told Dr. Thomas Wyatt Turner, the president of the Federation, that she feared becoming "a stick of dynamite on the platform."

The reason for her anger was the proposal to amend the Federation’s constitution and by-laws at the New York convention. Father LaFarge had allied himself with Father William Markhoe, S.J., from St. Louis, in an attempt to change the focus of the Federation. Turner and many of the original members opposed making interracial activities the primary goal of the organization. They wanted to keep to Turner’s vision of using the Federation as a vehicle of internal protest against racism among white Catholics. In a meeting of the board in Chicago that Fall Turner and his allies were routed. Those who favored the LaFarge-Markhoe position carried the day. For his part, Turner left the organization, taking with him the Washington and other East Coast chapters.

Beginning in December the Board of Trustees of the Institute sponsored a radio program on the Paulist station WLWL in New York City. It was called the Catholic Interracial Hour and ran until March. Speakers covered many phases of the problem of Negro education and interracial understanding. The response to this series was most gratifying to the trustees. Listeners from as far away as Canada and Alabama sent letters. In this way the work of the Institute continued to receive national attention.

In the Spring of 1933, Mr. Linwood Trossbach, one of the tenant farmers on the Manor, while plowing somewhat deeper than usual, turned up several whole bricks. He mentioned this fact to Father McKenna one day. When the Jesuit Scholastics came down to the Villa that summer for their vacation, Father McKenna gave a talk on the early missions in Maryland. During his remarks, he happened to mention Mr. Trossbach’s find. Immediately several energetic philosophers volunteered to see if there was any fundamentum in re for the scattered bricks. Father McKenna lead the "archeologists" in an invasion of Mr. Trossbach’s cornfield. They began to dig near the farmer’s find. After they probed in several places, one of the picks resounded to the contact with solid brick. The brick was approximately a foot and a half underground. By the end of the day they had unearthed about twelve feet of old foundation. For a few feet the foundation ran along in a straight line, forming a wall two bricks wide. Then a right angle corner was reached and the wall widened to five bricks, placed end to end. The foundation at this end terminated abruptly, as if it were a corner. The bricks were in excellent condition. Copious applications of mortar held them together. The individual bricks, measuring three inches high, four inches wide, and ten inches long, were much larger than the standard modern brick. A grayish, green glaze covered the surface of some of the bricks. Others had the characteristic reddish brown of the ordinary baked brick.

To determine the identity of these remains, Father McKenna and his companions consulted Mr. Christopher Columbus Butler, then almost eighty, who had worked on the manor farm as a youth. When they questioned him about the condition of the farm in those days, he asked to revisit the place to refresh his memory. There he indicated a sink or low spot, but a short distance from the unearthed foundation, where a brick wall, two or three feet high and twenty-five feet long, stood when he was a boy. About sixty years previously, he had helped to remove this wall to cultivate the field. The farm hands used the bricks and rubble to fill in a breakwater to the rear of the farmhouse. At the time, Mr. Butler was told that this wall was part of the old Catholic chapel. He also pointed out a section of the farm known among the farmhands as "the graveyard". This spot is on the opposite side of the road, fifty yards or more from an aged, solitary walnut tree.

A few days later Mr. Trossbach told one of the scholastics that two years earlier he had put some new fence posts on the side of the road opposite the excavation. He distinctly remembered one spot that resisted the efforts of his post-tool. Acting on the faintest suspicion that the building may have extended across the road, they began to dig there. The result of this digging was the discovery of a second foundation. This foundation was deeper and far more substantial than the first find. Its form was rectangular, the longest side measuring close to eight feet. Without any formal training in archeology, they could not arrive at positive identification.

In the meantime, the depression continued to take its toll. The Institute budget for the fiscal year ending June 1933 was one-third less what it had been the year before. Expenses were reduced from $45,000 to $30,000. Mr. Daniel achieved this by cutting down the enrollment of students, reducing the number of teachers and effecting the most drastic economies in every department.

The dedication of a memorial tablet to Cardinal Gibbons took place on Commencement Day, Sunday, May 21, 1933. The guest of honor was Mother Katherine Drexel, the foundress of the Blessed Sacrament Sisters and a long-time benefactor of the grammar school. Her sister, Mrs. Louise Morrell, accompanied her. The sight of Mother Katherine, then in her seventh-fourth year, inspired an encouragement and hope that were deeper and stronger than the ordinary feelings at a commencement. The Institute choir sang the Mass that she attended that morning. She visited all the classrooms of St. Peter Claver’s School, spoke familiarly and informally to the children, and delighted in the work done by the Oblate Sisters. In the afternoon Father LaFarge welcomed all to the commencement, and addressing the graduates, explained to them the meaning of the memorial. Mr. Daniel gave the commencement address. He eulogized the Cardinal as an example of real Catholicity that knew no distinction in the care of the needy and the defense of the oppressed. He recounted how in the yellow fever epidemic, then Father James Gibbons had nursed a Negro abandoned by all and, when he died, made his coffin with his own hands. The high point of the day came when Mother Katherine unveiled the memorial tablet on the front porch of Gibbons Hall. It read: "In loving memory of James Cardinal Gibbons to whose interest and generosity the Institute owes its establishment."

In June the Institute succeeded in raising three thousand dollars among its friends and associate members. This enabled it to equal and thus qualify for the conditional gift of the General Education Board. From this campaign the Institute received approximately six thousand five hundred dollars that it applied to liquidate its debts.

Another victim of the depression was the Biscoe Family, neighbors of the Institute. They lost their home and lands as the bank foreclosed on the mortgage. To prevent these lands from falling into unfriendly lands, the directors of the Institute in New York decided to buy the farms. They purchased the two farms, part of "White Birch," on July 8, 1933. Together these farms amounted to three hundred and thirteen acres. In addition, the Institute also bought the Biscoe farm on St. Jerome’s Creek, "Reddings’ Farm" that consisted of one hundred and seventy acres.

The Depression continued. It affected all the members of the Executive Committee financially. What was more important, it demoralized their will to continue the struggle to keep the Institute afloat. After several makeshift plans to cope with the mounting debts of the Institute, the directors in New York decided they had no alternative but to halt high school classes in December 31,1933. When the Institute closed, the only opportunity for blacks to receive a high school education in St. Mary’s County also closed. The trustees terminated the contract with the Daniels, and appointed Mrs. Helena M. Graydon as director. It was a great blow to the Daniels, adding to the personal losses occasioned by the recent death of their daughter. At first the Daniels refused to leave the director’s house. Mr. Daniel went to the extreme of ordering Mrs. Graydon off the property when she visited the Institute in December. It took until March before the Daniels had reconciled themselves to the closing and vacated the premises.

On the evening of March 12-13, 1934 another tragic fire struck the parish. Father McKenna had just solemnly concluded the Novena of Grace. Everyone had gone home when he mounted the stairs leading to the priest's room above the sacristy. The little stove in the church still had a fire going in it and the pipe leading to the chimney still had not been fixed. One more thing to do in the morning. Shortly after midnight Father McKenna awoke to find circles of smoke gathering in the room. The church was on fire! The stove pipe could not wait another day for repairs. He jumped out of bed and telephoned the pastor of Saint Michael's and called the fire department in Leonardtown. He pulled on some clothes and ran down to the sacristy. Taking the tabernacle key and hoping to save the Blessed Sacrament, he opened the sacristy door to the sanctuary. A hot wind struck him, and he knew that he could not get in that way. He ran around the back of the church. He re-entered the church through the work sacristy on the south side of the building so that the wind that was wiping the fire would be at his back. As he stepped into the church, it felt as if he were in a gas oven. The heat was suffocating. He reached the altar, and tried to insert the key in the door. He made several pokes but never struck the lock. When he put his fingers to the door, it was like a frying pan. The fire was already eating away at the rafters in the roof and he could hear them crashing to the floor of the wooden church. He said to himself "A pious man would stay here to get our Lord out, but I had better use my third breath for running". He tried to turn back, but in the darkness and smoke he lost his way. He ran into the wall, but could not find the door. He panicked, and started to scream. Suddenly he caught a glimpse of a shaft of light. It was a flashlight revealing where the door was. He darted for it and safety.

The man at the door holding the flashlight was a parishioner, James Gunn, of Dameron. He had been at a late meeting of the Knights of St. Jerome in the school. When he became aware that the church was burning, he ran over and peered in with his flashlight. Father McKenna always credited him with saving his life.

The Sisters brought out their shawls and wrapped Father McKenna in them as they all stood helplessly by as the church burned to the ground. Nothing was saved except "the tabernacle key and the pastor" (as Father McKenna was fond of saying). The fire also destroyed the student records books of the Cardinal Gibbons Institute for the years 1924-33, the records of Saint Peter Claver’s Cemetery, the St. Inigoes Manor House Diary for 1905 to 1916, Father Joseph Carbery’s St. Inigoes Baptismal Register begun in 1816 and another register of marriages begun by Father Carbery in 1824. The basement of the grammar school became the temporary church while Father McKenna formulated plans to rebuild the church.

The Mission fittingly observed its three hundredth anniversary on March 25, 1934. They erected in Saint Ignatius Cemetery a huge hewn cross similar to the one first erected by Father White on St. Clement’s Island three hundred years earlier. Mr. Howard Raley of nearby Beachville had hewn the twelve foot cross, and fixed the cross beam with pegs. After Mass four men of the parish, William Norris, Clarence Taylor, Howard Raley, and Riley Wilson, raised it aloft. Preceded by Father McKenna and an acolyte, and followed by the congregation, they went in procession to the appointed place in the center of the church yard. Here they fixed the cross in the ground to renew after three hundred years the consecration of people and land "to Christ the Savior." Meanwhile, since they could not find the Litany of the Holy Cross, they recited the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Preface of the Holy Cross and sang the hymn "Holy God We Praise Thy Name."

The Pilgrims of St. Mary’s observed the Tercentenary on Tuesday, May 8th, with a Mass of Thanksgiving at the Father Andrew White Memorial at 11:00 a.m.. The celebrant was Father Richard B. Washington, a direct descendant of Lawrence Washington, brother of George Washington. The students of the various Catholic schools around the county sang the Mass of the Angels. Following the Mass the Pilgrims, in concert with the Society of the Ark and the Dove held a civil celebration. Father LaFarge, as founder of the Pilgrims of St. Mary’s and Dr. Magruder, president of the Ark and the Dove Society, explained the significance of the celebration. Father Kiehne was also present.

.The pupils of St. Peter’s School produced the final tercentenary celebration under the direction of Father McKenna and the Sisters, a pageant, entitled A Glimpse of the Negro’s Progress in Maryland’s Three Hundred Years. They staged it June 9, 1934, in conjunction with St. Peter’s grammar school graduation exercises.

On May 27, 1934, Saint Michael’s parish had the joy of welcoming home two native sons newly ordained as priests of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. They were Father John Peacock and Father Linus Robinson.

During the summer of 1934 the belfry at St. Ignatius Church which had deteriorated to the point where it was unsafe was dismantled and reduced in size to form the little vestibule that graces the front of the church today. At the same time Father Gallagher was transferred and no one replaced him. So Father McKenna added to this list of chores the pastoral responsibilities for St. James and St. Ignatius.

On October 14, 1934, seven months after the fire that destroyed the first St. Peter Claver’s Church, fire again struck the parish. This time the scene of the fire was St. Ignatius Church in Beachville. Father McKenna had just finished saying the Sunday morning Mass when somebody noticed the roof of the church was on fire. When the fire was discovered, everyone pitched in. John Bean ran to the choir loft, squeezed into the attic, and began to chop at the blazing sheathing. Linwood Trossbach drove home in his car and brought three covered cans of water. Morris Weiner brought buckets from Beachville. Clyde Raley, Clarence Taylor, and all the ladies began to strip the whole church of ornaments, stations, the big 8 X 10 foot picture of the crucifixion above the altar, and all the statues. Lonnie Lee, Linwood Trossbach, and Lloyd Bean pushed their bucket brigade to the outside of the roof and put out the blaze on the shingles. Firemen of the Volunteer Department shrieked down from Leonardtown with Leroy McNey driving. Dale Cropper mounted the first ladder long enough to reach the roof and found the box all ablaze inside where only a hose and ladder could reach it.

The cause of the fire seems to have been a bird’s next or something of the sort lodged in the terra-cotta flue. The flue was crowned at the top by a T shaped pipe, and the ridge pole was about 55 feet high. The flue had not been cleaned from the top that year, but a test fire had been started two months previously in the big stove. This did not reveal any weakness. An inspection of the flue from the attic when the bell was being remounted after repairs to the belfry also showed nothing. The total damage to the church amounted to $600.

At the end of 1934, Archbishop Curley gave permission to reduce the Mass schedule from twice a month to four times a year (i.e., on the fifth Sunday of the month) at St. Ignatius. Increased attendance at St. James and the greater ease for the people of Beachville to attend Mass at St. Peter Claver’s or St. Michael’s on the main road dictated this change.

The financial problems of the Institute did not interrupt the adult education work. A resident director of the Institute together with parish and community workers and club members continued the usual extension schedule. This included a Fall Fair, a Mid-winter’s Farmers’ Conference, and a Summer Cooking School. One such Fall Fair was held October 26, 1935 while Mrs. Graydon was director of the Institute. Miss Margaret McPheeters, Nutrition Specialist of the University of Maryland, assisted by Miss Evelyn Thomas, formerly Home Economics teacher at the Institute, judged the women’s exhibits of canned fruits and vegetables. Miss Ethel Joy, the County Home Demonstration Agent, judged the sewing, and found some high grade work, especially that of Mrs. Sarah Hughes of Beachville. Under the direction of Mrs. Armita J. Dixon, the Local Home Demonstration Agent, and moderator of the Ridge Homemakers’ Club, Mrs. Edna Corbin demonstrated meat-substitute dishes. The girls of the Four-H Club of St. Peter Claver’s School did the same with milk desserts. After the demonstration, the custard cups were quickly emptied.

The garden and field crop and water exhibits under the care of Robert Smith and Columbus Butler, were of good quality but few in number. They were judged by Mr. Rice, of the Extension Service, who also gave a very instructive talk on poultry. Mrs. William Cutchember and Mrs. Ella Thompson brought many exhibits from the Valley Lee district.

The feature attraction of the Fair was the talk of Dr. T. B. Symons, Director of the Extension Service of the University of Maryland, who was making his first visit to the Institute. He impressed upon the audience the solemn duty of parents to provide well for their families, and he was pleased with the signs of effort and cooperation in the people. Father LaFarge, had made a detour on his way to the National Catholic Rural Life Convention at Rochester, N.Y., to be there. He urged the men to meet each month to discuss their farm problems. Mr. Walter Kennedy, of Baltimore, vice-president of the Institute, stressed the idea that the Trustees of the Institute could continue to assist them only if they helped themselves. Mr. Herbert Pembroke tolled the funeral bell for relief when he said that after the two projects of the coming winter, the men would be left to themselves. The fair showed that the people were trying to get ready for that day. Mr. W. B. Posey, tobacco expert of the University of Maryland, gave a most interesting talk on the complete process of raising and marketing tobacco. He promised to return and talk in greater detail to a men’s meeting. Mr. Howard Britton, Mr. Bergan Brown, and especially Mr. Julius Johnson, the County Agent, gave the people no small encouragement by their friendly interest and their presence.

Mrs. Helena M. Graydon resigned as director on December 31, 1935. Her successor was Mr. Gerard de Kruyf, a native of Holland who had immigrated to the United States and become an American citizen. He came to the Institute from New York City. Filled with enthusiasm for the mission of the Institute, he was prepared by experience and desire to join with his new neighbors in winning a more abundant living from the soil. It was he who arranged for the mid-winter Farmers Conference and Pork Show held at the Institute on Washington’s Birthday, Saturday, February 22, 1936. The Conference began with Father McKenna introducing the new director. Mr. de Kruyf declared his determination to help the people through all the facilities that the Institute had. He said that the people of his native country Holland feed eight million persons on land only slightly more extensive than the State of Maryland, with its two million inhabitants.

Mr. Bergan Brown, of LaPlata, Director of the Rural Resettlement Administration in Charles and St. Mary’s Counties, explained the workings of his Bureau. Unlike the Federal Land Bank and the Production Credit Association, the Rural Resettlement Administration reached out a steadying hand to small subsistence homesteaders, and gave them hopeful two-year terms on which to get back a horse, a cow, or a few pigs, and a market crop.

Dr. R. V. Truitt of the University of Maryland and the State Conservation Commission talked on the oyster industry. He showed the rich food value of the oyster which really is the living compound of the food elements washed off the lands of the Atlantic coastal plain into the Chesapeake Bay. He said that in 1885 Maryland marketed more oysters than the rest of the world combined. To restore Maryland to its high place as an oyster producer he recommended organization of packers and tongers, their cooperation among themselves, and a program of conservation and advertising to increase the market. Dr. Truitt said that the St. Mary’s River was one of the richest oyster rivers.

Mr. W. B. Posey of the University of Maryland Extension Service gave the farmers at the Institute the same sound and very practical advice which he proposed to all the County farmers at the recent Farmers’ Conference at Leonardtown. His charts showed as plainly as day the various types of tobacco, the average yield per acre, and the market price. He said that by using the best type, the medium broad leaf, and tested seed farmers would increase their profit by $65.00 per acre. Another chart showed the effect of fertilizer in varying amounts on crop and the market price. Mr. Posey recommended that the tobacco beds first be sterilized against weeds by burning heaps of brush on them, and that they be made not in the woods, but in the open to check downy mildew by sunlight. His marketing advice was that as the farmers should organize just like the buyers. Presentations like this first planted the ideas for cooperatives among farmers and watermen. These ideas were to come to practical fruition in the not too distant future through the efforts of Father McKenna and others.

Incentives in the form of prizes and recognition were always a part of the fairs. At this particular one Mrs. Lillian G. Biscoe won the highest rating on the ham exhibited for size, quality and good trimming. Mrs. Sarah Hughes of Beachville won the sweepstakes prize of the pig. The prize for the best tobacco was awarded to Edward Crittenden Bryan of Scotland. During the program the 4-H Club Boys and Girls of St. Peter Claver’s School sang the Negro National Anthem, and at the end they led the audience in the singing the Star Spangled Banner.

Other individuals who deserve special mention for their work in the continuing work of adult education included Mrs. Jennie Beal and later Mrs. Mary Barnes Marshall Johnson. The Homemakers Club owed much of their skill in canning, sewing, and gardening and poultry care. Mrs. Nannie Gough of Scotland and Mrs. Susan Carroll of Beachville were also very effective in improving community standards.

During the summer the Institute sponsored a two day cooking school. Mrs. Arminta J. Dixon, the local home demonstration agent of the cooperative Federal and State Extension Departments, and her assistant, Mrs. Urath R. Peters, opened up a new world for the homemakers of the First District. On Tuesday and Wednesday, August 11 and 12, 1936, Mrs. Dixon demonstrated cooking and canning to the colored women and older girls of the lower end of the county. Efforts were made to attract participation from as far as Valley Lee and Jarboesville.

The efforts of the Directors of the Institute to restore its financial stability proved fruitless. Archbishop Curley diverted $30,000.00 from mission and archdiocesan funds in an effort to stave off bankruptcy. This task was rendered more difficult by a power struggle among the directors for control of the Institute. Finally, on October 20, 1936, Archbishop Curley agreed to take over the liabilities of the Institute in return for title to its assets. The director, Mr. de Kruyf, stayed on at the Institute until the beginning of 1937. Thereafter the only one caring for the Institute property was Mr. Robert Toye who since 1927 had been the custodian and tenant share-cropper. Father McKenna gave Mr. Toye a small stipend for his troubles from parish funds.

Meanwhile, at St. Michael’s, the pastorate of Father Kiehne came to an end in 1936. He was succeeded briefly by Father John J. Bernard, S.J., and later by Father Raymond Anable, S.J.

Father McKenna had lost no time in preparing to rebuild St. Peter’s. Mr. Philip Herbert Frohman, then a recent convert to the Catholic Church, had already spent nearly twenty years designing the National Cathedral in Washington. He had volunteered to design a church for the Archdiocese of Baltimore as an act of thanksgiving for the gift of Catholic faith. The Archdiocese put him in touch with Father McKenna. The old site was cleared away and a foundation was poured. Tynan Smith helped to gather the stones that went into it.

Final mention must be made at this point of a precious soul who passed to God on January 22, 1937. Her name was Mary Ellen Whalen Jones, but she was known to everybody simply as "Aunt Pigeon". Her name has already appeared several places in these notes. She died at about the age of 107 in the home of her son, Ben, with whom she had spent the past few winters. Ben was a true son, her old age pension given by God. Ben made her comfortable in her own home in Newtown. He prepared her breakfast before he left for work, took dinner to her when he returned, and saw to it that the house was always warm. Confined to her bed for about a week before she died, Aunt Pigeon asked to received the Last Sacraments the day she died. Shortly after the priest had left, she stretched out her hand. Those nearby realized that she was reaching for the Crucifix. They gave her the image of her crucified Lord. She placed it on the pillow, laid her head upon it, and gave up her soul to her Redeemer. Her husband, Peter Jones, had died years before when both blacks and whites were buried in the same cemetery. In a time of strict segregation, she was buried by his side. So great was the esteem in which she was universally held that her burial in St. Michael’s Cemetery was considered an honor for St. Michael’s.

At the same time that he was engaged in rebuilding the church, Father McKenna never gave up his efforts to reopen the Cardinal Gibbons Institute for high school classes. He asked his provincial to let him stay at St. Peter’s until he could reopen the Institute as a parish high school and secure its stability. When the provincial agreed, Father McKenna wrote to the archbishop on April 22, 1937 to assure him that his plans were not on the grand scale as before, but on a secure and permanent parish basis. He was absolutely convinced of the need for the Institute as an extension service for children’s trade and home arts training, and for adult education of a rural sort. He envisioned rejuvenating the Cardinal Gibbons Institute as a rural high school with the pastor of St. Peter’s as a superintendent, a Sister Principal, and an Extension Director. Father McKenna envisioned that the director also could manage the resettlement of some five or ten families on the five hundred acres of Institute land adjacent to the school and the church. He tried to interest the archbishop in his dream of another Paraguay Reduction, but this one located where American colonial faith first took root. In this way he hoped to realize on a limited but secure basis the faith of Father LaFarge and the program of Mr. Daniel. Two weeks later, on May 5, 1937, Father McKenna met with Archbishop Curley and secured his tentative agreement to reopen the high school in September with an annual grant of $2,000. He hoped to supplement it with gifts, hopefully amounting to $500 per year, and $2,500 from the State of Maryland for the trade and agricultural work.

On June 6, the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, came to Ridge, visiting both St. Michael’s and St. Peter Claver’s. Accompanying him were Father Laurence J. Kelly, S.J., an old hand in the county, Monsignor Binz and Father Parro. A delegation from each congregation met the archbishop and then accompanied him as he visited the two churches of the parish. He first stopped at St. Peter’s where Father McKenna and a committee of Holy Name men and ladies of the Sodality received him. Inside the church the delegate urged the parishioners to be steadfast to the ancient heritage of their faith and imparted the apostolic blessing. Later, at St. Michael’s, the same scene was repeated. Stanley Raley lead the men’s delegation and Mrs. Joseph King did the same for the women. They escorted him into the church were the delegate addressed a group of one hundred and fifty parishioners who had returned after the last Mass to greet him. He spoke of devotion to the Sacred Heart and paid tribute to the Jesuits for their zeal among the people of Southern Maryland. After imparting the apostolic blessing, the delegate went to the rectory for lunch. The ladies of the parish had prepared one with the famous Maryland fried chicken on the top of the menu. After eating the delegate went into the kitchen to greet his hostesses,. The Jesuits who joined the delegate for lunch included Father Joseph A. Heufner, S. J., Father Arthur, S. J., Father James F. Duffy, S.J., and Father Kirby, S.J., all stationed at Saint Regis Residence at Great Mills. Father Joseph Johnson, S.J., the pastor of St. John’s in Hollywood, Maryland and Father McKenna and Father Louis B. Kines, S.J., from Ridge also shared in the treat.

The delegate’s party then motored down to Point Lookout. On the return trip to Washington They stopped at Saint Inigoes Manor where Archbishop Cicognani displayed great interest in being at one of the spots where the Catholic Church first took root in this country.

Later that month, Saint Peter Claver’s hosted the first of the Communion Breakfasts that became a tradition for many years in the Southern Section of the Holy Name Society. This first gathering took place on June 27, 1937. The Mass was celebrated by Monsignor Harry A. Quinn, rector of the Baltimore Cathedral. A choir of St. Peter Claver’s School children sang the music of the Mass of the Angels. Two Jesuit scholastics from St. Inigoes Villa, aided them. Mr. Emory A. Ross, S.J., played the organ, and Mr. William Farricker, S.J., sang the proper parts of the Mass. Immediately following, Mr. William H. Collins, of Washington, president of the Baltimore Archdiocesan Holy Name Union, led the recitation of the Holy Name Pledge. The Mass concluded with the congregation singing the Holy Name Hymn. It was a very impressive service in which a large group actively participated in prayer, sacrifice, and musical praise of God, and the Holy Name of Jesus Christ.

A bumper breakfast followed. One hundred men sat down with Monsignor Quinn in the Institute dining room. Another hundred sat at tables arranged on the back lawn overlooking Smith’s Creek. The high building shaded them, while they readily heard the speeches and watched the speakers through the ample windows. The manager of the "splendid breakfast," as Monsignor Quinn called it, was Mrs. Mary E. Marshall, of Dameron. The chief cook who caused two hundred tired faces to smile with contentment was Mr. Alvin Allen of Ridge. Parishioners old and young cooperated smoothly and effectively in preparing and serving the three course menu. Speaker after speaker encouraged greater participation in this active and uplifting men's religious organization. They especially stressed the need for the younger men to participate. Mr. Clarence McDonagh, president of the Southern Maryland Section of the Holy Name Society, acted as chairman. Mr. Bowling of Hughesville, the secretary, was present, along with Mr. William Mattingly of Leonardtown and Mr. Joseph Dunbar of Dameron. Mr. Robert Toye, the president of the Saint Peter Claver’s branch also spoke. His many natural quotations from Scripture about one’s light not being under a bushel, and such like, gave signs of much old-fashion Bible reading by lamplight.

Father Stephen Rudtke, S.J., the pastor of Saint George’s parish in Valley Lee, had zealously arranged a large delegation. Sacred Heart parish sent thirty-eight men from Bushwood under Mr. Stephen Jones. St. Nicholas had twenty-five with Mr. Charles Louis Chapman.. Immaculate Conception of Mechanicsville sent seven with Mr. Abraham Butler. Mr. Frank Stevens brought twenty-one out of Hollywood, and Mr. J. L. Shelton lead thirteen from Leonardtown. Mr. Martin Curtis and Mr. Turner led delegations from Medley’s Neck and Newtown. Father Gilbert F. Schmid, S.J., their pastor, encouraged them by his personal appearance.

Before returning to their respective cities, Father McKenna sought to have Msgr. Quinn, Mr. Collins, and Mr. Ulrich invited to dinner with the Jesuit priests and scholastics at St. Inigoes Villa. This did not happen until Father McKenna received the day before a note from one of the priest at the Villa. He had spoken to Father Rector concerning Msgr. Quinn and Mr. Ulrich and Mr. Collins. His answer was "a sincere welcome to you and to them." He added, however, quoting the rector carefully, "Circumstance here will not permit us to invite Mr. Ulrich or Mr. Collins if they are colored gentlemen." The "circumstances" were the prevailing racial prejudices of the day that made social contact between whites and blacks nearly impossible, a "circumstance" with which Father McKenna perpetually had to contend.

Father LaFarge wrote to Father McKenna a few days before the Communion Breakfast, observing that it was the societies that had introduced segregation into parish life. Once the Holy Name Society was established in a parish, he felt it was difficult to avoid the separation at the altar rail without breaking up the existing type of organization. For that reason he never wanted to have a sodality or Holy Name Society at Saint James since to him that that little church seemed a sort of oasis in the general desert. The trouble was that though the local parishioners understood the arrangement, and realized that it did not imply general discrimination at the altar, strangers did not. They would take it to mean that the Church had a general fixed policy of separatism in the holy place of the liturgy itself.

Father LaFarge knew of an old Southern Marylander, who had been away from the scenes of his youth for many years. A black man, he had revisited his birthplace the year before, expecting to see things as they were when he was a child, but the separation the societies had caused bitterly scandalized him. What rankled in his mind most was the recollection that in his youth such separation had not existed at all. The altar rail was the one place where race did not matter, however much separation there might be in the pews themselves. In his youth blacks had occupied the complete gospel side in St. Inigoes Church. In old St. Michael’s blacks had their pews all about in the church, and people came to receive Communion together. No one expected blacks to wait until the end. Though some people might see it as a Southern Maryland custom, Father LaFarge did not. He was not even willing to concede it the dignity of being a real custom. He blamed pastors from the North for introducing much of the segregation in recent years. Once introduced, timidity and a routine spirit maintained it. He believed that if the priests were to unite, and gently but firmly to insist that all separation at the altar-rail must stop, the whole business would end. There would be a week’s explosion, but then, he was convinced, it would be taken for granted.

LaFarge wondered whether the good achieved by the Holy Name Society outweighed the very particular good achieved by demonstrating the Mystical Body of Christ in a tangible way at the altar rail. He did not wish to obstruct the growth of the Holy Name Society, for he recognized that it was the one way in which a local black group could make itself felt in the diocese. He could only call segregation at the altar rail ungodly, and it seemed a pity to him to have to disfigure every parish because of segregated societies. What he took for granted was that every parish would be make up of blacks and whites. The only exceptions to this rule in Southern Maryland had been at Ridge in St. Mary’s County and McConchie in Charles County.

Wednesday night, August 10, 1937, was one of the most pleasant evenings of the summer that year. Some seven to eight hundred people crowded the Villa grounds for the traditional St. Inigoes Festival. It was one of the largest crowds the Villa had even seen. The cars were parked from the gate down to the water’s edge. The yellow moon through dark barred clouds gave enough light to find one’s way even down to the water’s edge, far from the string of lights and the noisy crowds. On the villa porches and lawns a fast breeze carried away all the mosquitoes, and made the ladies look once or twice for a coat. The babies slept peacefully in the cars, but the St. George’s Islanders feared that the white caps might block the way home. The crowd stayed late that night. The bingo table bell rang as late as ten minutes before midnight.

Mrs. John Raley and Mrs. William Norris, and all their helpers of three generations served a delicious supper, while Miss Lillian Raley and Mrs. Mary Edna Smith kept the bingo table livelier than a horse racing machine. Mr. John Bean was their number caller and auctioneer, and worked until his voice gave out for the night. Mr. Spencer Dameron and Mr. Lamar Taylor acted as hosts at the door, Mr. Joseph Dunbar, and Mr. Earl Gatton and Emerson Taylor served cool refreshment of different degrees. Aided by Lenox Yeatman, Mr. Hoke and Ekas Tennyson served the gaming instinct, as Mr. William Norris and Howard Raley ladled ice-cream. Mrs. Clarence Raley and Mrs. Raymond Birch sold cakes as fast as people donated them. Mr. Clarence Taylor, in his providence, looked after everything in a reassuring way. The goodness of God, the number and generosity of the patrons and the care and devotion of the committee gave a delightful evening to all. Their efforts helped to keep the wolf from the door of St. Ignatius Church and St. Michael’s grammar and high schools where the children of St. Inigoes learnt their lessons for both worlds.

Meanwhile, Father McKenna was making progress with rebuilding the church. By July of 1937 Father Thibbitts wrote to congratulate Father McKenna on the progress he had made. Lucy Hughes had reported to the "grandfather pastor" (as Father McKenna called him) that the walls of the new church were as high as she was. On a bright sunny Sunday, August 15, the feast of the Assumption, at 3:00 p.m. Bishop McNamara laid the cornerstone for the new church. James Mattingly was the contractor. Thomas Ratledge of Leonardtown did the brick work, assisted by his father, along with a Mr. Lathan of Compton, and Charles Page of Park Hall. Old George Evans prepared the timbers, cutting notches in the 8X8 plate beams as patiently as St. Joseph. Evans’s son Joseph got all the other timbers to fit the measurements of his father. James Somerville of Hollywood mixed the mortar, while Howard Hopewell, helped by James Gunn built the scaffolding. Edward Gant and Richard Langley rounded out the crew as the brick layers’ helpers.

In the fall of 1942 the Navy approached the Society of Jesus with a request to take over part of St. Inigoes Manor as the site for a new flying field. When Father McKenna heard of the pending transfer of the property to the Navy he wrote to Father Edward C. Phillips, S.J. of Georgetown University who was handling the matter to request that a strip of land around the church and fronting on the cove be preserved so as to give the people of Beachville access to the water for their fishing boats. On November 6, 1942 Father Phillips replied that the day before he had seen the special deputy attorney in charge of land matters for the Government in the Maryland District. He discussed with him reserving for the use of the Beachville people a right-of-way to Church Cove as Father McKenna had requested. The lawyer told him that he had discussed the matter with Brother Carrel and had already changed the upper line of the survey so that it ran at some distance from the Church and that it now provided an ample parking space and also a large right-of-way to the Cove.

A few months later Father Kerr was transferred. It was a loss keenly felt by Father McKenna for he had found in Father Kerr a kindred soul who shared his vision for the mission. His successor was Father Joseph A. Stoffel, S. J.

The Navy didn’t waste any time in beginning to construct the base. On November 23, Father McKenna was writing to Father David Nugget, S. J., the rector of Woodstock College to promise him a definite and separate invoice of what he had salvaged from St. Inigoes Villa. It consisted mostly of the pews, half of which Father McKenna took to St. Peters. The other half he sent to Father Stoffel at St. Michael’s. Then out of his part, he sent two thirds to Father John Bernard, S.J., who was in charge of St. Francis Chapel, near old St. Nicholas and the Naval Air Station. The Navy in taking over Cedar Point, had displaced at least twenty-eight black homeowning families and many renters. Some had pushed up the road to St. Francis Beneficial Hall, in California, where Father Bernard was shepherding them.

Father McKenna wanted to have something at St. Peter’s which would be a constant reminder to the people of the historical roots of the parish. With this in mind, he secured the two St. Inigoes Manor millstones which had rested for many years against the porch of the Villa, and placed them in front of St. Peter’s Church, flanking the front door, where they remain to this day.

Another cooperative, the Ridge Purchasing and Marketing Cooperative, the result of the work done by the Farm Security Administration, incorporated during 1942. This was The first major project undertaken by the Cooperative was the purchase of a tractor. Due to the war effort, equipment of this sort was highly rationed. While suffering many anxieties and setbacks in finding the proper method of application, the members met every Monday night for ten, months, and always had some money to lay on the table, five or fifty or seventy-five dollars. The County Farm Board allotted two tractors to the district, one to the Institute and one to the Cooperative. The night when the arrival of the tractor was announced at the meeting at the Cardinal Gibbons Institute everyone cheered. They ransacked the store for cake and pop to celebrate. During their wait, the members of the co-op had saved fifteen hundred dollars, and paid for the largest sized tractor and all equipment in cash. In the first ten weeks of operation at the "poor man’s scale of $1.50 per hour" the directors cleared $250.00. The coming of the tractor gave the black community a new feeling of being able to do a large scale operation as a group unit, a new feeling of ownership, and a new feeling of knowing how money is made and accounted for and returned to its source, themselves the investors.

On September 9, 1943, Father McKenna wrote to Chief Quartermaster C. G. Morrison of the Naval Air Base at St. Inigoes to thank him for the consideration shown by the Navy to the neighbors of St. Inigoes and Beachville. He was grateful also for the courtesy shown to himself as the Pastor of St. Ignatius Church during the building of the base. Morrison had let Father McKenna have what he wanted from the Villa. He also allowed the neighbors and the churches and schools fair picking time to get the downed wood. Father McKenna thought they did well for poor people. The shortage of manpower hampered them, yet working with only horse and mule, they managed to salvage an amazing amount of wood. Father McKenna never remembered the wood piles of Beachville looking better.

Father McKenna was also grateful that the Navy had allowed the extra acre at the top of the farm near Church Cove, so that the oystermen of Beachville would have a way clear to the water. If the government had taken the whole farm, the cove would have been closed. By this cove for centuries people had come to Mass at St. Inigoes Church there at the head of St. Inigoes Manor. For centuries the oystermen got their living going out from the same wharf. The Navy added icing to the cake by leveling up the approaches to the landing there, so that as before the men could drive up near to the water in their cars.

Ten days later Father McKenna could write to Archbishop Curley that the St. Inigoes Manor job was finished. Priests’ Point looked like a corner of La Guardia Field, watched over by old Saint Ignatius Church, standing alone now that all the neighboring trees were down. Not only were the trees gone, but all the old buildings of the manor were demolished as well. The exception was the old residence which had been rebuilt on the site of the manor house, after the disastrous fire of 1872. That was being used a quarters for the officers.

In February 1978, the old St. Inigoes Residence was torn down. Only the oldest sections which had been the kitchen and the hyphen connecting it to the main structure of the manor house were left standing. These sections were stabilized with a new roof for possible restoration at some future date.

In July, 1943, a letter arrived for Father McKenna at Ridge containing an echo from, the past. It was from the editor of the Messenger of the Sacred Heart in New York. A secular priest of the Archdiocese of New York, the Rev. Edward I. Holden, had died a couple of months earlier, leaving most of his belongings including some real estate, cash, books and furniture to the magazine. Included was a large picture of his brother, Mr. William J. Holden S. J., who was one of the theologians killed in the electrical storm at St. Inigoes back in 1891. Father Holden requested that this picture, after his death, be given to the Jesuit house nearest to St. Inigoes Villa. It was a rather large painting about three feet by four, standing on an easel perhaps six feet in height. At this point in time, no one knows what ever happened to this sentimental donation.

One of the greatest aids the Institute ever had was the coming of Father Walter G. DeLawder, S.J., who taught and managed the school beginning in 1943. Experienced as the principal of Zamboanga High School in the Philippines, Father DeLawder’s availability was another consequence of the war. Unable to return to the Philippines, he was stationed at the Institute where he standardized all the work of the school, and put an interest and spirit into the students that made them love their work. While running the Institute, he also cared for the two mission churches of St. Ignatius and St. James.

Father McKenna had made it a point to stay in touch with Dr. Maurice Klawans, the doctor from Annapolis who had purchased the Institute farms in 1942. Due to ill health Dr. Klawans was forced to give up his plans to become a gentleman farmer. When in late 1943 he decided to put the property on the market again, Father McKenna contacted Mr. Benedict Smith of Hermanville. He was one of the small farmers evicted from Cedar Point when the government began to build the base there. Father McKenna persuaded him to renew his offer to buy the Klawans property. Once the purchase was made, the plan was to subdivide the land and sell it off to landless black families for home sites. With Father McKenna’s aid, Mr. Smith secured the necessary bank loan and the land, which once had been the Biscoe homestead and later the Institute farm, passed into his hands.

Father McKenna was also concerned for the spiritual welfare of the blacks family in Hermanville. Some had pushed down the road around Hermanville, where they were five miles or more distant from any church. About forty families consisting of one hundred fifty or one hundred seventy-five people, lived around Hermanville. They were five miles or more from St. Francis Chapel at California, and five miles from Saint James Church. Since St. Michael’s had a third priest that year due to the arrival of Father DeLawder, Father McKenna spoke with Father Parker of Holy Face and volunteered to help with this ministry.

Before this arrangement could be finalized, Father Parker was transferred. Father David T. Madden, S.J. replaced him as the pastor of Holy Face and superior at Great Mills. As soon as the new pastor was settled in his new assignment, Father McKenna contacted him to offer to establish to mission in the home of Mr. Wilbur Bennett at Hermanville. Father Madden consulted with Father Bernard. He informed the new pastor of the arrangement Father McKenna had made with Father Parker. Madden saw no reason to change it. He was happy that there were enough priests available to tend to these people in the difficult wartime circumstances. Until such time as the war's end changed conditions of housing and transportation for the colored people around Hermanville, he gratefully accepted whatever extra aid Father McKenna could offer.

Once Father McKenna received the approval of Father Madden and the provincial he wrote to request the archbishop’s permission to open a mission in the Bennett home. He planned to offer Mass there twice a month, to baptize, anoint, and officiate at weddings as needed. The archbishop was happy to concur with the request. As a result Father DeLawder began the new mission in Hermanville. He called it Saint Ann’s after his mother, Mrs. Ann DeLawder. The site of the mission was subsequently moved to the Carver Heights Community Center.

On January 17, 1944, Archbishop Curley wrote to Father DeLawder regarding his report for Saint James. However, in financial matters, it seemed thate he was working more closely with Father McKenna of St. Peter Claver’s than he was with St. Michael's. The archbishop had an eagle eye for these reports. He noticed that St. Peter Claver’s repaid $490.62 that they borrowed from St. James. The archbishop saw that Father DeLawder then lent St. Peter Claver’s $704.34. These arrangements reminded the archbishop of a condition in the missions attached to Chaptico. A crossword puzzle looked easy compared to the criss-cross financial transactions in that section. His advice to Father DeLawder was to try to keep himself and Father Horace from getting into a financial condition where they would not recognize one from the other. However, he was sure that Father McKenna could handle intricate matters like that. He was not worried, knowing that they were both doing God’s will.

The war continued to have its affect at St. Michael’s also. One such was the efforts of St. Michael’s High School to raise money for the war effort. The Minute Man Flag, conferred by the Treasury Department on schools engaged in regular purchase of war stamps, was raised at St. Michael’s High School for the first time this week. The ceremony opened with the singing of "America the Beautiful." Father Stoffel, blessed the flag, which the president and vice president of the School Victory Corps, Richard Carroll and Cecilia Ridgell. held. S. Sgt. John LaFarge Willoughby, Class of ‘38, raised the flag to a position just below the American flag. All joined Sgt. Willoughby in the pledge of allegiance and the ceremony closed with the singing of the Star Spangled Banner.

Sensing a time when he would no longer be superior of the house, Father McKenna felt compelled to write to the Provincial in 1944 in order to settle the issue of jurisdiction for the priest in charge of St. Peter’s. His experiences with Father Keihne on some points had not always been happy. Father McKenna wanted to avoid possible conflict in the future. To that end he requested that the Provincial restore to the assignment of the priest stationed at St. Peter’s the notation that stipulated that he had the care of Negroes. For twelve years before Father McKenna became superior, that notation had been included in the assignment of the priest attached to St. Peter’s. When Father McKenna was named superior of the house, that notation was dropped as unnecessary, since as superior he had primary responsibility throughout the parish. Now that his term as superior was coming to an end, he wanted it restored, because it would give him, whatever his canonical position might be in the future, the right of direct care of souls for all the Negroes of the parochial district and missions. Sometimes it might be necessary to exercise this direct care, and unless it was expressed in the appointment, he was afraid it might cause misunderstanding. It is clear that Father McKenna still saw the mission as a canonical whole with the superior having the primary canonical obligation for the pastoral care of all the people, black and white. Nevertheless, he wanted the freedom under obedience to intervene wherever and whenever he felt that his people needed him.

Progress continued to be made with the cooperative ventures. During 1944 the black farmers of the First Election District of St. Mary’s County cultivated 450 acres. Fifty-five percent of this, or 240 acres, was in the village of Scotland, where the cooperative tractor usually was stationed. For six years this farm machinery cooperative gave help that otherwise could not have been gotten to people in land cultivation. Thanks to the tractor cooperative, the tradition of land use was not broken. During the whole life-time of this cooperative the president was Mr. James Bush of St. Inigoes, and the hard-working manager was Mr. Raymond Hewlett, of Scotland.

The Ridge Purchasing and Marking Cooperative held its second annual meeting on Sunday, December l0, 1944 at the Institute. One third of the total membership of thirty-eight was present, together with some visitors. The balance sheet and operating statement for the year were read by the President, Mr. James Bush, of St. Inigoes. The assets were cash in bank amounting to $410.00. The liabilities were $1,352,00 in shares. Reserves totaled $160.00. Repayable profit amounted to ten percent of capital, $250.00. The operating statement showed a patronage total for tractor service of $485. 00 with a reserve of $30.00 to pay a refund, six percent to members, three percent to non-members.

The credit unions also continued to experience slow growth during the last years of the war. At its annual meeting in 1944 the Martin de Porres Credit Union elected Mr. William Carroll, Sr. of Beachville president. By February 1945, the Leonard Ca1vert Federal Credit Union had 120 members with savings of $1,200 and loans at $1,200. The Martin de Porres Federal Credit Union had 170 members with savings of $2,700 and loans of $5,700. But in some private notes that he left, Father McKenna painted a more discouraging picture. In his judgment both credit unions lagged for want of systematic education of membership and officials. In default of Catholic college education cultivation, distracted and non-technological priests like himself found themselves trying to supply guidance, but ended up acting like grandmothers screaming from rocking chairs.

In June, 1945 Father John C. Rawe, S.J., nationally known leader in Catholic rural life, and co-author with Msgr. Luigi Ligutti of Rural Roads to Security joined the staff of the Institute. He came to the Institute in June 1945 from the Arapahoe Indian Mission in Wyoming. He had contracted an infection there and was sent to Ridge in the hope that he could recover his health. When he arrived he found a job cut out for him. The Institute farm consisted of little more than two hundred acres of broom sage, an old gray horse, and the aging farm buildings from the time of Victor Daniel. Single-handedly he set about to rejuvenate the farm.

The parishioners of St. Peter’s who left for the city in search of livelihoods, always kept a special relationship with their "home" parish. Special mention must be made of the outstanding loyalty of the people of St. Catherine's Church, Germantown, Philadelphia. With the help of their generous pastor, Father William Gunville, C.M., Mrs. Frances Gross organized among them the Maryland Claver Club. The purpose of the club was to help Father McKenna make ends meet. When Father Gunville was being transferred from St. Catherine’s, Father McKenna wrote to thank him for his kindnesses during his six years at St. Catherine’s. He had greatly encouraged and benefited the work at Ridge with the Maryland Chicken Suppers which he conducted for it in Germantown.

Father Stoffel, S. J. served as pastor of St. Michael’s for two and a half years. When he was transferred in 1946, Father McKenna recalled that he did much to encourage and advance the school children, particularly the high school boys. He systematized the people’s contribution, and the Jesuit residence finances. He made a careful complete census of the parish, and cared for all the sick unfailingly. He practically modernized the condition of the church, house, convent and schools at St. Michael’s. He kept contact with all classes of his people, their neighbors, and won the respect of all. His successor was Father Merle V. Baldwin, S.J., who also took Father McKenna’s place as superior of the house.

With the end of the war and gas rationing , Saint Ignatius Church ceased to be needed for a regularly scheduled Mass. The building was abandoned to its fate in 1946.

One of the saddest days of the Institute was April 29, 1947, the day Father McKenna was forced to announce on the school bulletin board that Father DeLawder had been found by the doctor to be in a dangerous condition of health and unable to return to his work. Mr. Thomas Kingbury, a member of the faculty that year, accepted the position of acting principal.

On May 16 the man who was simultaneously the Archbishop of Baltimore and the first Archbishop of Washington died. Michael J. Curley died a blind man. For several years his eyes had been progressively failing him. Personally generous in his support to St. Peter’s, he resisted taking steps to address the problem of segregation itself. His death was another sign that an era was coming to an end. In God's providence, thirty-seven year old Father DeLawder was not to recover either. He died at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore on June 9, 1947.

On September 7, 1947 death claimed another valued member of the Institute staff, Father Rawe. He had spent the last fifteen months of his life at the Institute transforming its agricultural program. When he died, the Institute boasted a planned, integrated, family-sized, organic farm with productive and reproductive stock, and well-selected machinery. With his enthusiasm he restored confidence in the land to the students and their families.

Toward the end of 1947, Saint Ann’s, in Carver Heights, was discontinued when Immaculate Heart of Mary Church was opened in Lexington Park. St. Ann’s had never had a building of its own and had used the Carver Heights Recreation Center.

In the first two sections we have traced the legacy of the past that has impeded the Church in effectively evangelizing the United States. The final section is a note of hope. The victory of nationalism, rationalism, and racism over faith contained within the seeds of its reversal. Silently and, at times using unexpected instruments, God has been fighting a battle on the Church’s behalf, sometimes in strange and unexpected ways.

The Enlightenment’s critique of the Bible did not go unanswered. The German Lutherans attempted to up-end the assault on faith by doing what always has to be done when confronted with a seemingly insoluble dilemma. They challenged the presuppositions on which that dilemma rested. Using the tools of literary criticism that the Enlightenment had developed for understanding literature in general, they began to apply them to the Bible. In the process they developed the historical-critical method of reading Scripture. They sought to understand the Bible in its historical context. They tried to reconstruct the way in which it was written. In doing so they shifted the way in which people thought about the Bible. They emphasized the historically conditioned contributions of the human authors, and saw the Scriptures as the work of many persons at different points in time, inspired by God to give meaning to the events in which God was revealing Himself to His people. Instead of seeing the Scriptures as a message dictated to a stenographer from a God who already knows the big picture and in whom there can be no development, they saw a development of thought and theology in the canon of the Scriptures. The books of the Bible appreared to them as the fossil record of revelation, where the thought s and ideas of one ages come to be reevaluated and put in a new context at a later stage in orther books. In this way the historical critics were able to show that the Enlightenment had misunderstood the Bible by reading it apart from its historical context. This meant that the Enlightenment had misread the Bible by failing to take into account the time-conditioned nature of many biblical statements. The conflict the Enlightment thought existed between faith and reason was not real. It was the product of their non-historical, fundamentalistic misreading of Scripture.

The advent of historical criticism proved to be a two-edged sword. It answered the Enlightenment, but it created a crisis for theologians. The bomb the historical critics had constructed to blow up the Enlightenment was bigger than they realized. If what the historical critics had shown about the Enlightenment’s critique of the Bible were true, what of other critiques that others had made in earlier times? What of Luther’s critique of the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century? They had all been based on the same presuppositions that the Enlightenment’s critique of Bible had be based. What brought down one also brought down the other. Luther had been just as fundamentalistic in his reading of Scripture as the Enlightenment. So had the Council of Trent in presenting the Catholic response. In the sixteenth century everyone had been fundamentalistic without knowing it. Theologians now had to rethink the theological basis for the Protestant Reformation, as well as the Catholic Counter Reformation, at least those theologians who accepted the historical-critical method.

The response to this development moved in one of two directions. Some set out to distinguish between the truth that God wished to reveal from the time-conditioned elements. For them the Word of God was not the same thing as the Bible per se. For those whose origins had been based on the belief that the Bible gave us direct access to God, without the need for the Church, these efforts were uncharted waters. They gave rise to Liberal Protestantism. This movement began to question everything that traditional Protestants had considered the core beliefs of Christianity.

Among Protestants, the conservative reaction was to do what the Church has always done in similar circumstances. Without calling it a creed, conservatives produced a creed. In this case, they identified five fundamentals that were to be the touchstone of orthodoxy. This has lead to the paradoxical Those who sought to hold to the fundamentals of Christian belief by rejecting the validity of the historical critical method of biblical exegesis, are known as fundamentalists. These are the intellectual heirs to the Protestant Reformation. The suggestion that the Bible contained the Word of God rather than be that Word appeared to conservatives as heresy.

Among Catholics the reaction came in 1893 with Leo XIII’s Providentissimus Deus and later in 1907 with Pius X’s Pascendi Gregis Domini. Both pontiffs rejected the liberal views stemming from the heady wine of historical criticism, if not the method itself. Pius X was particular aggressive in his suppression of "Modernism," the Catholic equivalent of Liberal Protestantism.

Those Protestants who accepted the historical critical method also saw the need for a measure to validate their attempts to translate the Scriptures, not only from one language to another, but also from one world view to another. This need led to a renewed appreciation of the role of tradition. This in turn put Trent’s answer to the Lutherans in a new light and helped to open the way for dialogue, a way that had been closed for centuries.

The Catholic Church was very slow in accepting the validity of the historical critical method. It finally came in 1943 in Pius XII’s encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu. Catholic theology slowly had begun to realize that the Protestant Biblical scholars of the nineteenth century had stumbled on the key to break the impasse that existed for hundreds of years between Catholics and Protestants. They had discovered that there was development in the canon of Scripture. The historical-critical method did not resolve all difference between Catholics and Protestants. It gave us instead a common language that could be used to move beyond the sterile polemics of the past. It gave Catholics a way of answering Luther’s objections in a way that Trent was not able to do. The fruit of the new ways of thinking is shown in the decrees of the Second Vatican Council.

These developments are on a scale larger and on a level beyond any parish. The immediate and practical consequence of these changes had been an increased ecumenical sensitivity and relationship among local parishes.

History is not ended yet, and we do not know where or how these this issue to play itself out. What it has done so far is to create a greater rapprochement between Catholics and those main-line Protestant churches who have accepted in some degree the insights underlying the historical-critical method.

Epochs can not be neatly divided into chronologically distinct periods. It is possible to go to certain places on the globe today where people are still living in the Stone Age. This is true especially in the world of ideas. It is possible to live your whole life and never realize that you are living two hundred years behind times. Many people live their lives very simply, blissfully unaware of the seachanges of theological worldviews. Others have a greater sophistication, but experience too great a threat. They choose to live in the pre-enlightenment age, and attempt to preserve the possibility of faith by denying validity to the objections of the Enlightenment. They reject the historical-critical method because they do not have a way of validating the results of the criticism. To them it appears that to subject the Bible to historical criticism is to judge the Bible by some other standard of faith. Since the reformers would only acknowledge the Bible as the sole rule of faith, the only available option open to true believers, they believe, is to hold to a literal understanding of the Scriptures. They want their world view taught as a respected option. This is the dilemma that lies behind and fuels the drive to have creationism taught in the public schools. They want to provide their children with an environment that protects them from the attacks against faith first mounted by the Enlightenment almost two hundred and fifty years ago. In this way parents seek to shield their children from having to choose between faith and reason.

The second issue was the victory of racism over faith. The civil rights movement that revolutionized that nation also reached even to the First District of St. Mary’s County. It sought to eliminate the structures of segregation. That change has a history because change only comes concretely. Someone has to change and call others to change. Somebody had to bell the cat. On the level of the diocese that person was Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle. On the local level he was Father Richard McSorley, S.J.. He began to say aloud and with the directness that could not be ignored what McKenna and LaFarge had been saying privately for a long time.

Once the legal structures supporting segregation were done away with, it became evident that there were other structures maintaining the system. They were buried deeply in the psyches of blacks and whites. Racism was built on a deep superiority complex among whites and a deep inferiority complex among blacks. The recovery of our baptismal identity will not be complete until race no longer needs to be the fundamental for our emotional or social security. The conflict between LaFarge and Turner was the playing out of these issues. These same issues were to rise again in the early 1970’s during the tenureand force the resignation of Father Christopher Twohig as pastor.

This third section focuses on this change in thinking. It traces how God has been working to deliver us from the forces that had impeded the evangelization. How the evangelization has advanced to the present day at St. Inigoes, I now invited you to see in Part III, New Ways of Thinking.

In January, 1948 Archbishop Patrick A. O'Boyle took possession of the Cathedral of St. Matthew and the Archdiocese of Washington, newly expanded to included the five counties of Maryland, including St. Mary's County. The curse of segregation lay upon the entire archdiocese producing a dual system of services. St. Peter Claver's functioned as part of that system by supplying facilities that otherwise would not be available to groups in the archdiocese. For example, for many years the ladies of the Martin de Porres Retreat League came to the Institute for an annual three-day closed retreat. In 1948 a second group of men were received. That year also saw the halls, fields, and shores of the Institute re-echo to the happy shouts of 125 boys brought from St. Augustine’s, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Holy Redeemer, and other city parishes in Washington for the St. Vincent de Paul Camp planned by Father James Caulfield and Monsignor John Russell. It was directed by Detective Bernard Johnson, of the Washington Metropolitan Police. The counselors were scholastics of the Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity and of the Salvatorian Society. All of these activities took place as an accommodation to the system of segregation. They were attempts to make the system more humane. But they did not address the underlying attitudinal problem within the white community.

The new archbishop set about to correct this situation. He undertook to eliminate segregation from all aspects of Catholic life in the archdiocese. This same message was also about to be brought to the lower end of the county in a most surprising way. In 1948 a newly ordained priest, Rev. Richard T. McSorley, S.J., came to St. James on his first assignment after ordination. In the providence of God he was to have a far reaching influence in forcing the parish as a whole to come to grips with the serious problem of racial prejudice. As he himself later recalled, he came to St. James filled with much of the same misinformation and prejudices about blacks as many whites did at the time. But a few things happened that opened his eyes. He found a black woman had the job of cleaning the church on Saturday. Without much consideration, he fired her. He wasn’t going to give charity disguised as salary, so he thought. He intended to find a white man to tend the wood stove, but no one was interested. Finally he located one lad who agreed to take the job, but his performance was irregular. There were times when Father McSorley would arrive for confessions on Saturday only to find the church freezing. He soon found that the job was back in his lap. Then, suddenly, without any encouragement from him, he found that someone else was making the fire. When Father McSorley found out that Mr. Aloysius Butler was making the fires, he was stunned. Mr. Butler was the husband of the lady who had been fired. But one shock was quickly followed by another. When Father McSorley volunteered to pay Mr. Butler, the answer he received was: "Father, you can’t do that. I want to do this for God!" Father McSorley never recovered from that comment. It opened his eyes, challenged his whole view of the racial situation and gradually led him to realize that he had a responsibility to open the eyes of others.

While all of this was going on, yet another project dear to the hearts of many people in the county was taking shape, the work of restoring and preserving the old Saint Ignatius Church. In 1948, a local historian, Mr. Edwin Beitzell, visited the church and found it deteriorating rapidly due to disuse. He communicated this fact to Father Edward A. Ryan, S.J., Archivist of the Maryland Province, professor of European history at Woodstock College and the editor of the Woodstock Letters. He pleaded with Father Ryan not to allow the church to fall into ruins and the forest to reclaim its ancient cemetery where rested so many of Maryland’s great priests and outstanding laymen. To Beitzell, old St. Ignatius cried out to be saved, as it waited, forlorn and sad, ready to be swallowed up in a wilderness. Father Ryan communicated this plea to the provincial, who requested Father Laurence J. Kelly, S.J., to investigate the situation. The result was that Father McSorley was given the assignment of restoring the old church.

On June 5, 1949, Father McKenna organized an observance of the silver jubilee of the opening of the Institute and the arrival of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. The Very Reverend John S. Spence, representing Archbishop O’Boyle celebrated a Solemn Mass in St. Peter’s Church. Father Scanlon, the former pastor, served as deacon and preached. Former parishioners and students from Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia were in attendance. The students of both the grammar and high schools re-enacted the arrival of the Oblate Sisters and the founding of the Institute. The presentation of the old scenes touched many in the audience of three hundred. The roll call of graduates found many on hand to walk again across the academic stage, some with more effort than once before.

The program on the decorated porch of the Institute included the graduation ceremonies for both schools. The high school graduates, Miss Emma Marie Greene, and Miss Lillian Cecilia Young, spoke on Christianity in Action. There were twelve graduates of the elementary school, and three others received certificates of effort. As he had done many times before, Father LaFarge gave the graduation address. His message was an often repeated one. All schools, he said, were in a common cause, the building of a common world for our fellow children of God. This meant that cooperation was the only plan. Mother Mary Damian, O.S.P., the Assistant General Superior of the Oblate Sisters and a former principal of St. Peter Claver’s School, represented her congregation. As part of the jubilee, Father McKenna produced a history of the parish and the Institute that highlighted the place of blacks in the three hundred years of the parish’s history. He entitled it: Twin Silver Jubilees.

In September 1949 the Institute hosted the First Annual Fair of the Farmer’s and Homemaker’s Association of St. Mary’s County. This high-quality exhibit by a group of 340 contributing members highlighted the social and economic progress of the black people of St. Mary’s County. It also showed the constant patient fostering work of the Extension Department of the University of Maryland then represented by the local county agent, Mr. Milburne Hill, and in Home Economics, Miss Naomi Turner. By featuring skilled products of the near neighborhood, the fair indicated the results of the Institute’s twenty-five year old program of local extension training and adult education. Since the time of Governor Ritchie and lasting for over twenty-five years the State of Maryland had been helping the extension work begun by Mr. Daniel.

In July 1950 St. Mary's County got its first full-time colored extension agent, Mr. Ryland Holmes. The work, formerly done largely through the Institute, was now spread county-wide with new professional leadership. The Institute continued, however, to assist the County Agent in every way it could.

Health work in collaboration with the St. Mary’s County Public Health Department was a constant feature of the Institute program also. It sponsored various clinics. The most unfailing one was the monthly pre-school clinic that kept the children of the First District ahead of the others in obtaining their vaccinations. The Institute’s local leader, Mrs. Mary Barnes Marshall Johnson, served as a contact person between specialist clinics and consultation services provided at Leonardtown and the public. All of this work was done on a segregated basis.

The first attempt to address the issue of segregation directly took place in September 1950. Father McSorley announced that the Sunday roller skating at St. James Hall (the old St. Alphonsus School) would be on an "open", non-segregated basis for that season. Most of the white parents objected to this arrangement. In spite of this initially negative reaction, Father McSorley stuck to his position. This stand was the direct cause of the first wide-open, "no holds barred" discussion of the racial situation that had ever taken place since the events of Christmas, 1902. It occurred at the end of a planning meeting for the St. James White Festival. For two hours Father McSorley was the uncomfortable object of the ire of those gathered for the meeting, until one brave woman asked: "Why don’t we admit we’re wrong?" The others were not prepared then to do that, but the seeds for further reflection were sown. Later, because of this discussion a number of the white parishioners declared themselves disturbed by segregation. Father McSorley encouraged them to discuss and study the issue further. Thus in November 1950, he formed the Saint Robert Bellarmine Study Club. Father McSorley also organized the St. Augustine Study Club, a companion study club among black Catholic leaders in the county. These clubs helped to develop leadership in the area of race relations that would serve the county well in the months and years to come.

By the late 1940’s everybody recognized that Saint Michael’s Hall had long since passed the point of suitability and needed to be replaced. As a consequence, Father Baldwin undertook to build a modern school building. This work reached a successful conclusion when Archbishop O'Boyle dedicated a new building for Saint Michael's School on December 10, 1950. After vesting in the gym at a portable altar, Archbishop O’Boyle immediately went through the school blessing each room. He paused to bless the first crucifix to be hung in the school. Father Alfred Kienle, S.J., the pastor of St. Aloysius Church, Washington, D.C. was the main speaker for the event. The archbishop repeated Father Kienle’s theme, congratulating the people for the personal sacrifices they had made to build the new school. The archbishop then officiated at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Father Gregory Kiehne returned for the day to assisted as deacon for Benediction. Father Baldwin was subdeacon. A large choir under the direction of Sr. Charles, S.S.J. sang the Benediction hymns. Afterwards, the archbishop publicly thanked Mr. Benjamin O. Unkle of St. Inigoes for his work in constructing the school. He had already thanked Mr. John Walton of Washington, the architect for the school. Mr. Walton and his father were in the audience, as was Benny Unkle and his family. After the ceremonies the Ladies of Charity under the direction of Mrs. "Queenie" Willis served the archbishop and invited guests a luncheon in the rectory.

Father LaFarge was invited to attend, but was unable to come. He sent a long letter of regret to Father Baldwin in which he shared some of his thoughts on the occasion. Great as everybody’s happiness on this occasion would be, he believed that only those who had known St. Michael’s School from its beginning under Father Emerick would feel its full significance. At the time the school was first begun it was located in St. Michael’s Hall. No one then imagined that its classes would continue to be held for some thirty years in those cramped quarters, with all their attendant inconveniences. No one foresaw how the school would grow under the wonderful care and teaching of the Sisters of St. Joseph, and what a strain this increase would make. Father LaFarge recalled the courageous little band of women who volunteered their services to the school for two years, under the leadership of Dr. Caroline R. Martin, paving the way for the coming of the Sisters themselves. He sent his congratulations to those of them who were present for the dedication. He congratulated the principal, Mother M. Juliana, and all the Sisters at St. Joseph’s Convent, as well as Father Baldwin who had the courage to launch out into deep waters with this project. Father LaFarge reminded the parish that they could not expect their pastor to work miracles. He had still much to overcome before he could relax and say that the work of building the new school was done. Lastly Father LaFarge congratulated the parents who were old pupils of the school, as well as Mr. Gatton, the faithful bus driver who over the years had faithfully carried the precious load of scholars over the roads.

Father LaFarge knew that the winds of change were blowing for the schools. The work of desegregation begun in Washington would eventually make its way to Ridge. He wanted to ease the transition. He reminded them that change was a part of life. The county was opening up to the outside world as never before. The steadily increasing population signaled even more changes. Some would be slight and hardly noticeable. Others would be startling. The one change for which he hoped and prayed was that more and more in St. Mary's County -- and especially inside the Catholic Church -- everything that separated the races be abolished. In this way they could show themselves outwardly, as well as inwardly, to be children of one Sheepfold and one Shepherd. He foresaw that some of these changes would be hard for the people of the county to make, or hard to suffer. Better, he thought, to suffer the loss of a few pet likes and dislikes, than to perpetuate division and rancor among the children of the one God. Unfortunately there is no indication in the accounts of the dedication ceremony indicating whether anyone read his letter.

Mother Juliana did not have long to enjoy the new building. During Holy Week she felt a pain in her chest, but put off the suggestion to see the doctor by saying, "after Easter." Then on Holy Thursday, as she stood at the convent door on her way to church, she collapsed and died. It was 2 p.m. on March 22, 1951, when they called Father Baldwin to administer the last rites.

As Father LaFarge had foreseen, Archbishop O’Boyle pressed forward with the work of desegregating the schools even though his efforts met much misunderstanding from those who had been raised in another tradition. The reaction in St., Mary's County was no exception. This concern about the possible integration of the parish schools gave rise to an unfortunate incident on April 20, a month after Mother Juliana's death.

Father Baldwin was away in Erie, visiting his parents. Father McSorley offered the 6:30 Mass for the pious now numbering about a dozen. Father McKenna asked the St. Michael’s Sisters to let all the children of both schools come together at St. Michael’s Church, for the usual Friday Mass. This had been done the year before. Some of the high school boys were unwilling to enter the church. Sr. Paul of the Cross had to bring one in by the coat. After the Mass, half the high school went home, and about fifty of the grammar school children were taken by their parents or went home. Lloyd Bean saw Father McKenna down the road and demanded an explanation. Father McKenna told him that there were three scheduled Masses and only two priests. Bean told him that a delegation of men would see him that night. They agreed to meet at 7:30 that night. That afternoon was busy. Word of the incident spread like wildfire. The activists began talking with one another about what they would do. They set up a public meeting at the old firehouse and proposed to march over to the church to take possession of the school and demand that "all this stuff" stop. Father McSorley was gleeful and thought that the prospect of a confrontation was "great". He thought that at last this was an opportunity to confront segregation head-on as he had done at St. James. He wanted to tape record the proceedings and suggested that they find a way of putting out the lights quickly and of turning off the heat as protective measures. He argued that the organizers of the meeting were not asking permission. They were simply taking over. Horace agreed that they should not be allowed to "just take over." He suggested that they try to get Colonel Lawrence L. Cobb, a level-headed, retired military officer, and other more liberal-minded people to attend the meeting. In this way he hoped to provide a moderating counterbalance. Colonel Cobb agreed to attend. He managed to have himself put on the committee guiding the meeting. Father McSorley telephoned some of his supporters, including members of the Saint Robert Bellarmine Club. He invited them to attend an "interesting meeting." Frederick McCoy, a parishioner of St. Michael’s, became alarmed in the late afternoon. He reported his fears that Father McSorley was in danger to Father Morgan Downey, S.J., the pastor of Holy Face in Great Mills and Father Edward Kerr, formerly pastor of St. Michael’s and now pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary in Lexington Park. They in turn called the provincial in Baltimore. His assistant, Father Long, took the call. Since everyone considered Father McSorley the root of the problem, Father Long directed Father Downey to tell Father McSorley to go to Great Mills immediately. He was to call Father Long on a secure phone, and spend the night there. McSorley did as directed, and left before the meeting fully gathered at St. Michael's new Hall

Meanwhile at 7:00 that night an indignant meeting gathered at the fire house at Ridge. It soon became menacing.. At the fire house were heard such statements as "Where’s the priest? We’ll go get him and bring him here." The hoodlum spirits were present, but Colonel Cobb and Frederick McCoy helped to maintain calm.

When the meeting gathered, Father McKenna suggested that the meeting begin with prayer, for which the chairman called on him. Then the fireworks began. Someone said that he would keep separate from Negroes, and to do this he was prepared to die. There were cheers and stamping. Another man got up and said that since Father McKenna and Father McSorley had come around there was nothing but trouble. He was the only one who threw a rock in his words. When called on Father McKenna explained that there were three scheduled Masses and two priests. He then sat down. Ray Czarra spoke on the general theme of Our Lord’s words "suffer the little children to come unto me." He added another word or two and sat down, amidst booing. When it became evident that further talk would gain nothing, Col. Cobb and Fred McCoy moved the adjournment of the meeting. Father Baldwin came home next day, and on Sunday he succeeded in calming things enough to have all the children return to school. However there was still a demand for the removal of Father McSorley. The black people, led by Mr. Elias Gant, prepared a counter petition to submit to the archbishop.

With his gentle words and non-responsive answers Father McKenna had defused the situation. However, in the minds of many the blowup gave further credibility to Father Baldwin’s hands-off approach. It destroyed Father McSorley as an effective agent of change even though he had nothing at all to do with the incident. To a lesser extentd Father McKenna suffered the same fate. The archbishop responded to this development by requesting the provincial of the Jesuits to make no transfers for at least a year. He was concerned that the Church not be seen as intimidated by this kind of pressure. The provincial agreed, but the clock was ticking.

Shortly after he had received the assignment to restore St. Ignatius Church in 1950 Father McSorley asked an eleven year old girl to paint some signs with arrows pointing to the church to direct people to it. In the Fall of that year Rear Admiral Malcolm F. Schoeffel happened by chance upon one of those signs. He paid a visit to the church. When he saw its run-down condition, he too felt that it was a sad end to a glorious past. He decided to take some action. Together with Captain Charles Loomis Lee, he spoke to the Catholic chaplain at the Patuxent Naval Air Base, Father Bernard Cunningham, and the Protestant Chaplain, Rev. Mr. Tower. Together they interested a number of volunteers from the Navy personnel. A Saturday or so afterwards, this battalion descended on the church with sickles and began the work of cleaning up the church yard. Every Saturday morning and usually every Tuesday evening they worked, hanging up electric lines for their after-dark work. The fence along the church property received a new coat of aluminum paint. They cleared away the bushes and undergrowth in the cemetery and resurrected fallen tombstones. They replastered the interior walls of the church and sacristy. After they washed them down, they repainted them the same color they were before. One of the volunteers who was an artist, Miss Mary Fahland renewed the stenciling.

Father McSorley did his little bit too. He penned a small pamphlet on the history of the church. This work aroused interest and brought in contributions amounting to about a thousand dollars. These funds helped to provide a new roof, replace the small bell-tower, and repair the stain glass windows. In addition the pews and the altar received a coat of white paint which they had not had before. Father McKenna privately bemoaned that as the altarpiece had been cherry wood before.

During the period of its neglect, the statue of Our Lady had fallen from the wall and suffered the fate of Humpty Dumpty. The Navy volunteer who had renewed the stenciling contacted one of her friends, Mr. Max Hyder who worked for Daprato of Chicago, a firm specializing in religious art, and interested him in the fate of the statue. He spent his vacation at St. Inigoes during the summer of 1951, rebuilding the fallen statue, smashed into sixty-five pieces. After his return to Chicago, he answered Father McKenna's letter of thanks by saying that any thanks to be extended should come from him. He felt his little bit of work there was poor payment for what he received from the whole experience. He was deeply grateful not only for the hospitality, but also for the spiritual guidance and counsel he had received. He felt that he really profited by his stay at Saint Peter’s. The day he returned to work in Daprato’s studio in Chicago, he discovered a statue exactly like the one he had fixed at St. Ignatius. She had come in for repair and repainting during the time he was working on the one at St. Inigoes. This was unusual. The old timers told him they used to get that model in quite a bit but this is the first one in many years. The one in Daprato’s, unlike the one at St. Inigoes, had a date on the back of the base -- A. Pellegrini 1880 -- 39 Franklin Street -- Buffalo. The St. Inigoes statue would not necessarily be the same date but Hyder thought that chances were that it would be within ten years either way. It is possible that she was not added until the 1900 decoration job. Hyder thought she was older. The head was much better than the one he rebuilt. Generally it was the same otherwise. He promised to get pictures of her before she was returned. Now that he knew what she should look like he wanted to redo the head and shoulders and then take a very thin casting of her to put on the bracket.

His labor of love still graces the walls of the old church.

In addition to dealing with segregation, one of the first tasks the archbishop set about to do when he first came to Washington was to erect canonically all the parishes and to settle all boundary questions. He began with the District of Columbia and then did each county in Maryland. In the fall of 1951, he wrote to all the pastors of St. Mary's County to inform them of his intentions. Before Archbishop Curley’s time, the superior of the Jesuit house had been considered the "pastor" of all the missions also. Due, however, to the extent to which the missions had developed as separate units, Archbishop Curley preferred to deal with the priest in charge of the mission directly. Parish structures, however, were never defined. Affairs were conducted on an informal basis.

Ever since the transfer of the residence from the manor to Ridge, there had existed a certain ambiguity regarding the standing of the parochial arrangements. Was there only one parish? Or were St. Peter’s and St. Michael's separate parishes? In some ways they functioned as separate parishes and yet in other ways they did not. What was the standing of St. James? It was in the unique position of depending on both St. Peter’s and St. Michael's. For years these questions had never been addressed. There had never existed any boundaries or decrees of erection defining the parochial situation. The de facto situation was that the "pastor" of St. Michael’s had responsibility for whites and the "pastor" of St. Peter’s had responsibility for blacks. Normally the Superior of the house was "pastor" of Saint Michael’s. But this was not the case for the nine years that Father McKenna was superior. From the stand point of canon law, there was great confusion.

In a letter to the superior of the house at Ridge, Father Baldwin, Father Edward Herrmann, the assistant chancellor, announced the archbishop’s intentions of canonically defining four parishes: St. Michael's, Ridge; St. Peter Claver's, Ridge, St. James, St. Mary's City; and St. Ignatius, Beachville. He asked each priest to submit suggestions of what should be done. Father Baldwin informed the chancery that St. Ignatius was no longer being used as a mission. So the list was shortened to three. What should happen to the three was then the subject of diverse views.

Father McKenna favored a one-parish policy. He wanted St. Peter Claver’s closed, the church turned into a community hall, the cemetery fenced in, and the entire parish centralized at St. Michael’s. He stated his views in a strongly worded memorandum composed for the provincial in the Spring of 1952. He recited for him the fact that blacks had been a part of the mission from the very beginning. This union of whites and blacks at religious services had been broken in the parish now including St. Mary's City when an angry disagreement at the beginning of this century brought the black people to the sodality hall. This resulted in the worst division, the greatest distrust, the most unfriendly feelings of whites towards blacks even in church, that were found, it seemed, anywhere in St. Mary’s County. Father McKenna could only agree that the curse of segregation seemed to be on Ridge. It discouraged worship, weakened morality, blighted the education and crushed the economy in uncatholic maintenance of a double system of everything. He felt that when Christians were divided it was doubtful if Jesus were with them. In his desire to end segregation by closing St. Peter’s, Father McKenna ran counter to the opinion of the parishioners of St. Peter’s. Agree with him as they might about the need to act against segregation, given the memories they had acquired over the years, they did not want to abandon St. Peter Claver’s. He found no supporters at St. Peter’s for his one parish policy.

Father McSorley favored a one-parish policy also, but with a little different twist. He wanted St. James to be the center. He was afraid that if St. Michael's were the center, the pastor would too easily see things from the standpoint of whites only. St. James, with its mixed congregation, would force the pastor to deal with both communities.

Father Baldwin was completely opposed to any change in the status quo. He did not even submit a response to the chancery. Father Edward Herrmann wrote to tell him that if they did not hear from him soon they would proceed according to their own judgment. In the end Father Baldwin proposed to limit the damage as much as possible by running a line on a north-south axis along Route 235. Father McKenna did not object.

In the end the Archbishop thought better of all these solutions. In a letter to all the parishes of St., Mary's County on May 17, 1952, he announced his intention "to make the proper arrangements and disposition so that the parishes in St. Mary's County may proceed as separate jurisdictions." This meant that St. Peter Claver’s, St. Michael’s and St. James would be separate territorial parishes.

Father McKenna welcomed these arrangements. He felt that a separate territory would remove the notion that Saint Peter Claver’s Church was a "group" or "Negro" parish. This arrangement was more in accord with Canon 216. A distinct parish territory seems to him to end, at least juridically, a near-schism and a scandal. It corrected the idea lodged in the minds of many that there were separate churches for separate groups on the basis of race in Ridge. Such a separation had never been sanctioned by any archbishop. It was a mistaken impression that had grown out of the activity of some uncharitable people, the inactivity of good people, and the inherited sore on a society recognizing persons as chattels. Separate schools later grew out of the churches.

In June of 1952 St. Peter’s parish had the joy of learning that the Oblate Sisters of Providence, who had been teaching in the grammar school since 1924, were now going to assume responsibility for the high school as well. The decision to entrust the Institute to the Sisters signaled a major shift in the mission of the Institute. Victor Daniel’s vision for the Institute had been based on the belief that the future for the area lay in agriculture. Father McKenna had tried to foster the same dream with the cooperatives and agriculturally based curriculum. The financial help from the State of Maryland continued until 1952 when Father McKenna recommended that it be discontinued. By then it was apparent even to Father McKenna that he had been "watering a dead stick". The opening of the base changed forever the basis of the economy of lower St. Mary’s County. It was not to be in farming, but the technical and support services needed by the Navy. The need for the future lay in academic studies. The Cardinal Gibbons Institute now became the Cardinal Gibbons High School.

Father McKenna had cherished from the early 1940’s the dream that the Oblates would teach in the high school. Each time he made inquiries, he was told that the Oblates did not have the personnel available. Their willingness to come at this juncture made for a bitter-sweet irony. His own thinking had changed. He wanted to see the integration of the schools. To him the Sisters -- as welcomed as they were -- would only serve to keep the old system alive when he wanted to see it dismantled. He accepted the decision even though he regretted it. He supervised the addition of a rear wing of the convent to accommodate the new Sisters. Construction began on July 16, 1952, and was completed within a few weeks.

On Christmas Day, 1952 an emotionally disturbed youth set the Institute barn set afire and burned it to the ground. This put the coffin lid on the agricultural efforts of the Institute. The fields were abandoned and the forest reclaimed its own.

Another sign of the end of an era was the dissolution of the Martin de Porres Credit Union in 1952. It was the last of the cooperatives. Mr. Calvert D. Barnes became the president in 1949. It had reached its greatest strength when savings reached $5,000, but with post-World War II prosperity a gradual decline set in for the unions since more opportunities for credit became available. Now that it had served the purpose for which it was formed, the remaining members voted to dissolve it.

That summer Father McSorley was transferred from St. James. It was a consequence of the unpleasantness of the previous year. Father McKenna for the fourth time had charnge of this mission. Part of that responsibility was the implementation of the new decrees establishing the parishes as distinct jurisdictions. This proved a very difficult task, since not everyone accepted their prudence. Father Baldwin opposed even publicizing them, to say nothing of implementing them in practice. Father McSorley did publish them at St. James and even published the boundaries for St. Peter Claver’s. In July Father McKenna informed the archbishop that Father McSorley had distributed copies of a map delineating the limits without arousing even a comment. Father McKenna asked Father Baldwin if he considered it opportune for him to do the same regarding St. Peter Claver's. Baldwin replied that if he made clear the parish lines and their implications he would be throwing flames around. This lead to a policy deadlock between the two pastors. Father Baldwin had mentioned that the provincial might reassign him shortly. If that happened, Father McKenna was hoping that the archbishop would encourage his replacement to publish the parish lines. At the very least he hoped the new arrangements would become apparent by the very fact that the new pastor ministered equally to all, whites and Negroes alike, living within the parish limits. McKenna wanted him to abolish, as prudently as possible, segregated seating in church. This practice had long been a fertile seedbed of scandal. He hoped that someday soon this would also extend to religious education. With a rhetorical flourish he ended his letter with a typical Horatian peroration: "Then the mind of Our Holy Father will be carried out, and he (i.e., the new pastor) will be throwing flames around, but they will be those Our Lord came to cast on earth, and which He wants enkindled."

In September the anticipated transfer of Father Baldwin took place. Father Samuel Robb, S.J., took his place. Making a shift in his thinking about how to handle the situation at Ridge, the archbishop appointed Father Robb to be the pastor of all three churches. Father McKenna wrote on August 28 to Father Philip Hannan, the Chancellor, to request that when the diocesan newspaper announced the appointment of the new pastor for St. Michael’s, it be made clear that he was to be pastor of all three parishes. Since May 17, when the archbishop announced by letter to the three priests at St. Michael's that the three churches were "separate jurisdictions", the people in St. James at least, and some at St. Peter Claver's, had understood that their churches were fully canonical parishes. An announcement of the return at Ridge to the old system would make these people see that their pastors were correct in their initial information, but that there has been a change later. As a result of this change, Father McKenna then became the assistant in charge of the pastoral needs of St. Peter's and St. James, while Father Robb had the administrative responsibilities for the parish and the Institute. As Father McKenna commented jokingly: "He is teaching me to pass money through both hands before throwing it away."

The interest shown by the Navy personnel in the restoration of St. Ignatius Church sparked a similar interest by local residents. A group that called themselves the Restores of Saint Ignatius organized several rummage sales and raised over $1,500 for the maintenance of the church. On October 13, 1952, this group met in "Hollyfields", the home of Mrs. Cecile Cherbonnier of Saint Mary's City. Under her leadership they organized themselves permanently as the "Society for the Preservation of St. Ignatius Church".

Father McSorley was gone now, but the racial situation was as intractable as ever. Father McKenna tried to fill the void. Strangely, Father McSorley had become a second mentor to Father McKenna, and he wanted to keep the study clubs going. He could see their value. Progress was slow, though. The study club had not expanded. Father McKenna wondered if they should change the name to "Catholic Committee in St. Mary's County". After long discussion, the club decided not to change, lest they look like sole and exclusive Catholics. Instead they decided to try to get But we are trying to get study club out into the livingfront rooms of homes.

During Novena of Grace in March 1953 during a sermon at St. Michael’s Father McKenna spoke of intergroup charity, and read the regularion of Raleigh and New Orleans. Though he did not identify any particular group, he did not have to. One person afterwards got mad. Someone commented about how the priests make trouble in the parish. Father McKenna was shedding his image of "Joe Mouse".

Father McSorley lost no time to write back and thank him for his letter with all the good news. The old place had a permanent place in his affections that he did not realize was there till he left.

He congratulated Father McKenna on not being "Joe Mouse" that helps nobody. In as much as you are "Joe Mouse" you are not like Christ. He felt that needling at the novena, or rather that preaching of justice and charity, by reading the letters from North Carolina and Louisiana proved that he was more like Christ than like "Joe Mouse".

The work of restoring St. Ignatius Church came to a happy conclusion on April 25, 1953, with a special Mass of Thanksgiving offered by Father McKenna at the newly decorated church.

In July, 1953, the twenty-two years of being "like Christ" came to a end for Father McKenna. He had served the parish longer than any priest in this century. He left behind the memory of selfless service and unstinting generosity to the poor and needy. His name will forever by revered and inseparably linked with the history of this parish.

Father Charles Schorr, S.J. succeeded Father McKenna. His eyes began to give him trouble shortly after he arrived. Due to his illness, he was only able to stay about six months.

On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court handed down its historic ruling in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas. This ruling outlawing segregation in public education was to have as profound effect on this parish as it did on the nation as a whole. But it took time before it was felt.

On June 1, 1954 the Executive Committee of the Society for the Preservation of St. Ignatius Church held its first meeting of the year at "Hollyfields", the home of Cecile Cherbonnier. They were planning a major emergency repair of damage to the building. The floors had rotted from age and an invasion of termites. Visitors who braved the dust that summer had a chance to see the hand hewn posts that supported the balcony. When the workers removed the altar and ripped up the floor boards, they uncovered a large brick platform or fireplace. Its origins or uses could not be definitely determined.

That summer the hard-working and energetic Paul J. Rock, S.J. arrived at St. Peter’s to continue the work of Father McKenna. No sooner had he arrived than he tore down the old Sodality Hall. It had fallen into a state beyond repair. The site was abandoned and the forest soon reclaimed it also. All that remains to mark the site are the stones and tree stumps that were the foundations

Coming out of the Jesuit educational tradition, Father Rock was unlike any pastor St. Peter Claver’s had known. He was a teacher and school administrator. He quickly turned his energies to the development of the Cardinal Gibbons High School. He felt that the best way to attack the racial problem lay in educating the future generation. Due to his enthusiasm and leadership the high school attained its highest point of development and enrollment by the early 1960’s. At the same time changes in the patterns of segregation were beginning to change the context in which the schools functioned.

That Fall the Preservation Society held another of its rummage and bake sale in the Community Building in Lexington Park to raise money to defray the renovations being made to St. Ignatius Church. Its success far exceeded expectations. These sales became for many years a regular feature of life in the county.

On May 20, 1956, Archbishop O’Boyle made his move to desegregate the Catholic schools in Southern Maryland. In all the churches of the area he ordered the pastors to announce that the following September all the schools would accept students without regard to race for grades one and two. It was an announcement that had long been anticipated. The first public reaction came two days later when a crowd of about eight persons showed up for the weekly meeting of the county commissioners in Leonardtown. They demanded that the commissioners do something to stop the integration. The commissioners told the group that it was a matter for the Church, not the county government. The following Monday, parents of the children of Father Andrew White School in Leonardtown met with Father Morgan Downey, S.J., to discuss the school’s plans for integration. He had moved from Holy Face to become the pastor of St. Aloysius in Leonardtown. Father James Wilkerson, S.J., the new pastor of Holy Face Church in Great Mills, was the person the archbishop chose as his agent in dealing with the desegregation of the schools in St. Mary’s County. He issued a clarification explaining that the two colored schools, St. Peter Claver’s School in Ridge and St. Joseph’s School in Morganza, would continue to operate. The other parochial schools would treat any Negro child who wished to transfer to the first or second grades from these schools or any other school in the county in the same way as any white child.

The integration of the parochial schools began to have a ripple effect. St. Mary’s County was supplying bus transportation for the students of these schools at that time. As this service was on a segregated basis, the move to integrate the parochial school raised the political sensitive issue of the bus routes. Father Wilkerson met with the county commissioners to officially notify them of the change in archdiocesan policy. He said that he would not request any change in the present parochial school bus arrangements. He preferred to leave those initiatives to the commissioners. As far as the Archdiocese was concerned, it would be up to the parents of Negro children to arrange transportation.

Sister Cornelia, O.S.P., spearheaded the formation of the award-winning St. Peter Claver Drum and Bugle Corp. It made its debut on Sunday, May 27, in St. Peter Claver School Auditorium in conjunction with the annual May Procession. Despite the inclement weather, a large crowd was on hand to see the ten majorettes and nineteen buglers and drummers. Students from both the elementary and high school participated.

The next Sunday the high school had its annual commencement. The principal speaker was Dr. William Burbridge, Administrator of Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.. Nine students received their diplomas. Shirley Green was the valedictorian and Lloyd Butler the saludictorian.

Early in June a group of Negro parents petitioned the county commissioners to desegregate the bus system to allow their the Negro children to attend the parochial schools. The commissioners referred the group to Father Wilkerson. Those who want segregation also made their views known. The commissioners found themselves with a hot potato. They decided to meet with the archbishop to find a solution to the problem of the bus system. On June 14 the archbishop met with them in his office in Washington. The commissioners had asked Father Wilkerson to accompany them. The meeting lasted four hours. Attending were the chairman, Leonard Alvey, and Commissioners Bryon Guy and Ernest Stone. Members of the legislative delegation to Annapolis were also there, State Senator Joseph A. Mattingley, Delegate Frank A. Combs, and Delegate J. Frank Raley. At the conclusion of the meeting the archbishop asked all to say nothing to the press.

Meanwhile the archdiocese was trying to secure support for the changes among the parents of school children. To that end on Monday, June 18, Father Wilkerson, Msgr. Philip Hannon, the chancellor, and Msgr. John Spence, of the Office of Education, met with the parents of Little Flower School in Great Mills. There was a general discussion in which the three priests tried to allay fears of integration. In many parishes explanations were not enough. Committees hastily formed to protest. The following Friday, June 22, Archbishop O’Boyle met with a committee of ten representing various parishes to hear their complaints. He promised that he would investigate further and give an answer later. Once again Msgr. Hannon, Msgr. Spence, and Father Wilkerson were part of the meeting. Three members of the county group returned to Washington on July 5 for his answer. The archbishop told them that he had investigated the situation and had determined that their concerns were "ill-founded" and their ideas "exaggerated". Not taking "no" for an answer, the group scheduled a mass meeting on July 19 in the Courthouse at Leonardtown to plan the next move to stop integration. About two hundred and fifty persons showed up. Oliver Guyther, a Leonardtown lawyer, presided. He asked each committee to report on its plans. The group finally named a committee to seek an audience with the Apostolic Delegate to appeal the decision of the archbishop. The group wrote to the delegate and waited for his reply. The delegate wrote to them on July 28, recommending that they "follow the decision made by the ecclesiastical authorities." With that answer, the overt opposition dissolved.

On Sunday, July 29 Father Rock offered Mass at St. Ignatius Church to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the death of St. Ignatius. The Society for the Preservation of St. Ignatius Church sponsored the event. Mrs. Douglas Lawrence, Mrs. Lawrence Cobb, and Mrs. Cecile Charbonnier made the arrangements. Two days later, Archbishop O’Boyle was in Leonardtown to participate in a similar event on the grounds of St. Mary’s Academy. Not a word was mentioned of the uproar of the last few days. Father William T. Moloney, S.J., the Maryland provincial offered the Mass.

That summer the provincial appointed Father William McGarry, S.J., the new pastor of St. Michael's and superior of the house. Since the pastorates of the three parishes were combined, at least in theory, this meant that he was also the "pastor" of St. Peter's with Father Rock as the "priest-in-charge".

The archbishop was back down in the county November 6 for the fiftieth anniversary of the final vows of Sister Collette Cordova, O.S.P.. A native of Havana, Cuba, she had entered the novitiate of the Oblate Sisters in 1904 and made final vows in 1906. Since 1935 she had served as the housekeeper in the convent at St. Peter’s. The archbishop offered Mass at St. Peter’s at 10:15 a.m.. Father McKenna returned for the day.

Father Rock said Midnight Mass at St. Ignatius Church that December. It was the first time in many years that the church had such a celebration of the birth of the Savior.

From the standpoint of cannon law the arrangement whereby one person was pastor of three parishes was irregular. It eventually led to conflict between the two priests over how best to deal with the racial situation. Father McGarry was assuring the people of St. Michael’s that nothing would be done to upset the racial status quo. For his part, Father Rock objected to having his hands tied by Father McGarry. Archbishop O'Boyle resolved the problem on February 2, 1957 by reconstituting a separate pastorate for St. Peter's parish and officially appointing Father Rock to that position. At the same time Father Rock continued in charge of St. James Church.

The high school produced a yearbook every year from 1958 to 1963. The Oblate Sisters of Providence worked tirelessly to make the high school excel. In this regard Father Rock wrote to Mother William, the Superior General of the Oblates in Baltimore on May 21, 1958. He wanted to express his sincere gratitude for the splendid cooperation which the Sisters have shown throughout the school year. The work in the school was progressing rapidly and was manifesting itself in the Community. Often the students of other schools in the vicinity, especially St. Mary's Academy and St. Michael's High School, had complimented the students of Cardinal Gibbons High School. Father Rock felt this could not but help to have its effect in the years to come. He attributed this to the splendid training that the Sisters gave to the students of the school. Without exception, he felt, the zeal, enthusiasm and hard work of the Sisters was a great source .of edification to all.

Focused as he was on the school, Father Rock looked to education as the way to bring about the end of segregation. He despaired of ever finding a way out of the social segregation. He had parishioners who lived within the boundaries of St. Michael’s parish, and did not see anything to be lost by making the de jure situation the same as the de facto situation. This way he could act for the benefit of his parishioners without any interference from the pastor of St. Michael’s. So on August 13, 1958, a little over a year and a half after the separate pastorate was restored to St. Michael’s and St. Peter’s, Archbishop O'Boyle issued new decrees amending the parish boundaries to include all the territory formerly assigned to St. Michael's and likewise expanded St. Michael's parish to include all of St. Peter's parish. The parishes were now co-extensive, but not a word about race was mentioned in the decrees. On the surface neither one knew about the existence of the other.

Father LaFarge returned to St. Mary’s County on Sunday, November 22, 1959, to mark the three hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Maryland. His friend, Colonel John Hinckel, head of Religious Heritage of America, a national interfaith group, organized the affair and invited him to speak. Father LaFarge accepted on the condition that there be no segregation. Hinckel agreed. Father LaFarge celebrated the 9:00 a.m. Mass at St. Peter Claver’s that Sunday and afterwards invited the congregation to attend the commemoration at St. Mary’s City. A large number accepted, and the affair went off without a hitch, save one. The rector of Trinity Church in St. Mary’s City, Rev. H.. Stuart Irvin, local Episcopal clergyman refusnded to attend and give the benediction as he had been invited to do. He was upset by what he saw as "an attempt by Catholics to capitalize on our tolerance." Emphasizing that he spoke for himself and not for his church or vestry, he added: ""Tolerance is a fined old word, but it is my deep conviction ...that the Catholic Church talks of tolerance with its own aggressive and hidden purposes." Bishop Philip Hannon, the auxiliary bishop of Washington, gave the invocation, while Rev. Charles R C. Daughtery, the rector of St. Peter’s Chapel in Leonardtown upheld the honor of the Episcopal Church by rendering the benediction instead.

President Dwight Eisenhower sent a message for the occasion indicating the national importance of the event. After the ceremonies in the auditorium of St. Mary’s Seminary Junior College, the roadside historical marker at St. Mary’s City was informally dedicated. Among the marching groups participation in the parade preceding the exercises was the Drum and Bugle Corps of St. Peter Claver and Cardinal Gibbons.

By the late 1950's the old St. James Hall (formerly the old Saint Alphonsus School) had suffered the same fate as the Sodality Hall. Father Rock tore it down too and formulated plans for a new hall. He secured the support of the parishioners of St. Peter Claver’s by assuring them that since both parishes had the same pastor, each parish would be able to use the new facilities. On January 14, 1961, he wrote to Archbishop O'Boyle" that "Benjamin Unkle finally got started on my Hall at St. James. The weather has held us up terribly." The weather must have turned very good, because on April 9, 1961 Father Rock wrote to the archbishop for the gift of five thousand dollars which the chancellor, Msgr. Roeder, had promised him for the construction of the Hall at St. James. He expressed the gratitude of the entire parish for the gift. He was sure that this gratitude would become even deeper when they realized how beneficial this building will be not only to the parish but to the entire area in many ways. Within a short time he would have need of the loan which the archbishop approved in the prior Fall. He was anxious to keep all his bills current. He anticipated that the building would be completed in a month or so and thus be ready for use at Festival time.

The more than three hundred year old tradition of Jesuit service in Saint Mary’s County began to come to an end in June of 1961. The Maryland Province began a phased withdrawal of its priests from the various parishes of the county so as to utilize them in its other apostolates. The third phase affected the Ridge Residence. For the past two years Father Rock had served as superior of the house. On May 19, a letter from the provincial was read announcing that Father Rock and Father Joseph Kerr, S.J., who was serving as pastor of St. Michael’s, would leave Ridge effective June 1, 1963. On that date the Archdiocese of Washington assumed responsibility to staff the parish. What Lord Baltimore had not been able to achieve, what the persecution of an unfriendly government had not achieved, the passage of time brought about. The area was no longer a mission territory, and the Jesuits, faithful to their charism, pushed on to the next frontier.

The return of the secular priests ushered in an era of transition for the parish. The first diocesan priest to be appointed to succeed Father Rock was Father Robert O. McMain. Ordained in 1949, Father McMain came from St. Mary’s parish in Rockville, Maryland, one of the far suburbs of Washington. He ably continued the work of Father Rock at the high school and at Saint James for the one year that he was pastor.

In June 1964 Father Anthony Griffin succeeded Father McMain. Due to the progress of school integration, the enrollment at St. Peter's had dropped to the point where it was no longer feasible to continue. So in 1965 the grammar school closed. The remaining children enrolled in Saint Michael's School.

That summer Father Rock returned to offer the annual Mass at St. Ignatius Church on July 31, 1965 under the sponsorship of the Preservation Society.

On March 12, 1966, Father Christopher T. Twohig arrived to become the new pastor of St. Peter Claver's and St. James. A native of Ireland, he was ordained in Ireland in 1950. After serving in several parishes, the last of which had been Immaculate Heart of Mary in Lexington Park. On his arrival at St. Peter’s, he found that the elementary school had already closed. From Archdiocesan authorities he learned that the school had to be closed because it did not fulfill the requirements of the State of Maryland guidelines for eliminating segregation. There had also been some difficulty getting appropriate insurance on the building due to its condition. The Cardinal Gibbons High School had become a victim of legislation of the State of Maryland requirements as well as the new State Law regarding segregated educational facilities. So the high school had already begun a gradual closing down process and the very last graduation class was scheduled for June of 1967.

Both the elementary school building and the Cardinal Gibbons Institute were examined by competent builders and it was found that the Institute could not be used as a school facility after June 1966. However, with a reasonable amount of money the former elementary school which was empty at the time could be arranged into a much more comfortable building for the last year of the high school's existence. So with the permission and financial aid of the Archdiocese of Washington, the elementary school became the new home for the Cardinal Gibbons students for the final school year, 1966-67.

The final graduation took place as scheduled in June 1967. Two of the Oblate Sisters continued in the parish doing catechetical work until the end of the year. They were finally withdrawn in December 1967. With their leaving an era ended, an era when St. Peter Claver's was a major center for Catholic education in St. Mary's County.

Several uses were considered for the now abandoned buildings. Father Twohig moved into the old convent which now became the rectory. Plans were developed for a clinic and nursing home in the old Institute building. A corporation called the Ridge Clinic and Nursing Home, Inc. was organized. The plan never materialized and eventually was dropped. Beginning in 1971 the Ridge Day Care Center operated in the grammar school.

The same year he arrived at Ridge Father Twohig organized the St. Peter Claver Mission Club to help defray expenses. Theodore Lombard, a Washington attorney, and Joseph McGowan, an accountant and a member of St. Ambrose’s parish in Cheverly, supplied the leadership to get the idea offver the ground. Together they interested an impressive list of subscribers, which even included Archbishop O’Boyle. With the donations the members sent each month the club helped to make notable capital improvements. These included installing new kneelers and lighting system in the church, paving the driveways and parking area, and installing automatic lighting on the church grounds.

In the Fall of 1971 Father Twohig was on his way to the Baltimore International Airport to pick up a priest coming in from Ireland when the front doorbell rang. It was his old classmate from the seminary in Ireland, Timothy Cardinal Manning, the Archbishop of Los Angeles. He was coming to make a request of Father Twohig. The cardinal was looking for someone to organize an apostolate for the deaf in his diocese. He knew that Father Twohig had had extensive experience in that area. Unbeknownst to Father Twohig the cardinal had already spoken to Cardinal O’Boyle and requested the "loan" of Father Twohig. Rather than interrupt the trip to the airport, the cardinal suggested to Father Twohig that the two ride back toward Washington so that they could discuss this porposal proposal along the way. This invitation to go to the West Coast came at a particularly difficult period for Father Twohig. The Black Power Movement that advocated new assertiveness among black Catholics had arrived at St. Peter Claver’s. This led to personality conflicts which in turn led some parishioners to demand a pastor who they perceived would be more in sympathy with their cause. The breakdown in communication reached such a point that the archbishop judged that a quick change of pastors was the only solution. He gave permission for Father Twohig to accept the appointment in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The strain of the conflict in the parish had taken its toll in other ways. In his letter to the parishioners Father Twohig announced that,on the advice of his doctors, he was resigning as pastor for reasons of health. So it was that the six years of Father Twohig’s tenure ended with an announcement to the parishioners on February 20, 1972. The Cardinal thereupon appointed Father Charles Gorman as the administrator effective the following day. Father Twohig, for his part, went off to sunny California.

The appointment of Father Gorman to be administrator and later pastor of St. Peter Claver's was accompanied by the appointment of Father Paul Gozaloff to be the pastor of Saint James Church. This was the first time since the days of Father McSorley that St. James and St. Peter's had separate pastors.

When Father Gorman arrived he found that the archdiocese had already approved plans to demolish Gibbons Hall. The following April Gibbons Hall was demolished after having been vandalized. The copula was removed and put on the roof of the old boiler house behind the hall.

In June, after being at St. Peter's for less than four months, Father Gorman collapsed suddenly and had to be hospitalized. He was suffering from a bleeding ulcer. Although his life was threatened, but after a three month period of convalesce, he was able to return to the parish. In the interim Father Gozaloff served as the administrator.

Father Gorman completed another project begun by Father Twohig, namely, the installation of new lights in the church. The Day Care Center continued in the old school until the end of 1976, when the program was centralized in Lexington Park. After five years of faithful service, Father Gorman resigned due to ill health. He was subsequently diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis. He was succeeded on June 7, 1977, by Father Francis Walsh.

Father Walsh first set eyes on St. Peter Claver Church on May 19, 1977. Father Gorman called to tell him that he heard that his appointment to St. Peter Claver’s had been approved by the archbishop, William Cardinal Baum. A week before Father Thomas Duffy, the Secretary for Priest Personnel, had called him to ask if he were willing to go to Ridge to take Father Gorman’s place. He said that he was. Father Duffy promised to be back in touch as soon as the cardinal approved the appointment. Father Gorman jumped the gun and suggested that he come down that day. Since it was his day off, he accepted. He had to ask directions since he did not know the way. He had never been to St. Mary’s County before. The first thing he did when he drove up the hill was to make visit to the Blessed Sacrament in the church. He had the sense as he knelt at the altar rail that his life had been a preparation for this assignment. He went over to the rectory to meet Father Gorman. After a visit with him, Father Gorman suggested that he take him on a short tour of the parish. They climbed into the parish car and proceeded to ride down Beachville Road on Saint Inigoes Neck. Father Gorman began to point out houses, saying in all simplicity: "They’re Catholic. They’re Catholic. They’re Methodist. They’re white. They’re Catholic." It was an eye-opener for Father Walsh. There were three religious groups down here, Catholics, Methodists, and whites. Segregation was still alive and well. It had just become genteel. He was not sure what to do, but he knew that something had to be done.

Several weeks after he came to St. Peter’s Father Walsh announced in a sermon that he had no intention of presiding over a Jim Crow parish. Whatever else might be the case elsewhere, St. Peter’s was going to be a first class parish, open to all irrespective of race. He knew that he had to establish his credibility on the race issue so that he had the same message for blacks as well as whites. How he was gdoing to do this was not at all clear to him at that point.

At the Pre-Labor Day Festival of 1977, the Gospel Choir of Saint Martin's Church in Washington, D.C. was the guest choir. Their singing made such an impression on those who were there that afterward Mrs. Shirley Bennett remarked to him that Saint Peter's should have its own gospel choir. Encouraged by him, she contacted Mr. Leroy Pressley, a music student at Saint Mary College, and organized the first practice session on October 7, 1977. A few weeks later the new choir packed the church for its first musical presentation. He had rarely seen that many people in the church at one time. Legend has it that the bars closed that day for lack of customers.

In the Fall of 1977 Father Walsh approached Father James Cooney, the pastor of St. Michael’s, and suggested that they both seek a conference with the cardinal in order to have a commonly agreed upon policy in dealing with the racial situation. Father Cooney did not think such a meeting would be productive and wanted nothing to do with it. Undeterred, Father Walsh sought an appointment with the cardinal by himself. On November 10, 1977 he met with Cardinal Baum in his office in the chancery on Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. to discuss the parish situation and what could be done about it. Father Walsh began by saying to the cardinal: "I have a parish in my parish". The cardinal responded: "I know." The cardinal then proposed separate boundaries. Father Walsh wanted to follow a two parish policy which entailed retaining both parishes but changing the basis for the division from race to that of territory. The only question in his mind at the time was how it do that. He was not sure how sudden changes would be received. So he proposed a gradual policy which focused on using the movement of spiritual renewal as a way of attracting people to St. Peter’s. Once a minimum integration had occurred, the canonical question of the parish boundaries could be dealt at a later time. The cardinal agreed to see what happened doing it that way. When Father Walsh returned to Ridge he informed Father Cooney of the plan and that Father Walsh would be visiting homes throughout the parish. Father Cooney was not too happy with this prospect, fearing the negative reaction that it might engender, but there was little he could do little to stop him. Father Walsh did not know who was an active parishioner of St. Michael’s and who was not. A list of names and address from St. Michael’s would have been useless. In those days there were no road signs, mail boxes, or house numbers. So he began to knock on doors. He had not made many visits to take up the census and to let everyone know that they were welcome at St. Peter’s, when he ran into one active parishioner of St. Michael’s, Paul Raley who was more than a little annoyed at him. His basic objection was that Father Walsh was putting people in the position of having to make the choice in the face of community disapproval and family pressures. He pointed out that people were misinterpreting his visits, and consequently they were doing more harm than good. Father Walsh realized that there was something to what he was saying. Instead of sticking his neck out, he was asking others to stick theirs out. It was his first lesson on the social pressures that undergird social segregation. Immediately he suspended all visits, unsure of what to do next.

One day in December, he was passing Loyola Retreat House on Route 301. The thought struck him to begin a thirty day retreat to try to find a way out of his dilemma. So In January 1978, he began the exercises, spending a few days at the retreat house and continuing at home on his own. One night in the middle of the thirty days, he was at dinner at St. Michael’s. He had continued Father Gorman’s custom of taking his main meal at St. Michael’s five days a week. He was sitting at the table in late January when Father Cooney mentioned something about candles being returned from a Mass at St. Ignatius Church. Father Walsh had not known about it before. In itself it was a small thing, insignificant even. For Father Walsh, however, it was as if the ceiling had suddenly fallen in. He saw in a flash everything in a new way. He had not known about the Mass because it had never occurred to anyone to tell him. No one expected him to be interested. Things had always been done in this way. For the first time he realized that in the minds of many people there were invisible signs all over St. Peter’s that said: NO WHITES ALLOWED. He had to take them down. He had to redefine the parish identity in the public mind so that everyone knew that this was a Catholic parish, open to all Catholics. They had to feel that race really meant nothing. The American social system had defined our identity for so long in just the opposite way. He realized that he could no longer silently cooperate. Just to be passive was to be supporting the old system. He had to contradict the system at every turn and corner. Suddenly he saw what he had been looking for. The problem of segregation was a problem of identity. For years people had been taught to see a difference between St. Peter’s and St. Inigoes. That difference was race. St. Peter’s was the "colored" church. By acquiescing to this distinction, Walsh realized that he was allowing race to be an element in parish identity. Once race no longer mattered, the distinction disappeared. There was no difference. St. Inigoes never died after all. It was alive and well at St. Peter Claver’s all along. It was a veritable resurrection from the dead. Now all that was necessary was to act out of this new identity. Doing so would present the Catholic community with a call to convert. They would have a choice to accept this new identity or reject it. If they accepted it, then they would have to ask themselves why they were not a part of it. If they were going to another parish because they found it a great help in their walk with the Lord, then they would not begrudge St. Peter’s being St. Inigoes parish. If they were going elsewhere to avoid St. Peter’s, then they would feel the pinch. The non-verbal message was: Catholic identity or segregation, one or the other, but not both. Father Walsh was intrigued by the fact that the tug-of-war would ostensibly be all about history. Not a word would be mentioned about race. All of that would be under the table. No one would be attacked; no one would be pressured. Months later, Father Walsh knew that he had hit a home run. Some one came up to him in the post office one day, in a state of anguish, to say: "You’re taking our history away from us." To himself he thought: "Oh no, just taking hostages."

As Father Walsh drove home that night from St. Michael’s he decided that his first move would be to change the address. It would no longer be St. Peter Claver, Ridge, but St. Peter Claver, Saint Inigoes. The Cardinal had been right, he thought to himself. The church had to define parishes territorially and in a public way in order to provide protection for those who might be open to cross the color line imposed by social segregation. The diocese had to give them an excuse to defend themselves against the criticism of family and friends.

The next Sunday the bulletin had a new look. Without any further explanation it simply read: Saint Peter Claver’s Church, Saint Inigoes, Maryland 20684. A few people noticed the change. Those that did seemed puzzled. Father Walsh did not say much. It was too complicated to explain. A few days later he went down to the Ridge post office and handed the postmaster a change of address for St. Peter Claver’s. He look at him in disbelief. "Ridge is too small for two parishes," Father Walsh said. "We’re moving to Saint Inigoes." Then he drove up to St. Inigoes, and announced to Mrs. Bertille Norris, the postmaster, that St. Peter’s would be getting its mail over her counter. She kindly made room on the general delivery shelf, and the deed was done. Being a cowardly spirit, he wondered what the diocese would say when he wrote to say that the parish had a new mailing address. There was no need to be concerned. It was accepted without a peep. At the time Father Walsh thought this was an innovation. Only later did he realize that he was simply returning to what had existed earlier in the century.

On February 1, 1978, Father Walsh wrote to Cardinal Baum requesting separate boundaries. When he gave a copy of the letter to Father Cooney, he was even more unhappy with him than ever. Father Cooney strongly subscribed to Father Baldwin’s approach of letting sleeping dogs lie. He recognized the problem, but, as he once said, he felt the best one to solve the problem was the undertaker.

The negotiations for the new boundaries dragged on all year. This was the year of the three popes. Every time a meeting was arranged to close the deal, the pope would die and the cardinal would have to go to Rome. Finally, in November 1978, the cardinal met with Father Cooney, Father Walsh, and the chancellor, Msgr. John Donoghue. The cardinal was looking for a way to present the boundaries in a way that would respect the long attachments that local people had with both parishes. When Father Walsh pointed out that the existing boundaries were identical, and that there was no way to distinguish one from the other juridically. Msgr. Donoghue mentioned that that issue was clarified in the accompanying letter. Father Walsh insisted that it was not addressed anywhere. He was in possession of both the decree and its accompanying letter. When the cardinal heard this, he seized upon this need to conform to Canon 216 as the reason for issuing new decrees. He wanted to promulgate them publicly, and yet assure parishioners that they were free to attend the parish of their choice. The boundaries would settle the question of parish identity without threatening long established communities of faith. The Cardinal established an effective date for the new decrees. Father Walsh and Father Cooney were to work out the details of the boundaries themselves. The Cardinal would ratify what was agreeable to them. On that note the meeting ended.

When they returned to Ridge, Father Walsh and Father Cooney were able to agree. Father Cooney wanted to restore the 1952 lines. Father Walsh wanted to run the line across the peninsula from river to bay. By December it was clear that they could not meet the cardinal’s original deadline. The cardinal was reluctant to unilaterally impose a decision. At this point Father Walsh wrote to the cardinal outlining what he saw as the underlying issue of the whole dispute, the need to have a framework to address the issue of social segregation.

The cardinal asked Msgr. Francis Veith, the former dean of St. Mary’s County and former pastor of St. Michael’s, to study the issue and suggest a solution. It was Friday afternoon, January 5, 1979 when, at the cardinal’s direction, Msgr. Donoghue met with Father Cooney, Father Walsh and Msgr. Francis Veith in a final attempt to break the impasse. They met in the back room of the fourth floor of the old chancery on Rhode Island Avenue in Washington. Father Walsh outlined once again his proposal to divide the area on a east-west line going across the peninsula from river to bay. Saint Inigoes and Dameron would belong to St. Peter’s, while Ridge and Scotland would comprise St. Michael’s. This line would roughly equate the line first proposed by the chancery in 1951. He wanted the still undeveloped areas of St. Jerome’s Neck and both side of Route 235. St. Michael’s countered with a north-south line, asking for St. Jerome’s Neck and Route 235 as the boundary. The effect of this would be to run the boundary line right by St. Michael’s Church and turn into Bennett Drive. The store across the road from St. Michael’s would be in St. Peter’s parish. Father Cooney offered to run the line in the rear of the properties on the south of Bennett Drive. That way the two black families who lived on the south side would be in St. Peter’s parish. Father Walsh did not think that clothesline in somebody’s backyard was a stable boundary. Thus an impasse quickly ensued again. St. Michael’s wanted boundaries that disturbed the existing patterns as little as possible, whereas Father Walsh wanted boundaries that would maximize the disturbance as much as possible. Msgr. Veith favored St. Michael’s solution. Msgr. Donoghue had no position other than that somebody needed to make a decision. It was obvious he was annoyed with the cardinal’s indecision. Just when the meeting was ending in failure, Father Walsh, contrary to any expectation he had, felt something press again his back as though it were the finger of God. He heard a voice from within commanding him to relent. Fearing to disobey what he perceived as the voice of God, he stopped the chancellor, and to the surprise of all, reversed himself and accepted St. Michael’s proposal.

At the very end of the meeting Father Walsh reminded the chancellor, not to forget the parish title, St. Peter Claver, Saint Inigoes. He asked if he meant Saint Peter Claver-(dash)-Saint Inigoes, thus having a double name. Father Walsh said: "No, not dash. Comma." He did not want to change the names that had been used historically. He felt that the continuity had never been in the names, but in the community. He added one more request. He wanted them effective immediately, a fait accompli, without the chance to protest. With that the meeting came to an end. It was a Friday. The next Monday, on January 8, 1979, the cardinal signed promptly the new decrees. He made them effective immediately. The situation reverted to 1952. The task was now actually to implement them this time.

A week later Cardinal Baum surprised Father Walsh with a letter containing his observations regarding the new arrangements. He expressed the belief that although they were not perfect, they would be a great help in fulfilling their pastoral responsibilities. He then suggested to Father Walsh that he read the second lesson assigned to the memorial of St. Raymond of Penyafort, January 7.

In April 1978, Father Walsh applied for membership in the Knights of St. Jerome. He began to familiarize himself with its history and encouraged the Society to recruit new members. As part of the renewal of the Knights he organized the Junior Knights of Saint Jerome on April 6, 1979 as the parish teen club. The first members included Ramona Gant, Robin Gant, Tyrone Smith, Keith Smith, and Sharon Smith.

On July 15, 1979 Saint Peter's was the scene of the golden jubilee of Father McKenna's ordination to the priesthood. He had several months earlier suffered a fall due to missing a step because of his failing eyesight and had broken his hip. It was only with great difficulty that he was able to walk up the middle aisle. He was, however, determined that he would. The church was filled with well-wishers, many of whom had come from Washington, Bishop Eugene A. Marino, the auxiliary bishop of Washington, was the principal celebrant. Joining Father McKenna at the Mass were a half dozen priests who had also come with him from Washington. At the end, Father McKenna had requested Mrs. Blanche Biscoe Duckett of Philadelphia to sing Steal Away to Jesus which she rendered in a very touching manner. One of the people who heard it commented that this was Father McKenna's way of saying "Good-by". After the Mass all retired to the parish hall for a country dinner.

The basement of the old grammar school was being used as the parish hall. There were several problems with this arrangement, however. First, there was a crack in the wall which ran around most of its circumference. The crack resulted from the fact that when the walls were being poured in 1928, they were poured on two different days. The two sections never really joined. Almost from the day the school opened, there were water problems in the basement. Whenever it would rain, water would seep into the basement through the crack. Father McKenna recalled that on one occasion, when he was using the basement for a temporary church after the fire of 1934, he had to chase seven frogs out one morning before Mass. They had evidently brought their own choir.

In 1979 Saint Mary’s County Recreation and Parks Department was looking for land in the First District to locate a community park. They contacted Father Walsh and asked if the parish would sell the Cardinal Gibbons site for such a purpose. Father Walsh answered that a sale would be out of the question, but that he would be willing to enter into a long-term lease. The County accepted the counter-offer, and signed a twenty-five year the lease in August, 1979. The Department of Parks and Recreation named the field the First District Park.

In September, Father Walsh organized a "commemoration" of the 275th anniversary of the closing of the chapel at St. Mary’s City with a Mass at St. Inigoes Church for the feast of St. Peter Claver. He planned it as another way reshape the parish identity in the public mind and to place the issue of racial intolerance before the larger community. Father Walsh invited Sheriff Joseph Lee Somerville, the first black sheriff in St. Mary‘s County’s history. At the end of the Mass, Father Walsh presented the sheriff with an old padlock to symbolize the victory over religious prejudice in the hope that the second victory would not be long in coming.

By 1980 the school deterioration had advanced to the point that, when it rained, water bubbled out of the wall in one spot like a little spring. Over the years the water had rottedn the beams supporting the stage area. One of the rooms off the stage area was being used as the kitchen. The floor near the wall where the stoves were was sagging to such an extent that it was hard to keep the pots on the stove.

Another problem concerned entrances. The original structure had only two interior stairways for entrances, both of which were built over the boiler room. In later times, two windows had been taken out and stairs constructed to them. One of the "doors" was near the pipe which ran along the ceiling, and you had to remember to duck or you would hit your head on the pipe.

After considering several alternatives, Mr. Robert Fields of Washington, D.C., the architect consulted, recommended a major renovation of the school. Mr. Earnest Hall of Saint James was engaged as the contractor.

On March 31, 1980, the Knights of Saint Jerome marked their one hundredth anniversary with a special Mass. After the Mass, Mrs. Lilla Hopewell broke ground for the renovations. After the groundbreaking, all those present gathered around the statue of the Sacred Heart for a group picture.

One of the constant visitors we received each year was Mr. Ralph Biscoe. His father Webster Biscoe had been the prefect of the Sodality in Father Tynan’s time, and his mother was one of the early teachers in the school in Father LaFarge’s time. He was looking for a summer home. I told him that I would be willing to enter a lease with him or his son, Ralph, Jr. for Boyle Hall. The hall was a wreak, and the parish did not have the money to repair it or even a present use for it. Father Walsh was interested in finding someone who would fix it in exchange for a long-term lease with a minimum rent. In that way his successors would not be tempted to tear down the property or sell it. In 1982 Archbishop James Aloysius Hickey signed a fifty-year lease arrangement with Mr. Ralph Biscoe, Jr.. The hall reverts back to the parish December 31, 2031.

Every now and then there are moments in the history of every parish when the past seems to be intertwined with the present in such a way as to make us aware of the continuity of history. Such a moment happened in our parish on April 9, 1982 at the funeral of Mrs. Nettie Hawkins Taylor, who had died a few months short of her one hundredth birthday. Her father, Lewis Hawkins, had been one of the founding members of the Knights of St. Jerome. Her mother, Mrs. Henrietta Chisley Hawkins, had served as faithful sacristan at the Sodality Hall. She herself had been a member of the Knights of Saint Jerome for ninety-two years, joining the Juvenile Society - as the youth group was then called - at the age of seven. Father McKenna made the trip from Washington for the funeral. It was to be the last time he was in St. Peter Claver's He died in Georgetown University Hospital May 11, 1982.

During the summer of 1983 the Society for the Preservation of St. Ignatius’ Church sponsored a major renovation of the old church. Dampness was seeping into the walls of the church, causing the plaster to crumble. To correct the problem, under the leadership of Mrs. Loretta Taylor, the society had all the plaster in the church removed and replastered. The stenciling was not reduplicated so that the walls remained a simple off-white.

During one of his rummagings in the parish archives, Father Walsh ran across a copy of Father McKenna’s Twin Silver Jubilees and thought that it needed to be updated. He began to gather some materials to do that very thing. With his attempt to change the public image of the parish he ran into the complaint that he was changing history. Some people complained that his version of what happened was a distortion of the facts. He found it difficult to say all that needed to be said every time someone raised the issue. His updating project quickly took on a new urgency in his eyes. The framework of Twin Silver Jubilees quickly expanded to become the history of the St. Inigoes Mission. The archbishop heard about the project and became concerned that the canons of historicity were taking a beating. He insisted in the strongest terms that this project be abandoned. The book was banned for publication. Father Walsh put his unfinished notes in the archives of the parish, not knowing what ever would become of them.

In the Spring of 1984 the Washington Post sent Walt Harrington, a reporter for their magazine section, down to St. Mary’s County. His assignment was to write a profile about a country priest. The first thing he had to do was find one. By the time he arrived at St. Peter’s he had narrowed his list of candidates to two. The approach to the racial situation intrigued him. The list quickly got shortened to one. As part of his background check Harrington visited a number of local people who had a wide range of views about Walsh. When he returned he was full of questions. As they sat in the dining room at St. Peter Claver’s Rectory, Harrington shared his findings. One priest in the county had told him: "They wanted their own parish, so we gave it to them." He looked in disbelief at Walsh who nodded and said, "Now you understand the problem." Segregation, according to this view, was an accommodation to the wishes of black Catholics. They wanted it this way. If this was the way the priests saw it, Walsh thought to himself, then pity the poor people. Walsh was impressed with Harrington. For a fallen-away Catholic, he had a better grasp of some issues than the priests. He had also heard of the banning of the book from someone who pointed to it as proof that the archbishop agreed with them. This came as a shock to Walsh. He had not said a word about it to anybody, and was not anxious that anybody know. Now, suddenly, he was confronted with the need for "damage control." Harrington was asking questions. He did not have a big ax to grind, but he did have the need to justify his own wanderings. Walsh invited him not to think badly of anyone. After all, they were only seeing history from their own point of view, he said. Harrington could relate to that, even though he had a snappily irreverent way of putting it. When the article finally appeared Walsh discovered that Harrington had done what Horace McKenna said Harry Sylvester had done; he distributed the virtues of the priests unevenly. Local reaction was mixed. Some people were shocked. For the first time they had a chance to see things from the view point of those on the other side of the wall. What Father Walsh found most touching was the comment George "Sammy" Carroll made when Harrington interviewed him. Carroll had lived all his life in a little house next to the manor down on St. Inigoes Neck. There were tears in his eyes when he spoke about proud it made him feel to have St. Peter Claver’s linked to St. Inigoes. He said that he never thought that the archdiocese would haved ever done it.

Shortly thereafter, Father Walsh went to see the archbishop in his office in Washington. He had the magazine in a folder on his lap. He wanted to talk about it. He said the he felt that his position had been unfairly portrayed, but it was done now and nothing good would come of trying to rehash it. Father Walsh felt it was impossible to explain what had happened without making matters worse, so he said nothing. History for him was not the issue. The issue was defining a clear Catholic identity so that baptism was the fundamental element, not race. The archbishop felt that history was not the way to approach this issue. Walsh disagreed. The archbishop’s answer, however, was irrefutable: "Nobody agrees with you." On that he was right. All agreed that St. Inigoes parish had died years ago, even though they were not very clear about how and when. There was nothing more that Walsh could say. He had been weighted and found wanting. So he returned to St. Inigoes and buried his draft text in the parish archives, not knowing what would ever happen to it.

In the meantime, work continued on the parish hall at St. Peter’s. Archbishop Hickey dedicated the newly renovated hall, named McKenna Hall in Father McKenna’s memory, on May 20, 1984. It was the day St. Mary’s County celebrated the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the colony. A second meeting with the archbishop a few days before the dedication ended with the archbishop reaffirming his judgment that the book project was to be dropped. But before he left the archbishop Walsh tried to separate the issue of the book from what he considered to be the underlying issue, the need to make a shared baptism the basis of a Catholic identity. He left the meeting unsure whether he had been heard. On the day of the dedication the archbishop arrive with a big smile. He told Father Walsh that he had heard what he had said. At the Mass before the dedication, the archbishop spoke forcefully about the need to clarify Catholic identity and to purge it of the effects of racism. His talk was a strong reaffirmation of the new identity that we receive from the Lord to make us one people. He spoke of the theological realities, but did not draw any historical conclusions.

In July, 1986 Father Walsh was transferred and Father Charles McCann appointed as pastor. On May 28, 1988, Father McCann organized the observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of the church. Archbishop Hickey came down to offer the Mass. With him came a horde of reporters. It had just been announced that day that Pope John Paul II had appointed him a cardinal. Many of the former parishioners and religious who had been stationed at St. Peter’s were there. Sister Mary Paul Lee, an Oblate Sister of Providence who had taught five years in the high school during the 1960’s, suggested that some memorial be erected on the site of the Cardinal Gibbons Institute. This suggestion was favorably received. Mr. James Forrest donated the first hundred dollars. In September, 1988, the newly organized Cardinal Gibbons Institute Memorial Committee met for the first time in McKenna Hall. By the following December work began on the renovation of the Institute’s original cupola.

Father McCann remained as pastor until 1989. Father Michael Mellone succeeded him. Plans for the Cardinal Gibbons Memorial continued to mature and on September 1,1990, Bishop Leonard Olivier, S.V.D., the auxiliary bishop of Washington, presided at the dedication. Father Rock was a guest of honor for the day. Sister Mary Paul, who had originally inspired the project, gave the main address. Father Mellone and the committee prevailed upon the county Department of Parks and Recreation to rename the park, the Cardinal Gibbons Institute Memorial Park. In November, 1991 Father Mellone was transferred and Father Patrick A. Smith was appointed as administrator.

On August 7, 1994, Cardinal Hickey came to celebrate Mass at St. Jerome’s Hall, commemorating the 110th anniversary of the civil incorporation of the Knights of St. Jerome. The idea for it came from Mrs. Annie Biscoe. She remembered the date on the badge of the Knights which reads "Incorporated August 5, 1884". At one of their meetings she suggested that the Knights organize a celebration of the event. She invited Cardinal Hickey to say Mass in the assembly hall of St. Jerome’s Hall. Much to her surprise the cardinal was going to be in the county that week. He accepted, and made his first visit to St. Jerome’s Hall. He had never heard about the Knights before. The Knights had invited Father Walsh to give a talk at the conclusion of the Mass on the history of the society. The administrator of the parish, Father Smith, arranged to have the Gospel Choir of St. Peter’s sing. The cardinal spoke at the end, and took that occasion to announce that he was appointing Father Smith as pastor. St. Peter Claver now had its first African American pastor. At the conclusion of the ceremonies, Mr. Nicholas Vincent Biscoe, the president of the Knights, presented the cardinal with an honorary membership in the Knights of St. Jerome. After the program in the large room, the Knights and their guests adjured to the old meeting room and sat down with the cardinal for a dinner in the room where, a century before, Daniel Oliver Barnes had presided over the St. Inigoes Colored Parochial School.

The talk had its intended effect. Afterwards the cardinal recalled the conversations he had had with Walsh some years earlier on the issue of history. He asked for a copy of what Father Walsh had presented. Walsh offered to supply him with a copy of the booknotes from which it was taken, one of the earlier revisions of this work. Some time later the archbishop wrote to express his hope that many would have access to the fruits of this research.

This book is really three books in one. It is a historical monograph, interlaced with tid-bits of arcane parochial history, with a dash of personal memoirs. In the end the inner tension of having several audiences in mind for the same book finally forced me to decide who I wanted my audience to be. I want it to be for the people of St. Peter Claver’s parish. This is a parish history. Therefore all the arcane parochial data that will have meaning only for them remains. If anyone else finds reason to read it, it is all to the good. Above all, I want the people of St. Peter’s to know from where they have come and on whose shoulders they are standing. By tracing the history of St. Inigoes from its beginnings down to the present I have sought to show them their true identity and of what they are the heirs.

We stand too close to the events of Part III to be able to see clearly to what extent the victory of faith over nationalism and religious and racial prejudice has been won. Only time will tell. What is already clear is that in the struggle against religious and racial intolerance we are really dealing with a single reality, the reality of sin. It is the sin of which we are all capable, and for which the only solution is forgiveness. Forgiveness allows us to move into the future, healed of the wounds of the past.

***********

The One who gives this testimony says,

"Yes, I am coming soon!"

Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

(Rev. 22:20)

Those who also served at St. Inigoes

Priests:

Father John Henry, S.J., returned to St. Inigoes June 17, 1820 to assist for a short time.

Father Michael Daugherty, S.J., served from April 14, 1825 to October 7, 1825.

Father John Murphy, S.J. died at St. Inigoes on September 21, 1826.

Father McCarty, S.J., arrrived February 13, 1838; left October 10, 1838.

Father J. N. Brogand, S.J., arrived October 3, 1838; left June 22, 1839.

Father Joseph Lopez, S.J., arrived August 12, 1841 for his health; died at St. Inigoes on October 5, 1841, and was buried in St. Inigoes Cemetery.

Religious:

Michael Magan, S.J., a scholastic, died at St. Inigoes on June 5, 1809.

Bro. Bartholomew Redman, S.J., arrived at St. Inigoes in 1824

Bro. G. Taylor, S.J., arrived at St. Inigoes in 1824.

Bro. Peter Boland, S.J., died at St. Inigoes on July 18, 1835.

Bro. Michael Carroll, S.J. arrived at St. Inigoes in 1856.

Agonito, Joseph, "St. Inigoes Manor: A Nineteenth Century Jesuit Plantation", Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 72 (1977).

Andrews, Matthew Page, History of Maryland: Province and State, Tradition Press, Hatboro, Pennsylvania, 1965.

Beitzell, Edwin, The Jesuit Mission of St. Mary’s County, St. Mary’s Bicentennial Commission, 1976.

Bibbons, Ruthella Bernard Mary, The Beginnings of Maryland in England and America.: King Brothers Press, Baltimore, 1934.

Bozman, James Leeds, The History of Maryland, The Reprint Company, Spartanburg, S.C., 1968.

Browne, William Hand, Maryland, The History of a Palatinate, Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1912.

Burton, Katherine, Mightily and Sweetly, St. Anthony Guild Press, Paterson, New Jersey, 1948.

Carr, Lois Green and David William Jordan, Maryland’s Revolution of Government, 1689-1692, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1974.

Cathedral Records, Baltimore, The Catholic Mirror, 1906.

Corrigan, Rt. Rev. Owen B., The Catholic Schools of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Baltimore, St. Mary’s Industrial Press, 1924.

Curran, Robert Emmett, The Maryland Jesuits, 1634-1833, Baltimore: Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen, 1976.

___________________, "‘Splendid Poverty’: Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland, 1805-1838", in Catholics in the old South, ed., Pandall Miller and Jon Wakelyn, Macon, Georgia: Mecer University Press, 1983.

Davis, Cyprian, O.S.B., The History of Black Catholics, New York: Crossroad, 1993.

Devitt, Edward I., S.J., "History of the Maryland-New York Province", Woodstock Letters, Vol. 60. (1931), p. 201.

_________________, "A Dark Chapter in the Catholic History of Maryland", United States Catholic Historical Magazine, April 1887.

Ellis, John Tracey, Documents of American Catholic History, Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1956.

Everstine, Carl N., The General Assembly of Maryland 1634-1776, The Michie Company, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1980.

Ferguson, Alice L. and Henry Ferguson, The Piscataway Indians of Southern Maryland, Accokeek, Maryland, Alice Ferguson Foundation, 1960.

Forman, Henry Chandler, Jamestown and St. Mary’s: Buried Cities of Romance, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1938.

Garraghan, Gilbert J., S.J., "Catholic Beginnings in Maryland", Thought, Vol. IX, No. 1, June, 1934.

____________________, "John Anthony Grassi, S.J., 1775-1849", Catholic Historical Review, Vol. XXIII (1937).

Graham, Michael J., S.J., "The Collapse of Equity": Catholic and Quaker Dissenters in Maryland, 1692-1720, Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 88 (1993).

Guilday, Peter, "The Priesthood of Colonial Maryland, 1634-1773", American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 90 (1934).

Hall, Clayton Colman, ed., Narratives of Early Maryland, 1634-1684, New York, Barnes & Noble, Inc. 1953.

Hammett, Regina Combs, History of St. Mary’s County, Maryland, 1977

Hardy, Beatriz Betancourt, Papists in A Protestant Age: the Catholic Gentry and Community in Colonial Maryland, 1689-1776. Doctoral Dissertation, the University of Maryland, 1993. (unpublished)

Harrington, Walt, "The Priestly Plot", Washington Post Magazine, April 22, 1984.

Hogan, Peter, S.S.J., "Archbishop Curley and the Blacks", The Catholic Historical Society of Washington NEWLETTER, Vol. IV, No. 1, p.2.

Hunton, George K, All of Which I Saw, Part of Which I Was, Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, & Co., 1967.

Hughes, Thomas, S.J., The History of the Society of Jesus in North America: Colonial and Federal , 4 vols. New York, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908.

_________________, "Educational Convoys to Europe in the Olden Time", American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 29 (1903).

Ingle, Edward, Captain Richard Ingle, the Maryland "pirate and rebel" 1642-53. A paper read before the Maryland Historical Society, May 12, 1884. Baltimore, John Murphy & Co., 1884.

Ives, J. Moss, The Ark and The Dove: The Beginnings of Civil and Religious Liberties in America, New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1969.

___________, "The Catholic Contribution to Religious Liberty in Colonial America", Catholic Historical Review, Vol. XXI (1935).

Judge, Robert K., "Foundation and First Administration of the Maryland Province." Woodstock Letters Vol. 88 (1959).

LaFarge, John, S.J., The Manner is Ordinary, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1954.

_______________, "The Survival of the Catholic Faith in Southern Maryland", Catholic Historical Review, Vol. XXI (1935).

_______________, "Thoughts of Tolerance", Historical Records and Studies of the United States Catholic Historical Society, Vol. XLVIII (1960).

Marine, William M., The British Invasion of Maryland, 1812-1815, Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Tradition Press: 1965.

McLaughlin, J. Fairfax, "Father George Fenwick, S.J.", United States Catholic Historical Magazine, October 1887.

McDonough, Peter, Men Astutely Trained, New York: The Free Press, 1992.

McGrath, Francis Sims, Pillars of Maryland, Richmond, Virginia: The Dietz Press Inc., 1950.

McKenna, Horace, S.J. Twin Silver Jubilees, 1949; reprinted in Woodstock Letters, Vol. 79, (1950).

McSherry, James, History of Maryland, edit and continued by Bartlett B. James, Baltimore Book Co., Baltimore, 1904.

Melville, Annabelle M., John Carroll of Baltimore: Founder of the American Catholic Hierarchy, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955.

Monagan, John S. Horace, Priest of the Poor, Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press, 1985.

Morris, John Gottlieb, The Lords Baltimore, Fund Publication No. 8, Baltimore, John Murphy & Co., 1874.

Murtha, Ronin John, O.S.B., The Life of the Most Reverend Ambrose Marechal, Third Archbishop of Baltimore, 1768-1828, dissertation, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1965.

Newman, Harry Wright, The Flowering of the Maryland Palatinate, privately printed, Washington, 1961.

Nickels, Marilyn Wenzka, Black Catholic Protest and the Federated Colored Catholics, 1917-1933. Three Perspectives on Racial Justice. The heritage of American Catholicism, New York: Garland Publishing, 1988.

Pogue, Dennis and Karlene B. Leeper, Archaeological Investigation at the "Old Chapel Field", Saint Inigoes, Maryland, Maryland Historical Trust, Manuscript Series No. 38, December, 1984.

Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, "Marechal Visitation Diary, 1818-1825", XI (1900), 417-454.

Riordan, Timothy B., "Fort St. Mary’s", Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 86, (1991).

Rollo, Vera Foster, The Propriatoryship of Maryland: A Documented Account, Lanhan, Maryland: Maryland Historical Press, 1989.

Russell, Bishop William Thomas, Maryland, The Land of Sanctuary, 1907.

Ryan, Edward A., S.J., Pages From the Story of an Ancient Parish, 1947; reprinted in Woodstock Letters, Vol. 76 (1947).

Schraf, J. Thomas, History of Maryland: From the Earliest Period to the Present Day, Tradition Press, 1967, (a reprint of 1879 edition).

Shea, John Gilmary, Life and Times of the Most Rev. John Carroll, New York: John G. Shea, 1888.

Shomett, Donald, Flotilla: Battle for the Patuxent, Solomons, Maryland: The Calvert Marine Museum Press, `1981.

Southern, David W., John LaFarge and the Limits of Catholic Interracialism, 1911-1963, Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1996.

Steiner, Bernard C., Restoration of the Proprietary in Maryland, 8, American Historical Association Report, 229-307 (1899).

Stone, Garry Wheeler, "Manorial Maryland", Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 82 (1987)

__________________, "St. Johns, Archaeological Questions and Answers." Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 69(2), Summer 1974. Special Issue, St. Mary’s City Commission.

Stratemeier, George Boniface, O.P., Thomas Cornwaleys, Commissioner and Counsellor of Maryland, doctoral dissertation, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1922.

Treacy, Rev. William, Old Catholic Maryland and Its Early Jesuit Missionaries,

Werline, Albert Warwick, Problems of Church and State in Maryland, The College Press, South Lancaster, Mass., 1948.

White, Andrew, S.J., A Briefe Relation of the Voyage unto Maryland.

________________, "Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam", Woodstock Letters, Vol. 1 (1872)

Wood, Joseph M., S.J., "The Earliest Jesuit Missionary Explorers in Florida, Maryland, and Maine", Historical Records and Studies of the United States Historical Society, 1904, p. 351-367.

Wynne, John, S.J., "The Accident At St. Inigo’s Villa". Woodstock Letters, Vol. 20 (1891).

Zwinge, Joseph, S.J., "Jesuit Farms in Maryland", Woodstock Letters, Vol. 41 (1912).

________________, "Our Fathers In The Colonization of Maryland", Woodstock Letters, Vol. 36 (1907).