The First Church in Maryland

...It is, too, the "sample" church--the typical while the rest use another...

...about it by the late Bishop Randolph, which has re-Adherents of the other religion must, therefore...

...George was the pioneer of the Virginia Three Samuels presided over the home of Richard Btents, and his two grandsons, Robert and William, Marsham, long known as the Queen mansion, and married the sisters of Archbishop Carroll...

...Richard Marsham was a distin- guished figure in the days of Leonard Calvert and his successor as governor of Maryland, Charles, third Baron of Baltimore...

...It was here the pilgrims land- ing from the Ark and the Dove on March 25, 1634, gathered under a venerable oak and assisted at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with Reverend Andrew White as celebrant...

...original Church founded by Christ, as distinct from any The traditional schools of thought in Anglicanism sect...

...The dichotomy into two, how- the world, which gives the Anglican communion an ever, transcends mere schools of thought...

...He nal lord proprietors, the Catholic Barons of Balti-was near Marlborough and not far from the Carroll more...

...The old mansion was deserted and the grandsons of Nicho- las were either engaged in commercial pursuits in the city, or had joined the tide of young manhood west-ward...

...Father Knox can be Church is an integral portion of the great Anglican clever at the expense of the Anglicanism which gave communion, one of the three historic branches of the him his reputation as enfant terrible...

...The Queens by this time had begun to disperse and already the grass was high in the graveyard...

...Charles Carroll the immigrant, also called the at- torney-general, built a chapel adjoining his mansion on the Monocacy, about 1715 ; and his son, Charles the second--father of the slgner--who had followed the world of fashion to Annapolis, had religious services in a small room attached to his home...

...The other religion virtually ignores, for example, five of the historic Catholic sacraments, contenting unity...

...Anne Rozier Young petitioned the Maryland legisla- ture to dlvidc her estate, Cerne Abbey Manor of the Potomac, between her two sons, Charles Carroll of Carrollburgh and Notley Young, and she petitioned that she be allowed to retain Mansion House as her home...

...Mary's County and there he died in 171 I. Woodstock...

...But the most courageous biographers of this illustrious churchman do not designate the spot where he received the first of the sacraments and for the reason that there exists no means of discovering this important detail...

...This Queen has written his name large in civic activities...

...In the most emphatic sense, they played a noble part during the evil days when the unscrupulous used religious preju- dice to foment civil strife...

...Placing the title of proto-church opens another estates on the Monocacy, whilst the younger Carroll avenue of research into Maryland history in its most branch, descended from Daniel, second son of the im- fruitful aspect, the history of the early shrines and of migrant, were established in what is now the greater the intrepid confessors of the Faith who made the min...

...After the death of his first wife, Notley Young married Mary Carroll, sister of the primate, Most Reverend John Carroll...

...A few references in the annual letters of the missioners and in some of the Boone family Bibles are the only docu- mentary survivals...

...He subscribed to the fund which Daniel Carroll of Duddington had collected from leading citizens of Washington to build a tem-porary home for the legislative bodies until the capitol, destroyed by the British, was rebuilt...

...The late Cardinal Gibbons imme- diately began the erection of the picturesque church of Saint Francis de Sales, and Queen's Chapel again took a place among the parochial foundations...

...salvation" mentioned in the "Church Catechism, "that This apparent anomaly was the subject of an utterance is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord...

...There are no records of the Boone chapel...

...Naturally, after the tri...

...It was made in favor of Ninian Beall, a Scotch Highlander, who figured most importantly in the earliest annals of the section of Maryland now under consideration...

...According to Father Ronald Knox, there arepoint...

...The United States, is a subject for frequent comment...

...Notley Young and there are numerous family docu- ments which tell that he had often come to minister to his sister's family and that the Catholics up and down the river had gathered for Holy Mass...

...Sir Lionel Copley, the royal governor who deposed Charles Calvert, third Baron of Balti- more, enforced this act until Queen Anne intervened twelve years later and permitted priests to celebrate Mass in the private chapels of Catholic gentlemen...

...But shrines attached to Jesuit manors, Saint Thomas's, Saint Inigoes, Bohemia Manor, Whitmarsh and several others could not, in the strict historical sense, be classed with parish churches, since they were clerical residences and logically would have a chapel as a professional necessity, as a lawyer would have his library or a physician his instruments...

...But if "omnium in Statibus F0ederatis ecclesiarum mater et caput" could be written on a shrine within the confines of the original states, what an im- posing religious and historical monument would then be created and what flood-gates of zeal and fervor would be set free l No holier spot exists in Maryland, the first asylum which Catholics found in the British dominions of North America, than the summit of the loftiest hills above St...

...Like the ancient belfry of Bruges, this old shrine "was thrice consumed and thrice rebuilt...

...proto-church...

...In the annual letters which the missioners wrote their English superiors, there are many entries that during such years, no fathers were in Maryland...

...The Anglican communion has living in it side by side itself with the "two generally necessary to at least two separate and more or less distinct religions...

...It might have been the well-established repute of the Queens as Catholics and Democrats which caused the third conflagration, about I863, also of an incend- iary nature and ascribed to Union troops who were marching to Fort Bunker Hill, now a part of the vil- lage of Brooldand and one of the defenses of the capi- tal...

...Its be hard to define precisely...

...Such is the documentary history, in the ecclesiasti- cal sense, of Saint Mary's on the Queen manor grant which is now the central portion of the flourishing suburb of Langdon...

...Its history, written in the regular way into the ec-clesiastical archives of Baltimore, may be followed until the destruction by fire early in the nineteenth century...

...at such times, they found refuge in Virginia and at infrequent intervals came forth to perform their ministerial duties...

...There are, probably, 5o,ooo,ooo Anglicans in are, certainly, three...

...TWO RELIGIONS" OF ANGLICANISM By HENRY S. WHITEHEAD HE importance of the Protestant Episcopal ceived considerable religious-press comment recently.T Church, independent of its numerical status in the But Bishop Randolph made no new discovery...

...For nearly two hundred years the plow and harrow have turned the sod where St...

...He married Gov- tioned in Maryland annals inherited in I713...

...It was erected in 19o7 on the exact spot on which stood for at least seventy- five years the colonial church of Saint Mary's, familiar to all historical writers as Queen's Chapel...

...There was a chapel attached to the Boone home near Marlborough, now the county seat of Prince George County, Maryland...

...Richard Marsham's pious will was filed in Marl- If some other colonial shrine can show greater con- borough on May 7, I713, and his eldest grandson, tinuity as a private chapel and parish church than this Samuel Queen, is devised the mansion and 240 acres venerated spot in Langdon, it may claim the title of of the tract, the Enclosure...

...There were the last, dying in I773, left the manor house and several children by this union of Richard Marsham chapel to his son, Richard, who was to continue the and Anne Calvert Brent, but only the descendants of traditions so nobly and to make the famous will of Katherine, who married Samuel Queen, concern this April 25, I793, under which the Church now study...

...So the Archbishop of Baltimore, whose prop- erty it was, did not rebuild the chapel, and in 19o6 some members of the family, looking over old papers, concluded that, since it seemed useless for religious purposes, they could convert the site into building lots...

...But at the present writing, no annals umph of the Protestant Revolution and the destruction comparable to those Qf Queen's Chapel have been disof St...

...It is an emasculated Angli- peculiar relation to the Reformation movement gives it canism, consisting largely of a set of assorted side-a logical position as the ideal basis for ecclesiastical issues...

...These Queens were about to begin suit to regain title to the property when the will of Richard Queen was taken from the dust into which it had lain, was inter- preted by learned counsel and the Church was reaf-firmed in its rights...

...no less than seven religions in Anglicanlsml That, of That importance rests upon solider foundations...

...Its founder was a man who came of the first section and his purchase in a newer and more retired generation of the pilgrims from the Ark and the Dove part of the province, where so many Catholic families and in the blood of his descendants is that of the origi- had acquired land, was to found a new home...

...Mary's City was and "the oak of the treaty," as it was called because the Indians signed all agreements under it, crumbled into dust fully three-quarters of a century ago...

...It means importance out of all proportion to its local position in that some Anglicans are practising the Catholic religion America...

...Bishop Carroll, in recog- nition of this bequest, a few years later named Queen's Chapel among the missions which must be attended regularly, first by the priests at Georgetown College and afterward from Saint Patrick's, the first parish church in Washington, D. C. Father de Grassi, supe- rior of the Jesuits in 18o6, again lists Saint Mary's to be attended from Georgetown College...

...Such religious edifices as these come closer to the con- cept of a parochial foundation, and perhaps a proto- church may be found among them...

...The ernor Leonard Calvert's daughter, Anne, the widow first Queen came from Surrey in I685 and acquired a of Henry Brent, son of Captain George Brent of manor in St...

...Local engineers have determined that the tall chimney of the power-house which sup- plies the capitol and its affiliated buildings with heat and electricity, is approximately the spot whereon stood the chapel of Notley Young's home...

...r THE COMMONWEAL February 16, 1927 THE FIRST CHURCH IN MARYLAND By MARGARET B. DOWNING O MNIUM urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput," grandly displayed on the basilica of Saint John Lateran, are words to inspire the most sluggish imagination and to revivify the weakest flame of faith...

...That other religion would ecclesiastical body--e.g., in English literature, etc...

...In the dingy archives of Marlborough is a faded land grant, dated May IZ, 1687, the first which deals with titles to the tract, the Enclosure...

...Of these the chief is the fact that the Protestant Episcopal course, is only a tour de force...

...The high bank on which this venerable man- sion stood is now part of the park system of south- west Washington...

...A recent article, The Epis- remarkable that the comment upon Bishop Randolph's copalians, by an ex-Protestant Episcopal clergyman, utterance should have limited itself to the American which appeared in the American Mercury, stressed this portion of the Anglican communion--and to two religions...

...Mary's City, Marsham had departed from this covered...

...Saint John's, now the parish church of Forest Glen, in Montgomery County, was founded by Father John Carroll in 1774, soon after his return to Maryland...

...Ecclesiastical orators have frequently described Saint John's as the "Bethlehem of the Cath- olic Church in the United States as surely as Balti-more is its Jerusalem"--a sonorous statement which is true only in its relation to John Carroll and the found- ing of the hierarchy...

...Their owners were the spiritual shepherds and their chapels the so- lace of the persecuted and scattered flock...

...He came originally from Kent 4o4 THE COMMONWEAL February 16, I927 and, previous to his purchase of the Enclosure from he built his home he erected also a chapel and it was Ninian Beall, his estates fringed St...

...He is on record as contributing to the Church of England established by law, and he was not unfriendly to his Catholic neigh- bors...

...In the documentary sense, Saint Mary's appears in the arch- diocesan annals in I793, when the edifice and the two acres surrounding it were devised by the will of the pious Richard Queen, "to my friend Right Reverend John Carroll, Bishop of Baltimore, his heirs and as-signs forever, the remaining members of the Roman Catholic Church, two acres of land where the Roman Catholic chapel now stands, being part of a tract of land called the Enclosure...

...Mary's river...

...Tradition has it that John Carroll, the future primate of the Catholic Church in the United States, was baptized in this humble shrine...

...Father Digges possibly beFebruary I6, 1927 THE COMMONWEAL 403 gan his apostolic visits soon after his sister's marriage m 1751...

...Anne Rozier Young's petition was filed in the Marl- borough court-house in I758 and her mansion was then a landmark on the river...

...In 1758, Mrs...

...Mary's City, the this property which the second Samuel Queen men-old capital of Catholic Maryland...

...fact has been a commonplace for a long time, at least This importance is vulgarly ascribed to a "rich" and among a considerable body of the clergy...

...But as Queen's Chapel was already in existence in 1773 when Samuel Queen the third made his will, and devised the mansion and its outhouses and the broad acres which are now covered by the suburbs of Brooldand and Langdon, to Rich-ard, his son, it is thus proven to be older than Saint John's, founded on Rock Creek by John Carroll in 1774, but a full thirteen years later than the chapel of Nodey Young, attached to Mansion House on the Potomac...

...holds title...

...A son of John Knox and therefore of the elect of heaven, Ninian Beall was broad of mind and helpful of purse to less-favored mortals...

...It was again rebuilt by one of the stalwart Catholic citizens of the federal district in its opening years, Nicholas Queen, son of Joseph...

...The Cath- olic gentry and their retainers, tenants, and slaves at- tended divine service there from 18o5 until again it fell a victim to flames, this time to the incendiary torch of British soldiers in x814, who, after the battle of Bladensburg, were marching on Washington...

...After the first accidental burning, it was rei~rected by Joseph Queen, son of the testator, Richard Queen...

...On its small altar the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated for the first time within the corporate limits of what is now the city of Washington...

...Before the seventeenth century had reached its stormy end, he had sold to Richard Marsham the tract called the Enclosure...

...part of the capital city, Cerne Abbey Manor...

...It is only "fashionable" membership...

...The manor homes of the Jesuits--founded under the same plantation conditions then demanded of the laymen of Governor George Calvert's entourage--might, after Lord Baltimore's charter had been re-voked, claim to have been somewhat as the Catacombs were during the Roman persecution or the hidden chapels in the penal days in England...

...and soon after Father Digges had been called to rest, the zealous priest of Saint John's, Rock Creek, added this mission to his parochial duties...

...The Boones gave sons and daugh- ters to keep the Faith alive in Maryland during the clark days, and their records are among the brilliant chapters of its history...

...Ninian called his estate near Washington the Rock of Dumbarton, and on this splendid site overlooking the capital and its peaceful valleys, is now built the imposing Tudor Gothic convent of the Holy Cross, a branch of the foundation at South Bend, Indiana...

...No istrations of the missioners possible, after the law "fordoubt he followed the precedent of the times and when bade public services in open churches...

...These Jesuit chapels were freely at the disposition of Catholics within the "Hundreds" and of the countryside until the abhorrent law proclaimed by.William and Mary in 1692 , as "an act to prevent the spread of Popery within the province...

...Where the chapel stood no one knows, and the foundatlon-stone of the hospitable mansion of the Boones is sunken into a plowed field...

...About a quarter of a mile from the boundary be- tween the District of Columbia and Prince George County, Maryland, stands the p~.rish church of Lang- don, Saint Francis de Sales...

...There are no records to prove this, but Father Thomas Digges of Melwood was the brother of Mrs...