It was built starting on July 30, 1856 through 1857 as a chapel-of-ease in Queen Caroline Parish, the mother church of which was, and still is, Christ Church Guilford, near Columbia, Maryland. The church land was donated from William G. Ridgley and Dr. Lennox Birckhead, a Catonsville doctor who served in the Battle of Fort McHenry. The land was once part of Charles Carroll of Carrollton's land that comprised Spurrier's Tavern. Theodore Tubman and Myers Pearce (of Pierceland) deeded the cemetery to the north of the church as "Chapel hill".