The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-07-05

JdDllbn PUBIC COnNeyanceS from the northern
parts OF the province for the convenience of
the officers of the government. The Governor
submitted the petition to the Assembly, then
In session, but the prayer was discourteously
spurned, and the doom of the ancient capital
was sealed 1t remained the county seat of
st. Mary's till that, too. was removed to Sey.
mourtown, afterward Leonardtown At the
time of the transfer of the seat of govern
ment it contained about sixty dwellings.
From that time 1t fell rapidly into decay, and
to-day not foundation of the colonial man
sions t1at stood here $50 years ago remain
The old walnut tree, under whose shade ne.
gotiations were entered into for the purchase
of the thirty square miles that constituted
"Augusta Carolina" now the County of st.
Mary's, up to a few years ago lay prone to the
earth in the graveyard here, like fallen mon
arch. Piece by piece 1t was taken away by
relic-hunters, who visited this historic spot
What remained of its unsightly trunk was
then appropriated by the vestry of the Epis-
copal church here, carved into souvenirs, and
sold In aid of new church with which it is
anticipated to replace the old edifice in which
they now worship.
Leonard Calvert, the fret colonial Governor,
and brother of the Lord Proprietary, to whose
care much of the success that attended the
infancy of the colony is due, died here in 1647,
and is buried, with many of his associates,
in the old graveyard above alluded to. The
crumbling vault in which, tradition says, lay
his bones, and those of other prominent mem
bers of the colony, used to be visible, almost
within the memory of the generation now pas
sing away. Years agoit was broken open by
vandals, tempted by tradition thata fabu-
lous wealth of Jewels was buried with the
lllustrious dead 1t is not known to what ex-
tent their ghouish cupidty was gratiied. AS
was the custom of those days, it was built
below the surface of the ground. In time the
excavation in which it was placed became
filled up. and to day the green sod of the
country churchyard SO completely covers the
spot that its locations is lost. An indistinct
mound near the Episcopal church is pointed
out as Governor Calvert's grave" but it is
not possible to verify the statement with any
degree of accuracy.
At the mouth;of ST. Clements Bay, about 20
miles above this point is Blakistone's Island,
where the first landing of the Maryland
colonists was made. OF the event the Gre
latio Stine1is ad Marylandiam,' journal of
the voyage supposed to have been kept by
Father White, one of the two priests who
accompanied the expedition, and found, in 1892,
among the present archives in Rome, says:
'On the day of the annunciation of the Blessed
Virgin Mary (March 25) in the year 1884, we
celebrated the first mass on that island; never
before had it been offered in that region. After
the Holy Sacrifice, bearing on our shoulders
huge cross which we had hewn from a tree,
we moved In procession to spot selected, the
governor, commissioners, and other Catholics
and erected it as trophy to our Saviour; then
humbly kneeling we recited with deep
emotion, the Litany of the Holy Cross" 1t
seems to have been the intention of the colony
to settle on Blakstone's Island as a pre-
caution against the Indians who lined the
shores as they came up the Potomac, but find
ing it too small, they were conducted by
Captain Henry Fleet, Virginian, who was
acting as pilot, to the place afterwards Sc
lected. Blackistones Island contains about
100 acres; 1t is q part Of st. Mary's County,
aud has been owned, for money years, by the
McWilliamses. It's the largest and one of the
prettiest of the Potomac colonies, and with
the expenditure of few thousand dollars
could be made the most attractive summer re-
sort on the river. 1t was called by the colonists
"St. Clements" !" and is spoken of by the early
chroniclers as ''one of the Heron islands,
Others of the group must have been washed
away by the waves of two-and-a-half centuries;
with the exception of 'Heron Island" long
strip of sand visible only at low tide, st.
Clements stands solitary and alone. Neigh
boring geographical names of that period in
dicate the religious character Of the Maryland
settlers; they were nearly all from the Roman
Calendar. The Potomac was called ''St.
Gregory's, three of the Heron Islands were
respectively st. Clements" st. Cecilia's," and
st. Catherine's." Point Lookout was "Cape
st. Michael' Smiths Point was ''Cape st.
Gregory, etc.
The Jesuit fathers, White and Altham came
over In the Ark and the Dove, the pioneers of
the order that has labored in this field ever
since. The policy of Lord Baltimore that mis-
sionaries were not to look to him or the colo
nlsIS LOT support Threw Jnem euUlrely on tDer
own resources. Under the ''Conditions of
Plantation" every one of the ''gentlemen ad-
venturers" of 1884 was entitled to 1000 acres
OF land for every five men brought over, and
those arriving in '35 and '36 were entitled to
10000 acres for every ten men. Under these
conditions the fathers took up 10000 acres,
upon which are the fine ''Jesuit manors" of
the present day in Southern Maryland. OF
these two, st. Inigoe's and Newtown Manors,
are in st. Mary's County, and a third, ST.
Thomas, is IN Charles. OF these the Oldest is
st. lnigoe's five miles from the site of the old
settlement. Its foundation is about contem-
porary with that of the colony. The original
church, the oldest In the State, was burned
some years ago. Newtown Manor, one of the
finest estates in the county, beautifully locat-
ed in Brittan's Neck, between st. Clements
and Brittan's Bays, was of later acquisition
The first church erected there, the crumbing
foundations of which still remain, was built In
1861. The present Newtown Church. dedicat-
ed to st. Ignatius, the founder of the order of
Jesuits, is the Oldest one in the county. The
old two-story manor-house, built of English
brick, still stands in an excellent state of pre-
servation. NeWtown Manor came to the
Jesuits by purchase from William Britain. 1t
is not now occupied by the fathers, whose pas
toral residence is Leonardtown.
Leonardtown, the present county seat of
st. Mary's, was laid out under an act of the
Assembly in 170S, directing the appointment
OF commissioners for the purchase of fifty
acres of land the property of Philip Lynes,
to be erected into d town to be called 'Sey-
mour Town." after Governor Seymour, who
administered the affairs of the province from