The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1905-08-12
JESUIT HOUSE OF ST. INIGos.

St. Inigos Greek and perhaps dozen
miles from the Chesapeake stands the
vacation house of the Jesuits. All
about lies old Catholic Maryland of
the Calvert palatinate.
The county is St. Mary's, and st.
Inigos Creek is branch of the noble
and lovely St. Mary's river. Just
across the wide mouth of the creek on
the fine plateau commanding the river
is the site of the old custom house of
the period when the capital OF Mary
land was the little seventeenth CEN
tury town of St. Mary's.
Here dwelt the collector of customs
and from his commanding bluff he
could halt any craft coming up the
river, and demand tribute for the
viceregal government. St. Mary's
itself, with its impressive shaft COM
memorating the Galverts and their
vanished palatinate, lies six or eight
miles up the river in a lovely hill
country rich III history and tradition.
The Jesuits could hardly have
chosen lovelier or more congenial
spot for their retreat, or one more re-
mote in spirit and aspect from the
affairs of this country. The whole
geography of the region commemor-
ates the saints of the Church. The
next estuary of the Potomac is St.
Clements Bay.
A dozen miles across the river is
the birthplace of Washington in West
moreland country, Va, region where
one of the commonest family names is
that of the first President. AT quaint
little old Leonardstown, the county
seat of St. Mary's, is Catholic school.
The very negroes who fish the waters
and work the farms are Catholics, as
were their slave ancestors for genera
| tionS.
That green and airy cape where the
Jesuits find retreat from time to time
is almost thirty miles from the near
est railway station on either shore of
the Chesapeake Bay. When the chief
buildings of neighboring county
town were burned some years ago
Baltimore was four days in learning
| the news.
The fathers go to and from the re-
treat by means of tri-weekly steam
boat, which is normally thirty hours
in making the voyage between Balti-
more and Washington. The nearest
wharf is two miles by water and
| good deal more by land up St. Inigos
Creek.
The steamer makes the wharf with
so much deliberation that visitors to
the vacation house from Washington
often leave the boat at St. Georges
Island, some miles up the Potomac,
walk across the island, and sail thence
by small boats to their destination.
Eight or ten hours later the steamer,
after having visited meanwhile half
dozen wharves up and down the tor
tuous and beautiful tributaries of the
Potomac on the Virginia side, reaches
St. Inigos Greek and enables travel
ers from the retreat to make Balti-
more in 10 or IL hours.
As seen from the water, the retreat
suggests almost anything but scene
of ascetic rites. The vast square yell
low house, four stories high and nobly
proportioned, looks, with its green
blinds and many windows, like a well
kept seaside hotel of a substantially
unusual with such structures.
At a nearer approach it is found to
be great, comfortable house, severe
ly simple in its appointments, with a
pleasant garden at hand and pre-
vailing atmosphere of fneatness. Here
the members of the Order come for
longer or shorter stays, some only
until the next boat can take them up
the Potomac to Washington, or down
to the mouth of the river, and thence
to Baltimore.
Nothing is commoner aboard the
boats that link this quiet and remote
region with the outside world than
the vision of a Jesuit father unostenta
tiously occupied with his devotions,
or keenly cycling the land that was
once the Catholic stronghold in the
English-speaking New World. Those
black coated figures are just such as
have been familiar to these shores and
their inhabitants for two and three
quarters centuries, and the fathers of
today are as much at home in old St.
Mary's as were those who came with
the Calverts, when they exchanged
the inhospitable climate of New
foundland for this land of warmth
and richness.
The beauty and fertility of the land
must fill the visiting Catholic with
regret at the thought of what the Cal
verts lost for the Church. The bluff
shores of St. Inigos are clad in rich
woodland or lined with cultivated
fields as far as the eye can reach.
Within sight of the retreat is the
Oldest house in Maryland, a quaint
| ana lovely uOMCSICdu 1OOAiuS dShOSo
its rich old box garden to st. Mary's
and the Potomac. Wheat and corn
and tobacco are still grown in the
staid old-fashioned way, and oxen are
the chief draft animals.
All manner of barnyard fowl -four
ish ashore, and the waters fairly swarm
with wild ducks and geese in winter,
and all the year round with fish Of
many kinds. Eastern Shore men
boast that they are the best fed peo-
pie in the world, but there are few
places where one may live as cheaply
and substantially than within sight of
the great yellow house where the
| Jesuits find refuge from the noise of
the twentieth century.
Two or three dollars will furnish
fish for the whole Lent, and fifty rich
farms within easy sailing distance are
| -. e. Co. 4 -,