‘Maryland, Our Maryland’by Brooklyn Eagle 03-27-2008
ST. CLEMENT ISLAND — On March 27, 1634, the first settlement in what is now Maryland was established on the St. Charles River. George Calvert’s dream of founding a Catholic enclave in the English colonies had become a reality. Two days previously 128 Catholic settlers bad landed on Saint Clement Island. George Calvert had been the principal secretary of King James I of England, but he left the government after he declared his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Calvert later persuaded King James to grant him a new colony north of Virginia that would be dedicated to religious freedom. Calvert was awarded the title of Lord Baltimore, but he died before he was able to sign the deed to the colony. His son Cecil commissioned two ships, the Ark and the Dove, to sail for the new land. On March 24 the two vessels sailed up the Potomac River and landed on Saint Clement. On March 25, two Jesuit priests (Fr. Andew White, S.J.) who accompanied the colonists erected a large cross and celebrated the first Catholic mass in the “New World.” Cecil Calvert stayed in England to fight anti-papist feelings against the new colony and appointed his brother Leonard to govern in his stead.
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