Catholic Burial Records in Frederick, Maryland

This once in every 20th blue moon post is inspired by a superb book I was given during a recent trip to Frederick, Maryland. My Catholic in-laws have lived in Frederick for centuries. And been buried there. I regularly visit their graves at St. John's Cemetery when I am back for a visit. And wonder. For many of the Smith and Jamison kinfolk there died decades before the cemetery was created. The skeptic in me has questioned whether the markers were memorial stones or actually marked their graves.

A dedicated group from St. John's and the Frederick County Historical Society answered this and several other questions tumbling about in the back of my mind in the book Burial Records St. John the Evangelist Church Frederick, Maryland From 1779 Through December 31, 2000. It turns out the Smiths and other early Frederick settlers were moved from their original graves at the Jesuit Novitiate graveyard when the Jesuits left Frederick in the early 20th century. Which FINALLY explains how Leonard Smith, who died in 1794 is buried in a cemetery that opened in 1845. 

The book is drawn from church records recording deaths rather than actual burial records. As such, it includes people who were buried from St. John's but not at St. John's. It also includes at least two men not yet buried - my father-in-law and uncle, whose ashes await their very strong and long-lived wives. Long may they wait. 

The book costs $25 and is available privately. I, of course, no longer have the name of the gentleman selling the book (you can find it on the board near the entrance to the cemetery) but contacting the church or historical society bookstore should yield contact information. 

"I shall not enjoy the happiness" - Amanuensis Monday

Thanks to John at Transylvanian Dutch who originated the Amanuensis Monday meme, providing a framework (and nudge) for transcribing family records, news clippings and other treasures.

Though I have yet to complete last week's notes for Joseph Conway's will, this is not the day. It is a day I can transcribe another letter from the papers belonging to Maria Lee Palmer Smith, my husband's great-grandmother. This letter was written to her mother, Margaret Meredith Palmer, in 1851.

Envelope addressed to
Mrs M M. Palmer
near Kilmarnock
Lancaster Co
Va

Madam:

     Your Kind invitation could not have been made at any time, more convenient, than the present. Hence I have a thousand obligations for your exquisite goodness. May our dear Lord grant me as many opportunities of proving my gratitude, as my heart desires.
     And yet, Madam, I shall not enjoy the happiness of seeing you, your dear little children, and my own good William, since I am condemned by my physician, to retire for some days to the north. Be sure, this is a penance to me. I like the good Virginians So much, that it would afford me the greatest consolations, it would perhaps restore my health, if I could do them so good. Let us cheerfully submit to the holy will of God.
     Please, Madam, receive my hearty thanks for your kindness and charity, together with the promise of praying for you and all those who are dear to your heart, as often as I think of you.
     With the sincerest esteem, in union with your holy prayers

most truly yours in  αst

Feast of St. Mary Magd.
Balte.  1851                                              J. Francis.
Mrs. M. Palmer

Notes
The Feast of St. Mary Magdalene is celebrated on July 22nd.

I find the letter of interest for two reasons. The first is the size (I added a penny to the photograph for scale) and flowery writing of the day. The second that the letter (and the fact that it was kept by both Palmer and her daughter) is one more indication of the strong Catholic ties maintained by Palmer while she lived in Virginia. William, her brother, was confirmed a Roman Catholic at some time in 1851. He would take his vows as a Redemptorist priest in 1853.

I have not been able to identify J. Francis. There is no obvious match in the 1850 census in Baltimore. He may be a Redemptorist, but I have not found him in any of the order's histories.

I am not certain about the symbol in the closing line but believe it is the Greek letter α (alpha) or icthys symbol. It seems to be used in lieu of writing Christ. 

Source: 
Francis, (Baltimore, MD) to Margaret M. Palmer. Letter. 22 July 1851. Privately held. Frederick, MD. Published with permission.  

A Grave Concern - Amanuensis Monday

Thanks to John at Transylvanian Dutch who originated the Amanuensis Monday meme, providing a framework (and nudge) for transcribing family records, news clippings and other treasures.

This is another transcription of a document from the papers of Maria Lee Palmer Smith (1844-1931), my husband's great-grandmother. It is a letter from the men acting as her uncle Thomas Meredith's executors addressed to Maria's mother, Margaret Meredith Palmer. Punctuation, format and spelling are retained from the original, though line breaks have been altered.

Baltimore 31st March 1854

Mrs Margaret M. Palmer

Frederick Md   Dear Madam

Your letter of  the 28th inst

has been received -

In reply  we would respectfully suggest, with your concurrence,

that Thursday the 20th April be fixed for the interment of the remains of your deceased husband.

As regards the remains of our most estimable friend Thomas

Meredith; as far as we can ascertain, we believe it is determining that they shall remain where they now are, in the vault of his brother in law Edward Jenkins.

If you should desire to be present, at the internment of 

the remains of your late husband, the day and hour may be fixed with you, after your arrival in Baltimore

                                                                 Very Respectfully

                                                                    Wm Kennedy          }        Executors

                                                                                                                       of

                                                                    MCourtney Jenkins  }   Thos. Meredith

Notes: This letter answered one question and posed so many more.  

The family has long wondered what happened to the gravestone of James Palmer who died in 1847. We assumed he, like most of his family, was buried at Clifton in Kilmarnock, VA even though there was no stone. 

One of my husband's cousins told me that Margaret's grave was "scanned" (I have no idea what technology was used) when the family put up a new marker to replace one that had eroded and that another, small unmarked grave was next to hers. They were hoping to find James' grave but decided the second grave was too small to be an adult. 

After discovering a handwritten family record in Maria's papers I believe the small grave may be that of Maria and James' stillborn daughter. But James was a mystery. 

From this letter, written a few months after her uncle Thomas Meredith's death, it seems James Palmer was buried in Baltimore in 1854 - more than six years after his death. 

I do not know which cemetery the executors were referring to (on the to do list), but I strongly suspect it was a Catholic cemetery. The first one I will check is the one associated with Baltimore's new cathedral - a project Meredith actively supported. I also suspect the reason Palmer was not buried in Virginia was that there was no Catholic church or cemetery near his home at the time of his death. 

Of course, the real question is where was James Palmer's body those six years? 

Source: Kennedy  & Jenkins, (Baltimore, MD) to Margaret M. Palmer. Letter. 31 Mar 1854. Privately held. Frederick, MD. Published with permission. 

At Road's End, Catholics in the Northern Neck

Palmer Hall today.

Catholics living in remote parts of the United States in the early decades of the 19th century often went to great lengths to practice their faith. For my husband's Meredith and Palmer ancestors living in Lancaster and Northumberland Counties, maintaining their Catholic faith involved traveling to Maryland by steamer or arranging for a priest to come to them, as Thomas Meredith did in 1830. 

I am anxious to go to Baltimore this spring to make my Easter but if I go when Brother Thomas goes I shall not be able to stay so long and must give up the pleasure of his company and protection. Please be so kind as to tell me when would be the best time for me to come and make my Easter. (M. M. Palmer at Clifton to Thomas Meredith, Baltimore, 9 March 1949.)

Since it was far easier to travel by water to Baltimore or Norfolk than by road to Richmond they journeyed to Baltimore to celebrate religious holidays, marriages and christenings when they could. But from at least 1830 the family celebrated Mass at home whenever a priest was able to visit.

The Confession chair at Clifton

After the Civil War John A. Palmer took over the family home at Clifton and raised a large family. According to his family, priests would come from Baltimore or Fredericksburg and celebrate Mass in one of the large parlors. Confession would be heard with the priest sitting in one of the wing chairs. Though there were only a few Catholic families in the area, Palmer began lobbying for a church to be built in Kilmarnock. On August 1, 1885 Palmer and his wife deeded land near the town to Bishop Keane of Richmond for five dollars (Lancaster County (VA) Deed Book 45:473). A small frame church was built and the mission parish of Saint Francis de Sales was opened. Priests continued to travel by steamer, staying at Clifton, but celebrating Mass in the new church. No resident priest lived there until after 1915.

Copy of 1885 Deed

In 1956 a new church was constructed next door and the first building became a parish hall. Palmer Hall, as it is known today, was restored several years ago. St. Francis de Sales remains a small parish in numbers, but covering much of the land of the Northern Neck. It has established its own mission church, St. Pauls Catholic Church 35 miles away in Hague, VA.

My husband's family is enormously proud of their efforts to maintain and promote their faith at Clifton since 1840 despite the distances involved. His great-grandmother, John Palmer's sister, kept her copy of the deed with her most treasured family papers.


View Catholic Churchs c. 1840 in a larger map


Written for the 109th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy.


For further information see
St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church
The Catholic Church in Virginia (New River Notes)
The Museum of Virginia Catholic History and Diocesan Archives

Thomas Meredith's 1853 Will, Part III - A Meredith Review

I have spent more than a few days analyzing and absorbing the information in my husband's 4x great-uncle Thomas Meredith (TM) will. He and his extended family have fascinated me for years, all the more after I read many of the letters he and his family exchanged during the 1830s and 1840s in the collection of his papers (MS1795) housed at the Maryland Historical Society.

The will confirmed, in spades, what the papers had suggested. TM and his wife had no children who survived to adulthood. He was extremely wealthy, generous to his family (mostly) and a devoted Catholic. Just for grins I calculated what the $50,000 that he is reported to have left Catholic organizations and charities would be worth today. According to calculators at Measuring Worth.com his 1853 gifts to the Church roughly equal $19,000,000 in 2010. In addition, there were the more than $52,000 of named bequests to his wife and other heirs. He left a large estate and he spread his wealth around.

His will supported the information gathered from the TM papers. Those family members whose letters were saved, who were mentioned regularly in the correspondence, are generally the family members named in the will.

Finding the McSherrys mentioned both in the will and in his papers drove me to some fast online research that suggested Dr. McSherry was a cousin of TM's wife. Since McSherry referred to both TM's wife and nephew James (Thomas James Meredith) as cousins this suggests McSherry may have been related to James' as yet unidentified mother. I love clues!

There were a couple nieces named in the will (Elizabeth Kirk and Ann B. Purcell) who did not appear in his papers. I believe they are daughters of TM's sister Frances Meredith Pullen, one of his sisters I know very little about. Many researchers name her as the Fanny Pullen who married William Garland Yerby in Richmond County, VA. This Fanny Pullen was still alive during the time covered by TM's papers and when he wrote his will. If this Fanny Pullen was TM's sister the fact that she was not mentioned in either his papers or will suggests they were not on good terms. The fact that her daughters were named in the will could also suggest that TM's sister died before his will was written. There are several Richmond County Chancery Court cases I plan to review this summer that I hope will clarify whether the wife of William Garland was also TM's sister.

Finally, and much to my disappointment, the will did nothing to illuminate the life of TM's nephew Thomas W. Meredith, the only known surviving child of John Meredith NOT named as an heir. Thomas is my remaining Meredith mystery - at least for this generation of the family. But that, I think is another post.

The Mary month of May

My mother-in-law and her older sister celebrating May 1st about 1924. They were preparing to decorate an altar in their home in Frederick, Maryland to honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Hood College is in the background. 

"Miraculous Results of Prayer" - Amanuensis Monday

Thanks to John at Transylvanian Dutch who originated the Amanuensis Monday meme, providing a framework (and nudge) for transcribing family records, news clippings and other treasures.

The following article appeared in The Morning Star & Catholic Messenger (New Orleans, LA)  Sunday, 25 Jan 1874 on page 3 and was found through the Chronicling America project of the Library of Congress.

Miraculous Results of Prayer.

A YOUNG GIRL, CURED BY THE INTERCESSION OF "OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL SUCCOUR"

------------

[St. Louis Watchman]

Tyndall and the followers of Tyndall have been denying the efficacy of prayer, and have been calling for test of an hospital ward with prayers, against an hospital ward without prayer. The challenge of course has been disregarded. Tyndall was no_ entitled to any notice inasmuch as he had no reason to offer for his conclusions beyond his own infidel presumption.

We have already referred the Tyndall school to the miracles, the fruit of earnest and sincere prayer, that were daily reported as being witnessed at the waters of Lourdes and elsewhere. We now invite the attention of the members of that school that may be enlightening St. Louis by their presence, to two occurrences that have lately taken place in the suburbs of the city; and which being great and sudden cures of deep seated and long existing disease, the subjects thereof attribute to prayer earnestly and continuously addressed.

The first was the case of a girl long paralysed, whose mother despairing of aid in any other way carried her in her arms to the Church of St. Alphonsus, Grand Av., about a month since and asked Father Meredith to do something for the child. Father Meredith said he could do nothing for her, but prayed over the child and directed her to make a novena to "Our Lady of Perpetual Succour."

The mother took away the child and returned about two weeks since, and saying she had made the novena, again called on Father Meredith to do something for the child, that was suffering very much. The Father expressed his sorrow that he could not alleviate the sufferings of the child, but gave a medal, and desired her to renew the novena. She has since returned to Father Meredith, having made the novena, with the child by the hand cured and perfectly well.

The second case was that of Mary Dolan who in September came to St. Alphonsus Church. She complained that she was suffering so that she could not walk without help and had thirteen ulcerous holes in her leg, and asked the Father Superior to give her some relief in the name of God. She felt quite disappointed when he told her that he could do nothing, but that she should appeal to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour who could help her if that was the will of God. The Father read the prayers for the sick and giving her a medal told her to make a novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. She was assisted away and has since returned, her leg being perfectly healed, and able to do her work.

Those are two cases, both of which bear strong and it may be seen, conclusive evidence, that the cures were wrought by Divine Intervention. The diseases in each case were of long standing, matters of notoriety in their respective neighborhoods and apparently incurable by merely human means. The only explanation is the one we have mentioned.

Notes: Father William Meredith, C.SS.R, was my husband's great-great-great uncle, half-brother to his great-great-grandmother Margaret Meredith Palmer. You can read about his early life here and his life as priest here.

John Tyndall from Wikipedia

John Tyndall (1820-1893) was an Irish born physicist and author whose thought provoking and controversial works analyzed Darwin and natural law, religion and prayer. His book The Prayer-gauge debate (1876) is available on-line. The website The Victorian Web has a post about Tyndall and a transcription of his most famous (sixty page!) speech, The Belfast Address which was given in 1874. For a differing present day perspective on Tyndall and the controversy he sparked see John H. Leinhard's Science, Religion and John Tyndall.

From Wikimedia Commons

The history of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour is described in this article transcribed from The Catholic Encyclopedia.  The Marian visions at Lourdes took place in 1858 and healings were reported soon after.

Source: 

"Miraculous Results of Prayer," The morning star and Catholic messenger (New Orleans [La.]), January 25, 1874, Chronicling America online archive (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86086284/1874-01-25/ed-1/seq-3/ : accessed 18 September 2010), Page 3.

Amanuensis Monday: Twenty-Five Years A Priest

Thanks to John at Transylvanian Dutch for providing a framework (and nudge) for transcribing family records, news clippings and other treasures.

This article is from the Morning Star and Catholic Messenger (New Orleans), Sunday, Sept. 8th, 1878 issue, and was found through the Chronicling America project of the Library of Congress.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS A PRIEST.

_______

St. Louis Watchman

On the 22nd August, Rev. W. V. Meredith, C. SS. R., celebrated the silver jubilee of his priestly ordination. Father Meredith is pastor of St. Alphonsus' church in St. Louis, and superior of the religious community attached thereto, positions he has occupied uninterruptedly almost since the advent of the Redemptorists into St. Louis. The occasion was one of joy to the large congregation worshiping in the Rock Church, and was the subject of a special celebration by the members of the Holy Family of which he is spiritual director. The latter presented with a neat and feeling address.

Father Meredith is an American by birth, and, we believe, a convert to our holy faith. During the whole course of his ministry he has been a faithful and devoted priest, and an honored member of the Redemptorist order. Personally he is the most affable and most considerate of men, a kind father to his community, a wise counsellor to his people and a devoted friend to the poor. He is a man with whom it is impossible to be in antagonism long. He sways the minds of men by mildness, or subdues them by a bluff honesty in which there is no element of hauteur or anger. There is not a more popular clergyman in the whole city than Father Meredith.

It is principally to the community over which he presides, that his worth is made manifest in all its fullness. Religious communities, not being subject to the control of bishops, are dependent for guidance upon those within their own bodies to whom God has granted the rare gift of administrative wisdom and foresight. Young religious priests need constant curbing. Fed for years on the highly-seasoned and rich pabulum of the tyrocinium, they come to to the work of the ministry with the fiery spirit of untamed zeal. They are "sons of thunder" and like the "Son of Thunder" among the apostles,are liable to rush headlong where wisdom bids them pick their steps. The Jesuits have an admirable method of disciplining their recruits, and, as a result, one of them seldom raises an issue which the whole order throughout the world is not ready to sustain. Young priests, with more courage than prudence, are, among them, taught now and then to pluck a few feathers from the wings of their zeal and insert them in the tail of their discretion. The Redemptorist Fathers of this city are a most excellent body of priests - holy, zealous, laborious and kind. They have made some slight mistakes since they came to this city, but they are mistakes of well-meant endeavor, and will soon be forgotten. One thing we do not hesitate to assert, had Father Meredith's advice been taken in those matters those blunders had never been committed. A religious community is not a thing of a day or a year, but of centuries. The tree planted by Father Meredith and his companions on Grand Avenue will continue to grow and bring forth fruit long after its planters shall have gone to their account. In this light the vains of a life like that we now honor in  the person of Father Meredith is beyond computation. If planted in the soil of obedience, and be watered with the sweat of holy zeal, and the blood of generous sacrifice and mortification, it will grow to be a vast tree and under its sheltering branches generations yet unborn will sit be refreshed. Father Meredith is comparatively a young man, and, if God spares his health, capable of further and great labors in the vineyard of the Master. That his health may be thus spared, and his usefulness prolonged is the prayer of the thousands who know and revere him.

Notes:

Father William Vincent Meredith is my husband's 3x great-uncle, Margaret Meredith Palmer's younger half-brother Willie. He did not live long, unfortunately, but died six years later during a yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans.

St. Alphonsus Rock Church is one of the most well known parishes in St. Louis. Built originally to minister to a German immigrant population it now ministers to a primarily African American community. Its liturgies are filled with references to and expressions of African American tradition. The church itself, an outstandingly beautiful structure, was heavily damaged by fire in 2007.

I have to admit to real curiosity about Father Meredith's publicist (a Jesuit, perchance?) and the "slight mistakes" made by the Redemptorists in St. Louis.

Source: 

"Twenty-Five Years a Priest," The morning star and Catholic messenger (New Orleans [La.]), September 08, 1878, Chronicling America online archive (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86086284/1878-09-08/ed-1/seq-3/ : accessed 18 September 2010), Page 3. 

Church Record Sunday: The Morning Star & Catholic Messenger (New Orleans)

Though technically not a church record, this Catholic newspaper published in New Orleans from 1868 to 1881 includes a great deal of information of interest to genealogists, especially those researching family members who were priests or nuns. Catering to the English speaking population in New Orleans it covered a broad range of topics including Irish news and history, news items from around the country relating to Catholic religious orders, priests or nuns and local topics of interest.


The first issue included a rather lurid and improving story, a directory of Catholic parishes and staff in the New Orleans, information on several regional Catholic colleges, news relating to Reconstruction, advertisements from New Orleans merchants, obituaries of Catholic religious from around the country as well as prominent New Orleans Catholic laity, a report on a recent yellow fever epidemic and the following news item:

Frozen in the Confessional

The Rev. Father B. Sn_____ock, of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, has lately suffered the amputation of a finger, which had been frozen while the Rev. Father was sitting in the confessional!

The newspaper is part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America Project. Issues are available from 1868-1879. I first searched it looking for information on two family members, a priest and a nun, who were working in New Orleans after the Civil War. I found multiple references to the priest, including considerable information about him from St. Louis, MO where he worked for 10 years. 




Source: The Morning star and Catholic messenger. (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, February 09, 1868, Morning, page 1.

The Old North

Bill West has challenged us to find poems or songs that refer to the areas our ancestors lived in his Second Great American Local Poem and Song Genealogy Challenge.  I thought about Rusyn folk songs or hymns, or one of the great folk songs heard in Cocke County that Mildred Haun cataloged in the 1930s.

Then I remembered this poem written by my husband's grandfather. I knew it was the one for this challenge. His aunt gave us a copy when we were visiting for my mother-in-law's 90th birthday earlier this fall. I especially love it at this time of year, as our own leaves fly by.

THE OLD NORTH 

by W. Meredith Smith

Hark! the winter winds are sighing

  Round the memory-haunted tower,

E'en the evergreen is dying.

Hark! the winter winds are sighing

And the last leaves now are flying

  From the treetop and the bower.

Hark! the winter winds are sighing

  Round the memory-haunted tower.

William Meredith Smith (1877-1962) graduated from Georgetown University in 1900. After attending medical school in St. Louis he spent his life practicing medicine in Frederick, Maryland. This poem was published in 1927 in the Georgetown Anthology (Philadelphia: Dorrance & Co.). Old North, one of the oldest buildings on the campus, was built in 1794. George Washington spoke from its steps in 1797 and it marks the north side of the original quadrangle. The clock tower rises over Healy Hall on the east side. It was built shortly before Smith graduated and remains the most identifiable structure at the University.

The tower obviously loomed large in Smith's memory. It was not there when his cousins attended Georgetown College in the 1830s and 40s, nor when his father attended before the Civil War, though Old North was. As one of the few Catholic schools in the area it was a beacon for Smith's family. No school has had more significance in his family's history. At least six members attended Georgetown - including his father, son, and grandson. 

My own father graduated from Georgetown's law school which was a key reason I enrolled there. The photographs were taken September 2, 1979 when William Meredith Smith's grandson and I were married at Dahlgren Chapel in the quadrangle. Old North is the building behind us as we kissed. 

Divining faiths

Families have different defining characteristics. You'd best be a baseball fan in our household - we love baseball. We're dog people, not cat people. We travel, as far and as frequently as humanly possible. We don't agree on politics - at all.

Over the years I've traced all kinds of traits back through our families - some good, some not. But one theme has been remarkably constant - strong religious faith and participation. Families have clearly defined church memberships that extend for generations.

It's been a challenge, however, decoding the religious backgrounds of my Northern Neck in-laws. The "recent" members of the Palmer & Meredith clan were born in the 1840s, educated at Catholic boarding schools and devout Roman Catholics.  But I've searched in vain for evidence that their ancestors were Catholic. I learned that there were no Catholic churches in the Northern Neck until long after the Civil War. Colonial Virginia banned Catholic priests, forcing the few Catholic families in Virginia to worship privately in their homes, leaving no public record of their faith. A marriage bond recorded in Colonial Virginia is evidence of a Protestant marriage ceremony. Finding records frustrated me with this crowd - not my normal response. There are, however, plenty of missing marriage records.

Thomas Meredith, a wealthy 19th century Baltimore merchant, was Catholic. He educated many of his nephews and nieces at Catholic schools, but the evidence is clear they were not baptized Catholics as children. Letters refer to two nephews deciding not to become Catholic. Niece Margaret Meredith was baptized at school in 1840, when she was about 18 years old. Nephew William V. Meredith is referred to as a convert in a newspaper article celebrating his 25th anniversary as a priest.  One of Meredith's maternal uncles, William Yerby, was married in a Catholic church in Baltimore. There's no indication the Merediths before Thomas were Catholic.  Indeed, his presumptive ancestor, John Meredith, tried to wrest control of an estate from Edwin Conway in 1654 by alleging he was a Papist. The only hint of evidence that any earlier Palmers were Catholic is the Maryland marriage of one of James Palmer's aunts to a Brent, a family that had Catholic branches. John Meredith's third wife was a Brent, but they were married in Lancaster County by a Protestant minister.

Too many shards of information and no clear answers! Seeing things graphically often helps me, so I made a descendancy chart tracing known Catholics, known Protestants, and the unknowns.

The chart reinforces the central role Thomas Meredith played in their lives - and in my research. I know about those family members he corresponded with. Those he didn't are still ciphers. John Meredith's children were particularly close to him after being orphaned in 1835. He played a lesser role with other nieces and nephews.

I noticed that proven Catholics left the Northern Neck and lived in places with Catholic institutions - where they left records. Only John A. Palmer remained in Virginia. Thomas & his sister-in-law Margaret Piet Meredith lived in Baltimore. His Yerby uncle lived in Baltimore before moving to Mississippi. Maria Lee Palmer and her mother settled in Frederick, MD.  Nephew William V. Meredith moved to Maryland and became a Redemptorist priest in 1853. Presumed grandniece Caroline Meredith seems to have become a Sister of Charity after living in a Baltimore Catholic orphanage following her parents' deaths.

I don't believe I'm going to get a definitive thumbs up or down on this group. My hunch is that at least the Yerbys had ties to Catholicism and when economic opportunities took men to cities with Catholic institutions and populations they married into Catholic families. Thomas Meredith seems to have been a deciding factor in the faiths of his brother John's orphans.

There is still much more research I can do. I am hoping to take some time next spring and visit archives in Baltimore, Richmond and Lancaster County.  Some of the family connections are far from proven, but I'm hopeful that church archives may help.

Source: Image from Wikimedia commons.

Treasure Chest Thursday: What they kept

Tim O'Brien used the contents of his characters' pockets to illuminate their lives in his haunting novel, The Things They Carried.  My family has gone far beyond pockets.  There are boxes and crates filled with scribbled Bible verses, shopping lists, decades of utility bills, photos of anonymous children taught by maiden great-aunts, and notebooks piled in my basement, guest room and office/living room.  But just as I'm ready to set a match to it, I catch a glimpse, a small illumination of what they held dear.

My grandfather died many years before I was born.  I've heard stories, seen pictures.  And I have his papers - small notebooks where he recorded a family record, his soldiers book from the Hungarian Army, and other important documents.  As I looked through them a newspaper clipping fell out, then another, and another.  Five clippings in all – undated but from 1937 to 1940 - tracing a lawsuit involving parishioners at St. Michael's Greek Catholic Church in Binghamton, NY.[i]  The church split when my father was a boy.  Lawsuits were filed and dragged on for more than 4 years.  I heard about it growing up and knew it was important from his child’s perspective.  Even so, I was surprised my grandfather clipped and kept those articles.

St. Michael's was founded in 1904 by Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants.  They were Greek Catholic, Uniate Christians in communion with the Roman Catholic Church but with a different liturgy and significantly different traditions - including married clergy.  There was already pressure from the Vatican on immigrant churches in America to become more “Roman”, so when St. Michael's was incorporated in 1905 its "charter members … expressly signified they wished to be independent" of Rome.  They had their new sanctuary dedicated by a Uniate bishop, used the traditional Greek Catholic liturgy, but refused in 1907 to turn control of their property over to the Uniate bishop as required by Rome. ^[ii]

In 1936 the congregation (several thousand strong) split after the church Board of Trustees, refusing to accept a celibate priest appointed by the Uniate bishop, appointed their own married priest.  Parishioners Mary Drozda, Michael Andrejko, Jr. and William Biscko filed a lawsuit on behalf of many others to force the trustees to accept the Bishop’s appointee.  Motions were filed claiming the Trustees gained control in an illegal election, to force the protesting parishioners to pay their church tithes, over which priest would have use of the residency.  Tensions were high and New York Supreme Court Justice Riley Heath “complimented members of both factions as ‘doing well to keep the situation well in hand’”.[iii]

Ultimately, after the New York Court of Appeals refused to review a 1940 lower court decision, the Trustees won and St. Michael’s was declared independent of the Roman Catholic Church, with corporate ownership of the property and the right to appoint its own priests.  It was a huge victory in my family and to my grandfather who tucked those clippings away.  Thirty years later I would still hear an occasional reference to someone having been on one side of the case or the other. 

What was it that so moved them, made this so significant?  Faith certainly played a part.  The social role of the church?  In the villages they came from it was literally the core, the center of the community.  That was as true in Binghamton.  Did victory itself have special resonance to these newly minted Americans?  Probably all that and more.

In the end, both sides fought for tradition (can you hear Tevye singing in Fiddler on the Roof?) and inched toward the American mainstream.  The protesting group worshipped at a Lithuanian Roman Catholic church, a step toward a melting-pot America.  Those who fought for the traditional clergy could never have done so under Austro-Hungarian rule (and assuredly not within the Roman Catholic Church).  Only in America…

---

[i] At least one article was likely published in the Binghamton Press.  The third article refers to a statement given to The Binghamton Press.  The article headlines (in chronological order) are: “Church Suit Writ Denied by Justice: Heath Refuses to Sign Order Preventing Trustees of St. Michael’s From Using Funds in Litigation”; “Old Church Laws Cited as Lawsuit Continues”; “Greek Church Trustees Win Court Action: St. Michael’s Can Regulate Its Own Affairs, Says Referee”; “St. Michael’s Church Stays Independent: Not Affiliated With Roman Catholic Church, Court Rules”; and “Decision Ends St. Michael’s 4-Year Strife: Independent Group Wins in Appeals Court Denial of Review”.

[ii] Quote is from fourth article, headlined “St. Michael’s Church Stays Independent”.

[iii] Quote is from first article, headlined “Church Suit Writ  Denied By Justice”.

A New Recipe

We define ourselves by race, by ethnicity, and some of us, by our religions. I am far more interested in tracing my religious lineage than the others. My son is getting married soon, and joyful as that is, the planning has prompted more reflection on the role of faith and church in our lives and the choices we've made. I chose to change churches after I married, as my parents did before me.

John Newmark wrote about about religion and genealogy recently at TransylvanianDutch. I agree with him. I am wholly Roman Catholic (holy? alas, no); wholly American. I am not the sum of an ancestral equation or even sprouted from ancestral roots. Way too hybrid for that. If there is a metaphor, perhaps its a recipe - something new (and yummy) created out of a cup of this, a pinch of that. I may have to change the name of this blog... Nolichucky Soup?

That said, my passion is researching those ingredients - or roots - or equations. Only in adulthood did I match Carpatho-Rusyn, Scots-Irish, English and German ethnic labels to my Greek Catholic, Presbyterian and Baptist grandparents and ancestors. (I suppose the Germans were Lutherans at one point, but by the time they landed in Tennessee they were somewhat casual Baptists.) Many of the family stories revolved around their churches. Certainly their lives did. We visited their churches as regularly as we visited their homes.

My husband's family is of English and German ancestry, centuries removed from their immigrant forebearers. They might label themselves as Marylander or western rancher, if pressed. The German heritage is still mentioned over beer. But they, too, define themselves by their church.

Perhaps the religious labels are so strong because each of us came from "mixed" marriages of Catholic and Protestant; marriages not universally celebrated by our parents' families. Perhaps it's because our families did have real roots in their respective Churches. My Baptists have been Baptists since the Great Awakening, preaching and building churches as they moved with the frontier - defining their communities by their churches. My husband's Roman Catholics maintained their faith despite more than a century of oppression in this country and full-blown war in England before that. My Greek Catholics clung to their traditional church when they came to this country, fighting numerous court cases against the Roman Catholic Church (and each other) to worship with their married clergy in this country, as they had in Europe. They finally broke their ties to Rome in 1938. Each family devoted as much, if not more, energy to their religious identity as to their political, racial or ethnic identity.

So, when I research our families, I study their churches as much as any other part of their lives. I get my thrills from the itinerant preacher and missionary priest, the merchant who sent his nephews and nieces to Catholic schools, a long ago Salem witch (alleged) or a hint of Jewish ancestry.

Further reading:  Two brief articles outlining the separation of some Carpatho-Rusyn immigrant churches in America from Rome can be found below.  For far more detail see John Slivka's 1978 work Historical mirror, sources of the Rusin and Hungarian Greek Rite Catholics in the United States of America, 1884-1963.

http://quotes.orthodoxwiki.org/Orestes_(Chornock)

http://www.tccweb.org/bridgeport.htm

Orphaned and Widowed, Part II

Continuing the story of Margaret Meredith Palmer (abt. 1823-1889) who was born in Lancaster County, Virginia and lost her mother, father, step-mother, and the aunt who raised her, all before she was 16 years old.

It's not clear where Margaret lived after her aunt's death, but in 1842 she married James Palmer at her uncle Thomas Meredith's home in Baltimore.  She and her husband settled onto Clifton, a plantation just outside Kilmarnock, Virginia.  In 1847, only five years after her marriage, Margaret was widowed and left with a toddler daughter and infant son.  She was no more than 25 years old.  Once again she turned to her family for support.  Her brothers Thomas and William each moved in for periods of time over the next 3 years.   That she leaned heavily on them and her uncle is evident from a series of letters she wrote in 1848 and 1849.

Let me be clear about Margaret's life at Clifton.  She was not cooking or scrubbing or working the farm.  There were 28 slaves on the plantation when her husband died.  But neither was her life the social whirl of southern lore.  Her letters to her uncle included the most prosaic details of life - the children's sniffles, getting groceries shipped from Baltimore,  new seeds for the vegetable garden, the price she might fetch for her crop of corn, a request for a black wool hat.  She sent orders for molasses (her young son had a penchant for "beating away" on the jugs with a stick - with predictable and sticky results), a good corn broom and $1 worth of cranberries.

Of far more concern to the young widow were the complicated legal and financial matters resulting from her husband's death.  She agonized over whether she was capable of serving as legal guardian for the children, and who should serve if she could not.  She and the children now owned Clifton jointly and all decisions had to be justified as in the best financial interest of her young children.  Acting as guardian herself might force her to rent out their share of the farm and slaves for the highest income.  A guardian could forbid their Catholic education, which was far more expensive than local schooling, when they were older.  She struggled to raise the $8000 guardianship bond, applying to her brothers and uncle to act as security for portions of the bond.  She dreaded going to court, asking "(m)ust I do it (take an oath) and on a Protestant bible?"  Almost a year after her husband's death and very much at wit's end she wrote her uncle, "I know not what to do(.)  I have recommended it in my prayers and wish the will of God to be done.  Most gladly will I take any advice that your kindness will impart.  Do dear Uncle pray for me and my dear children."

Beyond the details of the farm, her legal and financial concerns, Margaret's letters to her uncle showed  deep faith and longing for greater access to the Catholic Church.  There were no Catholic churches in Lancaster or Northumberland counties.  She was "anxious to go to Baltimore this spring to make my Easter" and asked that he let her know what would be most convenient.  She wrote she "will be very glad to attend a retreat if it is the will of Almighty God and shall be glad if dear Aunty (her uncle's wife) will write if she hears" of one in time enough for Margaret to attend.  One letter written during Lent in 1849 closed with a request, "Pray for me kind Uncle and for him to whom you were so kind while living during this holy season of fasting and prayer."  

I've known the facts outlining Margaret's life for many years but had not considered the emotional toll of such loss.  Certainly she was not unique.   Disease was common, medical care primitive and death a constant.  Many of the letters refer to disease or deaths in the county.  But these letters, some of them almost two centuries old, have illuminated her life and the lives of her Meredith kin beyond the details.  They've brought her to life - more than a century after her death.

The years her children grew up were challenging.  Her uncle Thomas died in 1853,  her brother James in 1855 and brother Thomas in 1859.  Mr. Gresham was appointed guardian for the children and helped her manage Clifton.  Ultimately she did rent out the farm and many of the slaves, using the income to pay for the Catholic schools she so valued.  It's not clear where she lived while they were in school in Maryland.  The Palmer slaves were enumerated on her cousin's nearby plantation in 1860.  She and the children returned to Virginia during summers until the Civil War.  Following the war, her daughter settled in Frederick, Maryland and her son took over Clifton.  Each married, had  large families, and surely to her joy, were devout Catholics.  Her son donated the land for the first Catholic Church built in Lancaster or Northumberland counties in 1885.  Margaret spent time with both of them, but lived her last years with her daughter.  She never remarried.  She died on a visit to Northumberland County in 1889.

Sources:  Letters from M. M. Palmer to Thomas Meredith, 1848-49. The letters are part of the Thomas Meredith Papers (MS1795) at the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland.  They are contained in Box 2, Folder 3.

Orphaned and Widowed, Part I

Margaret Meredith Palmer was my husband's great-great grandmother.   She was born around 1823 in Lancaster County, Virginia to Capt. John Meredith and Ann Currell Lee, married James A. Palmer on May 16, 1842 in Baltimore, Maryland and died in Northumberland County in 1889.

That skeletal outline of her life suggests many things.  She lived, as they say, in interesting times.  I have imagined a Tidewater version of Margaret Mitchell's Ellen O'Hara, the penultimate Southern Lady, without the wild Irish husband.  And there is a morsel of truth there.   She was born on one plantation, raised as a devout Catholic, and became mistress of another plantation upon her marriage.  Unlike Ellen O'Hara, she survived her husband and the Civil War.

My image of her changed when I sifted through papers belonging to her uncle, Thomas Meredith, a Baltimore merchant and, much to my delight, a hoarder.  He kept letters from his siblings, nephews and Margaret.  Much of my family history involves documents where ancestors scratched out an X.  It was a thrill to find first person accounts of their lives.   Far from glamorous, Margaret's first 40 years were filled with loss and struggle.

Her father, John Meredith was a cash strapped farmer and slave owner.  In 1822 he married Ann Lee Towill.  It was a second marriage for each.  He was a widower with a son, Thomas James, known as James.  She was a wealthier widow with four children.  Together they had Margaret and a son Thomas William, known as Thomas.  Margaret's mother died when she was a young child and her father married again in 1828 to another widow, her mother's cousin Ann Steptoe Brent.  They had a son William Vincent, known as, well, who cares at this point?

A brief digression - need I say how much I have regretted John's stunning lack of originality in choosing wives and naming his sons?  One of the great joys of those letters was that they clarified the tangled relationships and names.

Margaret's childhood seems to have been rather simple, and sweet.  Her father sent a note to his brother in Baltimore full of family news, money woes, gossip and closed with the note "Margaret & Tho sent you & sister a large potatoe each -- did you get them?" The potatoes were entrusted to a ship captain traveling back to Baltimore.  No word on whether Uncle Thomas got the spud.

Her life changed radically when she was about 12 years old.  Numerous letters refer to the ill health of her father and step-mother.  He died in February, 1834.  A year later her step-mother was dead.

From then on, Margaret's care and upbringing was shared amongst her tight-knit Meredith family.  Her brother James, a merchant in Richmond County, moved his three younger siblings to his home there, where they were cared for by their aunt, Caroline Meredith Shearman.  James and his aunt Caroline doted on the orphans.  Letters refer jokingly to young Willie's (alright, he was known as Willie) crush on a neighbors' daughter and concern that the children maintain ties to Lancaster County where Margaret and Thomas had inherited  property through their mother.  They were sent back to board for school at Col. Edmond's house where, her brother James wrote, "they have an excellent teacher there for the year - Mr. Emmanuel".   Her uncle in Baltimore assumed financial management of her affairs, arranged for her further schooling at St. Joseph's Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland when she was older and served as her father figure for the rest of his life.  But in 1838, another anchor in her life, her aunt Caroline Shearman died.  James wrote his uncle in Baltimore that fall, "I hardly know what poor Margaret will do -- however she will not leave school till July, before only which time providence may make a provision".

To be continued.

Sources:  Letters from John Meredith, T.J. (James) Meredith, Joseph Meredith, Hannah Meredith Yerby,  Caroline Meredith Shearman (all of Virginia) and Sist. Margt Tre_st. of St. Joseph's Academy to Thomas Meredith. The letters are part of the Thomas Meredith Papers (MS1795) at the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland.  All the letters, save an 1840 letter from Sister Margaret, are in Box 1 of the collection.  The letter from Sister Margaret is in Box 2, Folder 1.    

A Gentleman's Proper Education

I am feeling poorly educated.  I have been reviewing a prospectus for Georgetown College dated August 1835.  It's of particular interest because my husband and I both attended Georgetown many, many decades later.  I doubt we could have managed the 19th century curriculum (not that I would have been given the opportunity).

The school year ran from September 15th to July 31st which, while sparing the students Washington D.C. in August, still exposed them to it's wretched summers.  Fr. Mulledy, the school's president, wrote of the College's location on the Potomac river as "particularly healthy" and of the "distance between the College and the Capitol being only an ordinary walk".  The Capitol and school haven't moved,  but not many of us would consider the four plus miles an ordinary walk - especially considering the four mile return trip slopes uphill.

The course of study lasted seven years, substituting roughly for our high school and college studies.  The young men studied seven years of Latin, six of Greek and six of English Composition.  They were taught Geography for five years, read the Bible, Homer, Virgil, Sophocles, Livy, and at least ten classical authors whose names never before crossed my field of vision.  The received "an hour and a quarter every day, in Mathematics" culminating in "Solid Geometry, Spherics, the use of the Globes, Conics and the Calculus", and an hour a day of French.  Bookkeeping was available as an elective.  For additional charges the gentlemen were taught Italian, Spanish or German, Music, Drawing, Dancing and Fencing.

Their lives were far more prescribed than ours.  The required wardrobe puts the modern camp list to shame.  For public ceremonies the young men had to bring white pantaloons and black silk waistcoats for summer; blue suits with black velvet waistcoats for winter.  For regular use they needed two suits, "six shirts, six pairs of stockings, six pocket handkerchiefs, three pairs of shoes, a hat and a cloak or great coat".  All activities were under the watchful eye of the prefects and students were allowed to leave the College only once a year.  Even those whose family lived nearby were only allowed brief monthly visits and none were "allowed to visit any person except his parents or legal guardian".  Pocket money was deposited with Fr. Mulledy, and doled out at his discretion.

The $200 annual tuition included "board and lodging, washing and mending linen and stockings, for the use of books, (philosophical and mathematics excepted,) pens, ink, and writing paper, slates and pencils, medical aid and medicine".

And finally, to my utter delight and amusement, each student was required to provide "a silver spoon, marked with his name".  Hoya Saxa.

Source:  "Georgetown College in the District of Columbia" dated August 1835, from the Thomas Meredith Papers (MS1795, Box 1, Folder 5), Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland.  

Catholics in Virginia

When I began researching 19th century Merediths in Lancaster and Northumberland Counties (VA) I was frustrated by the dearth of marriage records for some family members.  For people of some financial means they seemed cavalier about marrying according to the laws of Virginia.  And then I found this letter.  

Transcription of Letter from Thomas Meredith to Revd. Mr. Dzeroyinski at Georgetown, 16 Sept 1830.  (Collection:  Maryland Province Archives, 62:16., Georgetown University Library, Washington, DC)

                                                                                                Baltimore Sept. 16. 1830

Rev^d. Sirs

            The Archbishop has informed me of your kindness in so promptly consenting to Rev^d. Mr Du Buson’s visiting Lancaster County in Virginia, my native place, to perform the marriage ceremony for my niece, when at the same time I hope an opportunity will be afforded him of doing much good by explaining the Catholic doctrines & preaching a few sermons for them – The Revd Father Besithe (sp?) told me he expected Revd Mr. DuB. would be in Geo Town by the latter part of last week, but the archbishop informed me he had not come, on Sunday last & you had written for him.   My niece is living with an elder brother of mine, who has not informed when the marriage is to take place, by his last letter he intimated that he was making arrangements to come to Balt^o. not knowing that a Priest could go down, if that arrangement has not been concluded before my letter informing him of Rev^d Mr DuB’s willingness to go, reaches him, I think it will take place at his house on 30^th [NW or possibly Nov.].  You will lay me under an additional obligation if you will be so kind as to inform me of the arrival of Rev^d. Mr DuB. at Geo. Town as soon as is [ou???] or ask him to do it, that I may address him on the sugject so soon as I get decisive information from my brother.  In the mean time would inform him that the Steam Boat leaves Baltimore on Wednesday at 10 oclk A.M. & arrives at my brother’s before sunrise on thursday morning.  If the marriage should take place on thursday evening would that be allowing him time enough before the ceremony?

            Thanking you very sincerely for your kindness in so eadily granting me the great favor asked & begging that you will excuse me for troubling now.  I am Revd. & Dear Sirs with the highest respect & veneration

                                                                                       Your obliged & able servt

                                                                                               Tho^s. Meridith

Transcription of letter in reply.

                                                                                    GeorgeTown College Sept. 18^th 1830

Dear Sir:

I received yesterday your of 16^th[??]  Last week I wrote to Father Dubuisson who is [?????] at [????]town [??] St. Marys County to go to Baltimore to see you and arrange every thing respecting the marriage in question.  He will probably see you this week.  Should you receive an answer from your Brother before he sees you, you can direct him accordingly.  I am glad to be serviceable to you in any way as you are so zealous in promoting the greater glory of God. 

                                                                                    Respectfully Yours

Far from cavalier, they were Catholic.  Though legally allowed to practice their faith following Jefferson's 1786 Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, they had no pastor or church available.  A Catholic church was not established in Lancaster County until 1885 when a Meredith descendent donated land in Kilmarnock.  I  have since found some of their marriage records in Maryland and Washington, DC.  And it seems some marriages may have been performed by visiting priests and never recorded in Virginia.  Now if I could only identify the mystery bride...