“From the Archives” — Saint Mary As A “Mission” Church

For the first 23 years of its existence, until 1818, Saint Mary was a mission church of Trinity Church in Georgetown. Many Trinity Jesuits serving at Saint Mary in the early years in nonresident roles became significant figures in the development of the Catholic Church in Maryland, the District of Columbia and the United States as a whole. With beginnings almost as obscure as Saint Mary, Trinity (since 1845 called Holy Trinity), was built as the first Catholic church in Maryland in what would become the Federal city and District of Colum- bia. Worship at Trinity began in 1794, just a year before the first Saint Mary chapel was built in Alexandria.

In 1794, Father John Thayer, S.J., was placed in charge of Saint Mary mission. A former Congregational minister and graduate of Yale University who had served as chaplain in the American Revolution, Thayer was a native of Boston. In Europe, he converted to Catholicism (1783), studied with the Sulpicians in Paris and was ordained a priest in 1789. He was learned, pious and zealous in his work. But his stern Puritan background and lack of social graces made him uncomfortable with his Alexandria parishioners, particularly the gregarious Colonel John Fitzgerald, aide to General George Washington. Impatient for this little flock to have its own church in Alexandria, on April 10, 1795, Thayer wrote to Bishop Carroll in Baltimore: “I wish that you quicken Colonel Fitzgerald with respect to building the chapel. It depends now wholly on him. An acre of ground being already given for the purpose….”

Father Thayer did not see the completion of his work. He left Saint Mary in 1795, and by 1796 was doing missionary work in Kentucky, where Catholics, many originally from Maryland, were settling. He left Kentucky in 1805 and returned to Europe, settling permanently in Ireland.