From the Archives – The Earliest Known Parish Employee

Throughout its 230-year-old history, the parish has had countless fine employees. The earliest employee found in church records is Dennis Foley. He was in charge of caring for the property at the site of the first chapel and Saint Mary Cemetery (now 1000 South Royal Street).

The Virginia Journal and Alexandria Examiner printed this notice (21 May 1790): “I, the Subscriber, do hereby caution and forbid any person whatsoever, not to take away any materials appropriated for the building of the Roman Catholic Church in this town…and all persons who may have taken away any brick, or any other articles from the ground intended for building said Church, are called upon to render an account of said articles to the committee or to the subscribers generally.”

The announcement tells us that Alexandria’s Catholics were already planning for a house of worship five years before Bishop John Carroll approved their requests to erect one. They (the committee and subscribers) were already raising funds and making bricks on a site on South Royal. Foley must have had a difficult time keeping watch on the construction site. It was a remote location at that time, not close to the center of the town where he could keep an eye on things. A grocer, with a shop at Duke and St. Asaph Streets, Foley likely didn’t have much free time to monitor and secure the chapel site.

— Kitty Guy, Parish Historian

In 2020, to commemorate the 225th anniversary of our parish, we started “From the Archives” as a weekly feature online and in our bulletin to spotlight the history of Saint Mary’s. Due to its popularity, we are continuing the series. An archive of the features is located here.