“From the Archives” Our Mission Church in Maryland

The first successful mission of Saint Mary was our only mission in Maryland, Saint Ignatius Loyola, established in 1849 on the Alexandria Ferry Road (now Brinkley Road) in Oxon Hill.

Father Joseph Finotti of Saint Mary also served as founding pastor of Saint Ignatius. Saint Mary parishioners who led the effort to build the mission church included the Daingerfield family. Maria Rozier, owner of Notley Hall (where Father Thayer stayed after visiting Alexandria’s Catholics in 1795), was the wife of Dr. William Daingerfield. In addition to their estate in Oxon Hill, the Daingerfields lived in a townhouse at 917 King Street in Alexandria. Dr. Daingerfield also owned the Alexandria Ferry.

The Oxon Hill parishioners first attended Mass at the home of the Surratt family (Mary Jenkins Surratt later was among the conspirators convicted and hung in 1865 for the assassination President Abraham Lincoln). The original church was partially funded by money collected by Mary Surratt and other women of the parish. Land for the new mission church was donated by two Episcopalians, a Doctor Folson and a Major Edelen.

The first church was completed in 1850 and dedicated by the Most Reverend Samuel Eccleston, Archbishop of Baltimore. The Reverend James Ryder, Rector of Georgetown College and an outstanding preacher of the time, delivered the sermon. The original, simple wooden structure was replaced in 1890 by a larger frame church with a tall steeple, still in use today.

Diocesan boundary lines were redrawn and Saint Ignatius parish eventually was placed under the jurisdiction of Saint Mary of the Assumption Church in Upper Marlboro, MD, and became part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The church remained a mission until 1948 when Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle of the Archdiocese of Washington declared it a parish with a resident pastor. The 1890 church was declared a national historic landmark in 1974.

– 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 in 2021. An archive of the features is located here.