St Mary's City MA
VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Thu 24 Nov 2011 04:11
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St Mary's City - birthplace of religious
tolerance.
Maryland was granted by Royal Charter to Cecil
Lambert, 2nd Baron Baltimore and remarkably a Catholic, in 1632. 140 settlers
with two ships, the Ark and the Dove arrived in Maryland in
1634 and established St Mary's City as the capital of Maryland. Calvert's
investors and many settlers were Catholic, but most of the workers were
Protestant; at a time of considerable religious animosity this was a recipe for
trouble. Calvert therefore set the colony up with "Liberty of Conscience" and no
established religion (membership of the Church of England was compulsory in
Virginia at the time) the very first time in the western world that
religious freedom had been established in law.
The State Capital was moved to Annapolis in 1695
and St Mary's was abandoned. It is now a thriving State Historical Park with
many reconstructed buildings and much archaeology.
Here is a working replica of the
Dove, which was the colony's transport vessel, with park
interpreters in period dress. A tiny ship with an awful lot of
rigging:
  The colony brought with them a Jesuit priest, who
built a church. Symbolically, it was at the opposite end of town to the State
House to physically demonstrate the separation of church and state. Here is a
full scale reconstruction of it, on its original foundations:
 Historically this is truly amazing. It was illegal
to build a Catholic church in England at the time - or even to hold a Catholic
service.
Sadly this period of religious tolerance did not
last; St Mary's City saw the only 'battle' (more a skirmish) of the English
Civil Wars in America in 1645 resulting in Calvert losing Maryland. It was
returned to him after the Restoration of the monarchy, but lost again, this time
permanently, in a Protestant revolution in 1689. Religious toleration went with
him, and by 1704 Maryland was passing an Act "to prevent the growth of popery in
this province". The church was locked and later demolished.
Calvert's ideal survived however, and was revived
in the US Constitution after the Revolution. Despite the strange religious
fervour here, from founding to the present day, the separation of church
and state has remained a fundamental and active part of Federal
law.
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