~ -¥ 'St" Roman plate in the area 1634-1800

Part 1 JOH N PEARCE

N the 'Feast of the Annunciation, 25th March, 1634, 200 The Jesuits were sent to London in chains in 1644, but one was OEnglish families made land in Lord Baltimore's colony of allowed to return in 1648. Roman Catholics were disfranchised v1aryland. They were mostly Roman Catholic families, and their in 1654 when Baltimore's government was overthrown, but irst corporate act, once landed, was the celebration of the religious liberty was restored with the government in 1658. ¥ith their , Father Andrew White, S.]., officiating. Balti­ After fifteen years the restrictions on Catholics returned, and nore's intention that his colony should tolerate all Christians, grew stricter, with anti-Catholic Test Acts for officeholders in ncluding the Roman Catholics whose religion was illegal in 1673 and 1678; the anti-Catholic Toleration Act ofWilliam and :ngland, led to the Act for Church Liberties of 1640, and the Mary, 1689; an act disbarring Catholic lawyers in 1692; the zllnous Act of Toleration of 1649. Act Against Irish Papists, 1694; Mass forbidden except in £'unilies But this freedom was short-lived, and irregular while it lasted. on their own grounds, and the Catholic church in St. Mary's City

1. Silver and (English, second half sixteenth century) and stone, used in the early eighteenth century on the Lancaster planta­ tion, Rock Point, Charles County, Maryland. The mouldings on the base, and the bands on the paten, are gilt. The interior of the cup is gilt (as are the interiors of all the iIIustrated, except as noted). The marks in one of the joints of the chalice stern (see detail) have been deliberately disfigured and partiaIly erased, and are no longer legible. The chalice bowl form has been slightly changed in later repairs. As with the case of many of these recusant chalices, it has two joints to aIlow taking apart into three pieces, a feature which Mr. Charles Oman regards as introduced only in examples like this, Elizabethan in date but foIl owing earlier sixteenth century style except for the double jointing. Fr. Edward Carley has suggested thatsmaIl size and increased demountability were to facilitate easy hiding. Chalice height si inches. Archives, Georgetown University (gift of Charles Calvert Lancaster and Malinda Jenkins Lancaster), Wash­ ington, D.C. AIl photographs by Joseph Bowen, Smithsonian Institution, except as noted. '"' -----:-:--'q .' I"~ ~ QID.

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2. Secular cup of silver, taken over for use as a chalice, used in the early mission of St. Francis Xavier at Newtown, St. Mary's County, Maryland, probably as early as the 1650S and '60s. The cup has London marks for 1640-41 and maker's mark lG with a mullet below. The same maker is recorded by Jackson and Oman for cups for the established church. Chalice height 4 ~ inches. The unmarked paten is presumably a Maryland addition. Archives, Georgetown University.

(the colonial capital) closed, in 1704; Irish Catholics double Barnum, S.J., Archivist at Georgetown University, Washington, taxed, and forbidden to appear in certain parts of towns, in D .e. in the 1890S and again in the 1920S had a great interest in 1717. the history of the early years of Maryland Catholicism, and In 1752 Charles Carroll went to France to make an appeal for began to solicit the transfer of such items for the care of the the emigration of Maryland's Catholics to the Arkansas River in Archives at the University. The collection he formed, augm.ented Louisiane, but this was rej ected. In the same year a prohibition of by a later successor as Archivist, the late Fr. William e. Repetti, Catholic emigration to M aryland was enacted, and in 1756 taxes S.]., is the bulk of the present group. on Catholic lands were doubled. The philosophy of the Revolu­ About half the chnrch plate we know from this period was ti on brought emancipation in 1774, and in 1789 the Catholics made in England, including a rather earlier chalice (No. I, of established an episcopal see. Elizabethan date) used in the Lancaster family chapel. The other There were thus no churches (and of course no cathe­ English pieces (Nos. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 9) are generally contemporary drals) in the usual sense from the 1670S to the 177os; and as the with, or a decade or two earlier than, their traditional earliest religious leadership of a fairl y large territory fell on a handful dates of use in Maryland. Whether there was any direct trade of men (probably only a total of seventy Jes uits between 1700 and with England for such vessels is not yet known, but it is probable 1777) who often carried their and mass equipment that most of thes.e were brought as family items. w ith them, it is to be expected that only a small amount of Study is only beginning of the range of eC1uipment of the equipment, and that mainly from private chapels, will have public chapels of the fmt years, the priva te chapels, and religious survived. As the records which tend to support and preserve the equipment for use in private houses which did not afford a natural traditionalism of a parish are not present in many of separate chapel room. Fr. Edward Carley, the leading current these situations, the tendency for such pieces to lose their identity, historian of this period, notes, 'Some homes had a se parate room and/ or di sa ppear, has been high. Fortunately, Fr. Francis A. cdled a "Chapel Room"; others used the parlour or dining

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3. Pewter chalice and paten, probably Maryland area, second half seventeenth century, with unidentified maker's mark RI, no gilding. Chalice height s! inches. Although the minimum Catholic requirement for chalice matorials was for a silver cup with the interior gilt, other materials were permitted when circumstances prevented the use of silver. This would suppOrt the long traditional association of these pewter pieces with the early missionaries in Maryland, in the second half of the seventeenth century. (See She", ClIllD/ic Ch"rch i" Colollial Times, P.36.) Archives, Georgetown University .

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4. Silver chalice and paten, English, c. 1650-70. The chalice is ornamented with cast angels and the en­ graved symbol of the Society of Jesus. Its early history is not known. The interior of the paten is gilt, the chalice height si! inches. Otllan notes this as 'a very common type [of which] I ha v e listed examples with the marks of four different goldsmiths'. Archives. Gcorgcto,vn University_ 5. Silver chalice, c. 1670, one of the forms used by English Roman Catholics during the period ofrecusancy. Maker's mark TP in a shield (like that on an apostle spoon listed by Jackson for 1639-40; previously unknown to Mr. Oman as a maker who worked for the recusants). The Rev. Edward B. Carley has reconstructed its probable history as descended from Col. Peter Sayer (died in Maryland, November, 1697; son of the immigrant William Sayer) through his widow to her niece Mrs. Richard Bennett Ill; from her via her husband to his nephew Charles Philemon Blake of Blakeford, in 1749. Fr. Carley has traced it then (together with its present paten, of c. 1760) to use in St. Joseph's Mission near Cordova, Talbot County, Maryland, from about 1800 to 1890, then with Monsignor Edward Mickle to St. Charles Church, Cape Charles, Virginia, where it was discovered a few years ago. Height 5 -& inches. St. Peter's Cathedral, Wilmington, Del.

room, or hallway for Mass. Peter Sayer (see No. 5) had a Chapel had been illegal in England since the twelfth century; and Room, Blakeford had a Chapel Room, Sportsman's Hall although Charles Oman records funerary chalices (for ' (Blakes) had one. In "Bowlingly" at Queenstown, Mass was burials) of pewter as late as the fourteenth century, probably no offered in the upstairs hall, at Trumpington, Rock Hall, Kent priest in England, even a recusant, would have had a pewter Co., the parlour was used. At Thomas Willcox's house, Concord, chalice in the seventeenth century, like that seen in No. J; also (see No. 7) the dining room was always used.' the maker of the latter, R I, though using a typically seventeenth­ The silver ostensoria in Nos. 9 & 10, of which the first is known century mark, and well within the period of full British docu­ to have been in private ownership and the second probably also mentation, is not recorded in Cotterell. The strong possibility was, suggest that some of these private pieces and chapels may thus exists that this chalice and paten are by a mid-seventeenth­ have been much richer than we have previously thought. century Maryland pewterer, as yet unidentified. At the other end of the scale, the pewter chalice and paten The provincial workmanship and the inscription of the (No. 3) suggest that some chapels or priests may have been ostensorium seen in No. 10 (c. 1700) suggest it was probably furnished very plainly. As pewter is soft and wears quickly, and, made in Maryland. It is difficult to imagine that the inscription being officially disapproved for chalices, would have been in the base, by an obviously experienced hand, was engraved replaced with silver as soon as possible, there may have been a anywhere other than Maryland. Mr. Oman regards the ciboriu111 larger number of pewter pieces than these two remaining pieces in No. 12 as probably not English in manu£.'lcture (though suggest. English in design) and its unidentified maker with the mark pE Because religious vessels tend to be preserved longer than was thus possibly a Marylander. The unmarked silver chalice and domestic ones, this group includes what may be the earliest paten in No. 13 are provincial (probably Maryland) pieces of extant pieces of Maryland pewter and silver. Pewter for chalices the 17205 or '305. All of these pieces are earlier than the earliest

290 Maryland silver now known (the Inch bowl of 17.1-3). These culture in the Maryland area, and tells us more about early items thus probably represent our first records of Maryland Maryland craftsmanship than wc have previously known. silverwork before 1740. Further se1rching should bring to hght additional forms and Additionally, the Joseph Toy (No. IS) and the Sewell examples, and, perhaps, the documentary material which is now chalice and (Nos. IS & 16) extend our knowledge of even rarer than the objects themselves. later eighteenth-century Maryland silversmithing into previously The altthor wishes. to aclmolllledge the assista11ce oJ lIIany persons undocumented work in Roman Catholic forms. in tIle preparatioll 0..1 tIll's article, partiClllarly the Rev. Edward B. This preliminary study of recusant religious vessels introduces Carley, Sister St. AlIrefills CND, 1\1r. Charles Ollla11, and the late us to artifacts of a number of little-known aspects of colonial Rev. Willialll C. Repecti, S.J.

6. Silver chalice. Base identified by Mr. Oman as Irish, with engraved date 7. Silver chalice by John \Vard, London, c. 1690-1700. Brought by the 1670; knot, top joint and cup are later changes. The family whose initials Willcox family from England to Concord, Pennsylvania, by at least 172 0. are engraved has not been identified, though Fr. Carley has suggested they Used in Masses held regularl y in the dining room of their house from 172 0 might have been the Keatings, Irish immigrants to Wilmington in the to 1857. Also known as the Greaton chalice after its supposed occasional late eighteenth century. This chalice was found recently at the Church of use by Fr. Joseph Greaton, S.J., founder of the Roman Catholic church the Annunciation, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, and it could also have in , 1733. St. Charles Seminary. migrated there from the missions further down the Susquehanna at Conewago (founded 1730) or Lancaster (founded 1742). St. Charles Seminary, Overbrook, Pennsylvania. Roman Catholic church plate in the Maryland area 1634-1800 Part 2 JOHN PEARCE

belonging to the R everend H. L. Rimlinger, it ONTINUATION here of the first part of my article, ciborium possible to pronounce original Maryland workmanship with published in the last number, concludes this preliminary is C good deal more positiveness. In short, publication of the study, a nd first publication of the illustrations concerned, of a objects concerned can only serve greatly to extend our know_ Roman Catholic church plate dating from 1634-1800 still extant of eighteenth-century Maryland silversmithing into pre­ in the Maryland area. ledge undocumented work in Roman Catholic forms. I have Although, due to lack of full documentation with some pieces, viously already acknowledged the assistance afforded m e in this study, it can inevitably only be surmised th at they were almost certainly but I am particularly indebted to Mr. Charles Oman, the noted made in Maryland, with others, like the Joseph Toy silver English silver-historian, for his expertise. pyx in St. Peter's Cathedral, Wilmington, and the s ilver

8. Ostensorium in silver gilt, Paris. 1694. This was the 'soleil de vermeil' included in an important gift of 1695 by MIle. Jeanne Le Ber to the VilIe Marie, mother house of the Congregation de Notre Dame, in Montreal, Quebec. This gift also included a tabernacle, a chalice, a ciborium, two burettes () with their tray, a lamp, a (incense burner) and its incense boat, all in silver. The burettes and this ostensorium were rescued from the fire of 1893 which destroyed the mother house, and the ostensorium repaired by a Mr. Feeley of Providence, Rhode Island (using the Georgetown example of No. 9 as a model), and restored to the of the Oeuvre de Tabernacles, the -making successors to MIle. Le Ber in the Congregation. The Paris marks are on both the base and the surmounting , thus indicating that no major losses are likely to have occurred in the fire, in spite of the recorded use of the George­ town piece as a model. Photograph courtesy of the Congregation de Notre Dame.

9. Silver ostensorium, used at St. Ignatius Chapel, St. Thomas Manor, Port Tobacco, Maryland. Probably English, c. 1700. Although this has an obvious relationship to such French work as the Paris example of No. 8, Mr. Oman notes it is very similar to an English mons trance in a group of plate he has recently studied, originally made in 1686 for James VII & II's chapel at Holyrood House, Edinburgh. Height 14t inches. Archives, Georgetown University.

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IQ. Silver gilt ostensorium, probably made in Maryland, Co 1700. The glass jewels are later additions, and other changes, probably minor, have been made to the upper frame. The spiraIing wire around the uprights is meant to suggest the frequently used Roman Catholic motif based on the ancient spiral columns of the old church of St. Peter's, Rom", incor­ porated into the present Renaissance building. Base engraved Ora pro Georgio Tompsollo for George Thompson (ft. 1658- 1663), first Clerk of Court in Charles COUnty, Maryland. Height 12 ~ inches. Archives, George­ town University.

~I. :he (~'pe of English recusant ciborium of the carly eighteenth century. ~nJanlin Py ne, London, 1712-13. See C. C . Oman, ElIg/ish Chllrch P/,lIe. V,Ctoria and Albert Museum. 12. Silver dborium, probably made in Mary­ land, c. 1710; found in recent years in the neighbourhood of Warwick, Maryland. The maker's mark PE (see detail) has been exten­ sively checked at Goldsmith's Hall by Mr· Oman and the Assay Master, and the lack of it in the Hall marks suggests it as a previously unrecorded Maryland mark; cf. No. n. Fr. Carley has suggested this may be the 'silver challice with a cover' in the 172 3 inventory of James Heath, who had acquired WorseIl Manor, adjacent to St. Frands Xavier (Old Bohemia), Warwick, Cecil County, Maryland. from Charles Blake in 1707. The present cover is a recent replacement. Height si inches to the lip of cup. Collection of the Rev. Herberl L. Rimlinger. ~ :.;. ," -...

13. Silve h I' th . r c a ICe and paten. . Probably made In M aryland, first quarter of the eIghteenth. ~r . use by Fr. Samuel Barber, S.]., century, though theIr. I' k h ' t y at missions on the Eastern ear lest nown IS or only begins wirh hce Shore in the nineteenth century heig ht 5 ~ inches. Archives, Georgetown . The knot in the stem is inverted University . as presently assembled. ~ .. 11- lP-li

14. Silver pyx, marked with two different sizes of IT for Joseph Toy of Abingdon, Harford County, Maryland (1748-1826, working 1776- 1795). Toy was a cousin ofWilliam White, the first Episcopal in the United States, and after 1795 hitnselfbecame a Methodist minister, though his second wife and their children were Roman Catholics. Like the chalice in No. 5, this was also found at St. Charles Church, Cape Charles, Virginia, where (Fr. Carley surmises) it also came with Monsignor Mic:

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16. Silver ciborium used by the SeweJl family. Probably made in Maryland, second half of the eighteenth century. The silver-plated croSS is a later replacement. Height 9i inches. See also the SeweJl chalice (No. IS). These tWO SeweJl pieces do not seem to be from the same hand, and it is noteworthy that the silver in the ciborium appears to have considerably more impurities than is usual in Maryland silver. Archives, Georgetown University.

68 17. Silver-plated altar and two small candlesticks (the latter now .- ::; t) from the set of the crucifix, six canonical candlesticks, 6 smaller ~ .,,! dlesticks, 1 censer, 1 incense boat, 12 spring sockets (presumably f oe the 12 candlesticks) and 2 missals, bought in Paris in 1795, by Fr. Du 1I0urg, third President of Georgetown University, for Use in the University's first chapel, in the Old South Building (one of the buildings erected from L'Enfant's unified plans for the campus). These items and shipping cost £959 in specie, delivered in New York. The candlesticks have been gilded at a later date. Archives, Georgetown University.

18. Bill of lading (obverse and reverse) for the altar set of which the crucifix and candlesticks of No. 17 are part. Shipment was made on 'the Abigail (Captain Wood) to the agents Taney & Simond at New York. The bill ofIading was dated at Havre, 25th October, 1795, and copied at New York, 12thJanuary, 1796-probably close to the actual days of sailing and arrival. Archives, Georgetown University. A

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