At Peace with All Their Neighbors: Catholics and Catholicism in the National Capital, 1787-1860In 1790, two events marked important points in the development of two young American institutions—Congress decided that the new nation's seat of government would be on the banks of the Potomac, and John Carroll of Maryland was consecrated as America's first Catholic bishop. This coincidence of events signalled the unexpectedly important role that Maryland's Catholics, many of them by then fifth- and sixth-generation Americans, were to play in the growth and early government of the national capital. In this book, William W. Warner explores how Maryland's Catholics drew upon their long-standing traditions—advocacy of separation of church and state, a sense of civic duty, and a determination "to live at peace with all their neighbors," in Bishop Carroll's phrase—to take a leading role in the early government, financing, and building of the new capital. Beginning with brief histories of the area's first Catholic churches and the establishment of Georgetown College, At Peace with All Their Neighbors explains the many reasons behind the Protestant majority's acceptance of Catholicism in the national capital in an age often marked by religious intolerance. Shortly after the capital moved from Philadelphia in 1800, Catholics held the principal positions in the city government and were also major landowners, property investors, and bankers. In the decade before the 1844 riots over religious education erupted in Philadelphia, the municipal government of Georgetown gave public funds for a Catholic school and Congress granted land in Washington for a Catholic orphanage. The book closes with a remarkable account of how the Washington community, Protestants and Catholics alike, withstood the concentrated efforts of the virulently anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic American nativists and the Know-Nothing Party in the last two decades before the Civil War. This chronicle of Washington's Catholic community and its major contributions to the growth of the nations's capital will be of value for everyone interested in the history of Washington, D.C., Catholic history, and the history of religious toleration in America. |
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... soon have turned to the business that had brought them there . This was to determine the exact boundaries of Lot 72 in what was then called Threlkeld's Addition to Georgetown . At the time there were no less than five such " additions ...
... soon be the ten - mile square of the District of Columbia . Not coinciden- tally , it would also be the first place of public worship for the Catholics of the area , a right that was denied throughout the colony of Maryland from 1704 ...
... soon , whether he wished it or not , Carroll found himself caught up in affairs of church and state at the highest levels . In April 1776 he formed part of the unsuccessful mission to Quebec sent by the Conti- nental Congress to secure ...
... soon write Plowden , as he began to receive requests for priests and of- fers of property for new missions " from every part of the U. States , North , South , and West . " 13 ) On the other , he could look with dismay at the pitiable ...
... soon became a major property owner in the western part of Georgetown , in the course of which he must have known John Threlkeld , whom land records show as involved at some point in nearly all land transac- tions in that part of the ...
Contents
3 | |
15 | |
33 | |
For Nation and Town | 55 |
The Church | 79 |
A Church So Crowded | 81 |
St Patricks St Peters St Marys and More | 100 |
The Nations Capital | 121 |
Daniel Carroll of Duddington | 166 |
The Passing Storm | 189 |
Time of Wonder Time of Trial | 191 |
A Final Test | 213 |
Acknowledgments | 231 |
Abbreviations | 233 |
Notes | 234 |
Bibliography | 289 |