St. Mary's Seminary Chapel | |
Location | 600 N. Paca St., Baltimore, Maryland |
---|---|
Coordinates | 39°17′45″N76°37′23″W / 39.29583°N 76.62306°W |
Area | 6.5 acres (2.6 ha) |
Built | 1806–1808 |
Architect | Maximilien Godefroy |
Architectural style | Gothic Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 71001046 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | November 11, 1971 [1] |
Designated NHL | November 11, 1971 [2] |
Designated BCL | 1975 |
St. Mary's Seminary Chapel, located at 600 North Paca Street (off Druid Hill Avenue and modern Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard) in the Seton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, is the oldest Neo-Gothic style church in the United States. It was built from 1806 through 1808 by French architect J. Maximilian M. Godefroy for the French Sulpician priests of St. Mary's Seminary. Godefroy claimed that his design was the first Gothic building in America. [3]
St. Mary's Seminary (now St. Mary's Seminary and University), founded in 1791, is the oldest Roman Catholic seminary in the United States and the site also included a secular St. Mary's College, from 1805-1852. Godefroy also designed in Baltimore, the First Unitarian Church at West Franklin and North Charles Streets during 1817 and the Battle Monument, constructed 1815-1822 in the old Courthouse Square at North Calvert Street, between East Lexington and East Fayette Streets, commemorating the city's dead during the British attack in the War of 1812's Battle of Baltimore with the bombardment of Fort McHenry and the Battle of North Point in September 1814. [4] The chapel is located adjacent to the Mother Seton House. Originally the chapel was surrounded by a quadrangle of four-story buildings of brick Georgian/Federal design with peaked roofs and dormer windows. On one side was a long seminary building and on the other was an L-shaped larger, but similar architectured structure built for the secular College, after it was established in 1805. These were later replaced on the same site by buildings in 1876-78 of Victorian/Second Empire style with mansard roofs although the central chapel of Godefroy endured. In the 1970s, the Victorian buildings were unfortunately also razed leaving St. Mary's Park with a historic bandstand to now surround the old Chapel and Mother Seton House. To the east in the 1980s was constructed a four-lane landscaped parkway with median strip of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, edged by short brick retaining walls which curved around the west side of downtown Baltimore like an inner "beltway".
The small, brick chapel, measuring approximately 90 feet (27 m) long by 70 feet (21 m) wide, is one and a half stories high, set on a high basement. [4] A false front braced by small flying buttresses rises above the main roof, the result of economy measures that lowered the roof below the level of the intended rose window. A tower, statuary and stained glass in the front windows were also cut. [5] The round arched windows are set in rectangular openings. The bricks were originally made for architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe's Baltimore Cathedral/Basilica of the Assumption of Mary (constructed 1806-1821), but it was eventually built of stone blocks. This was the first Roman Catholic cathedral constructed in America to serve the new Archdiocese of Baltimore. The bricks were then purchased for this project for $3,000.00, contributed by Charles Carroll of Carrollton, (1737-1832), last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence and at one time the richest man in America. [4] A stucco cornice lines the sides of the chapel. The interior comprises a wide nave flanked by narrow side aisles. Nine aisle column bays frame three sets of stained glass windows on each side. A sanctuary is set 18 inches (0.46 m) higher than the nave, flanked by transepts on either side and ending in a small semicircular apse. A balcony extends three bays inward from the entry over the nave. The nave's ceiling is plaster, simulating a shallow rib-vault. A crypt underlies the chapel. [4]
In 1839, the chapel gained a tower with a spire and interior decoration by noted local architect Robert Cary Long, jr. (1810-1849) However, Long's steeple later became unstable and was removed in 1916. Some of Godefroy's wood and plaster work was removed at this time. A 1967 renovation sought to restore the chapel to Godefroy's original architectural and artistic intentions. [5]
The chapel's basement was used for services by Black Catholic refugees from Santo Domingo (modern Haiti), a former French colony on the western end of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies, where the Black slaves rose up in rebellion during the early 1790s and established the first Black republic, but unleashed decades of turmoil. Lessons for African-American children were also provided there by the Oblate Sisters of Providence. [3] Later these lessons and masses developed into the first black Roman Catholic congregations at St. Francis Xavier Parish on East Oliver Street to commemorate St. Francis Xavier and St. Peter Claver Parish in West Baltimore which remembers St. Peter Claver. The Josephite Fathers religious order has a special ministry among the African American community within the Roman Catholic Church.
The chapel was designated a National Historic Landmark on November 11, 1971. [2]
St. Mary's Seminary and University is a Catholic seminary located within the Archdiocese of Baltimore in Baltimore, Maryland; it was the first seminary founded in the United States after the Revolution and has been run since its founding by the Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice.
Robert Cary Long Jr. (1810–1849) was the son of a late 18th Century - early 19th Century famous architect Robert Cary Long Sr. of Baltimore, Maryland and was himself a well-known 19th Century architect. Like his father, Cary was based in Baltimore.
St. Charles College was a minor seminary in Catonsville, Maryland, originally located in Ellicott City, Maryland.
Ephraim Francis Baldwin was an American architect, best known for his work for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and for the Roman Catholic Church.
St. Mary Help of Christians Church is a Catholic parish of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston. The main parish church is at 138 Fairfield St. SE in Aiken, South Carolina. The campus also includes the historic 1905 church at the corner of Park Avenue and York Street, and Ste. Claire Chapel (1880), which sits to the left of the historic church. These two church buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The First Unitarian Church is a historic church and congregation at 12 West Franklin Street in Mount Vernon, Baltimore, Maryland. Dedicated in 1818, it was the first building erected for Unitarians in the United States. The church is a domed cube with a stucco exterior. The church, originally called the "First Independent Church of Baltimore", is the oldest building continuously used by a Unitarian congregation. The name was changed in 1935 to "The First Unitarian Church of Baltimore " following the merger with the former Second Universalist Church at East Lanvale Street and Guilford Avenue in midtown Baltimore. The American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America (established 1866) representing the two strains of Unitarian Universalism beliefs and philosophies merged as a national denomination named the Unitarian Universalist Association in May 1961.
Seton Hill Historic District is a historic district in Baltimore, Maryland. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
St. Peter's Church, also known as the Church of St. Peter the Apostle, is a nearly 200-years-old Roman Catholic church located in Maryland's Eastern Shore near Queenstown. It is a prominent landmark along U.S. Route 50 in Maryland, which is part of the main route from Washington and Baltimore to Atlantic beach resort towns in Maryland and Delaware.
St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church, also known as St. Inigoes Church or The Cove Church, is a historic Catholic parish located in St. Inigoes, St. Mary's County, Maryland. It is a direct descendant of Maryland's first Catholic chapel, in St. Mary's City, whose communicants formed the first nucleus of American Catholicism. The parish fell under the umbrella of the first establishment of religious freedom in America by George Calvert and his sons, who established the Maryland colony as a refuge for persecuted Catholics.
St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church, more commonly called Old St. Paul's Church today, is a historic Episcopal church located at 233 North Charles Street at the southeast corner with East Saratoga Street, in Baltimore, Maryland, near "Cathedral Hill" on the northern edge of the downtown central business district to the south and the Mount Vernon-Belevedere cultural/historic neighborhood to the north. It was founded in 1692 as the parish church for the "Patapsco Parish", one of the "original 30 parishes" of the old Church of England in colonial Maryland.
The National Shrine of St. Alphonsus Liguori, also known as St. John Neumann Shrine and "Baltimore's Powerhouse of Prayer," is part of a historic Catholic church complex in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded by the Redemptorists in 1917, the church has extensive affiliations with important figures in Baltimore Catholic history. Since 1992, the parish has held regular Tridentine Masses. It is currently administered by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. The complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 as St. Alphonsus Church, Rectory, Convent and Halle.
J. Maximilian M. Godefroy was a French-American architect. Godefroy was born in France and educated as a geographical/civil engineer. During the French Revolution he fought briefly on the Royalist side. Later, as an anti-Bonaparte activist, he was imprisoned in the fortress of Bellegarde and Château d'If then released about 1805 and allowed to come to the United States, settling in Baltimore, Maryland, where he became an instructor in drawing, art and military science at St. Mary's College, the Sulpician Seminary. By 1808, Godefroy had married Eliza Crawford Anderson, editor of her own periodical, the Observer and the niece of a wealthy Baltimore merchant.
The church of St Thomas, the Apostle and Howard-Flaget House is a historic Roman Catholic church and home located at Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky. The church is a brick, cross-shaped plan with a round apse. It was designed by Baltimore architect Maximilian Godefroy and built 1813–1816. It closely resembles Godefroy's earlier St. Mary's Seminary Chapel in Baltimore, another Sulpician church. St. Thomas is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Kentucky and considered "The Cradle of Catholicism in Kentucky."
Mother Seton House is a historic home located on the grounds of St. Mary’s Seminary at Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is a 2+1⁄2-story red brick house, similar to other small homes built in the early 19th century for the predominantly French community nearby. It was built in 1808 as the home of Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774–1821), the first American-born woman beatified and canonized by the Catholic Church. In the 1960s it was restored to its original appearance through the efforts of a committee, which continues to operate the home as a museum. Mother Seton House is located adjacent to the St. Mary's Seminary Chapel.
St Mary's Church is in St Mary's Street, Crewe, Cheshire, England. It is an active Roman Catholic parish church in the diocese of Shrewsbury. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.
Historic St. Francis Xavier Church is a Black Catholic parish in Baltimore, Maryland. It is said to be the first exclusively Black parish in America, having been established in 1863.
The history of the French in Baltimore dates to the 18th century. The earliest wave of French immigration began in the mid-18th century, as many Acadian refugees from Canada's Maritime Provinces. The Acadians were expelled from Canada by the British, who were victorious in the French and Indian War, and in the Seven Years War in Europe. They took over French territory in North America east of the Mississippi River.
St. Mary's Church, Presbytery and Convent are in Back Lane, Little Crosby, Sefton, Merseyside, England. The church is an active Roman Catholic parish church in the diocese of Liverpool which was built in 1845–47. The presbytery and convent were both built in the 18th century, and altered in the 19th century. The convent originated as a chapel, and has since been converted into a private dwelling. Both the church and the former convent with its attached presbytery are recorded in the National Heritage List for England as designated Grade II listed buildings.
St Mary's Church is a heritage-listed Roman Catholic church at 20 Merivale Street, South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Simkin and Ibler and built from 1892 to 1929. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 3 December 2004.
The Church of St Mary of the Assumption is in Yorkshire Street, Burnley, Lancashire, England. It is an active Roman Catholic parish church in the diocese of Salford. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. It was built between 1846 and 1849 to replace a smaller chapel on a different site. The church was designed by Weightman and Hadfield in Decorated style, and a chapel was added to it in 1879.
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