BRICK CHAPEL FINALLY WILL DEBUT – After being ordered shuttered by Royal Governor in 1705 as Catholicism was banned in Maryland, the reconstructed Chapel carefully rebuilt to originial design over decades.

THIRTY YEARS TO REBUILD A CHAPEL DESTROYED CENTURIES AGO

This is the reconstructed brick Catholic Chapel, the first brick Roman Catholic church building in the English colonies.  It was ordered closed by the Royal Governor of Maryland in 1705 when all public Catholic services were ruled illegal, ending religious toleration in Maryland.  Freedom to worship was not made part of the law in Maryland until the American Revolution. The chapel was destroyed and removed, and the bricks were used to build other structures.  Catholics were forced to worship in chapels constructed in private homes, while the Church of England became the colony’s official church.

“A GOOD BRICK CHAPEL”

Join in celebrating the completion of the reconstructed Brick Chapel Exhibit (ca. 1667), a decades-in-the-making exhibit!

Following remarks from distinguished guests, the finished exhibit will be formally opened to visitors.

In the afternoon, you are invited to learn more as a panel of speakers share the story of the exhibit’s creation.

Seating for the seminar will be first come, first serve.

April 12, 2025

Exhibit Opening 10:00 a.m.

Brick Chapel Exhibit, Historic St. Mary’s City

Exhibit Seminar 1:30 p.m.

Visitor Center, Historic St. Mary’s City

18751 Hogaboom Ln, St Marys City, MD 20686

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Afternoon seminar-

The Story of St. Mary’s Chapel: A Synthesis

1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

• Travis G. Parno, PhD, Master of Ceremonies
• Welcome and Introduction, John L. Seidel, PhD (Executive Director, Historic St. Mary’s City)
• The Chapel History, Archaeology and Project Goals, Henry M. Miller, PhD (Historic St. Mary’s City)
• Catholic Influences and Jesuit Practices, Dr. Thomas Lucas, SJ (St. Ignatius Loyola Parish, Sacramento, California)
• Key Artifact Clues to the Chapel, Mr. Silas D. Hurry (Retired, Historic St. Mary’s City)
• The Red Mason’s Perspective, Mr. Jimmy Price (Retired, Virginia Lime Works)
• Designing the Chapel Interior, Henry Miller, PhD (Historic St. Mary’s City)
• The Cemetery and Mortuary Practices at the Chapel, Timothy B. Riordan, PhD (retired, Historic St. Mary’s City)
• Stories Written in Bone at the Chapel Cemetery, Douglas Owsley, PhD (Smithsonian Institution)

Summary and Future Plans, Travis G. Parno, PhD (Historic St. Mary’s City)

Dr. Miller is an archaeologist who grew up in Arkansas and attended the University of Arkansas where he received a B. A. degree in Anthropology. He subsequently received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Michigan State University with a specialization in historic sites archaeology. Miller‘s dissertation was the first major study of the human diet in the colonial Chesapeake, as revealed by documents and the analysis of animal bones. His first contact with St. Mary’s City came in 1972 when he was hired as an archaeological excavator.

After several additional summers excavating and conducting analysis, Miller was employed full-time by HSMC in 1977, first as Laboratory Director (1977-1987) and from 1987 to 2015 as Director of Research. Currently, he holds the position of Maryland Heritage Scholar and, in 2011-2012, was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Oxford University. In 1997, Miller served as President of the International Society for Historical Archaeology and chaired the SHA Ethics and Standards Committee, the Government Affairs Committee, and the Curation Standards Committee, which developed the first professional standards for caring for historical archaeological collections. Research interests are wide-ranging, including foodways and colonial architecture, artifacts such as ceramics, tobacco pipes, and oyster shells, environmental studies, changing landscapes over time, and the intellectual influences that shaped Maryland and its founders.

Much of Miller’s career has been devoted to exploring seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century sites and the effective conversion of those many discoveries into exhibits for the public, including galleries, full reconstructions, and Living History sites. These include exhibits at HSMC, Jamestown Settlement, Colonial Williamsburg, the Maryland Historical Society and the Smithsonian Institution. In 2020, Miller received the prestigious J. C. Harrington Medal, the top international award for scholarly contributions to the field given by the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Mr. Silas D. Hurry is the Emeritus Curator of Collections and Archaeological Laboratory Director for Historic St. Mary’s City. He has over forty years of experience in historical archaeology working in Maryland, Georgia, Michigan, and New Mexico.

A native of the Southern Maryland region and an honors graduate of St. Mary’s College of Maryland in History and Anthropology, he subsequently attended graduate school at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

He is a past officer of the Council on Northeast Historical Archaeology and the Council for Maryland Archaeology. He is active in the Society for Historical Archaeology and also serves on the Board of Directors for the St. Mary’s County Historical Society.

He has received awards from the Maryland Historical Trust (2002 and 2009), the St. Mary’s County Commissioners (2003 and 2012), and the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology (2006).

He is the author of numerous articles and essays on the archaeology of St. Mary’s City, including the exhibit catalog “..once the Metropolis of Maryland,” Our Towne We Call St. Maries, and The Whole Site is the Artifact: Interpreting the St. John’s Site, St. Mary’s City, Maryland. (with Dorsey Bodeman) in Past Meets Present Archaeologists Partnering with Museum Curators, Teachers, and Community Groups edited John H. Jameson and Sherene Baugher.

His research interests include Historic ceramics, vernacular and formal architecture, and 17th-century material culture.