Introduction to My Annual Project

Each year, I choose a project, usually involving searching out a genre of architecture and finding examples of it. In the past, I've done historic Baltimore City Public School buildings, Palmer & Lamdin houses, and Baltimore City Landmarks. 

Just before Christmas, I took some photos of the old St. Thomas Church in Garrison, Maryland. Many members of my mother's family from the 1700's are buried there, as is my father. 

Someone commented that there was a book published in the late 1800's by a woman who documented many of the old brick churches on Maryland's Eastern Shore. After a little hunting, I found the book on line. It was "The Old Brick Churches of Maryland" written by Helen West Ridgely, of the Hampton Mansion Ridgelys, and published in 1894.

I didn't and don't know know a lot about the old churches in the counties bordering the Chesapeake Bay, so I decided that I would go in search of them. 

I attended school in St. Mary's County, where the first settlers in Maryland landed, and founded some of the earliest churches. On the drive from Baltimore to St. Mary's, we would pass countless old brick churches, but I never stopped to see their history. 

Over the years, I have spent a lot of time on the Eastern Shore, and have seen historic churches in passing, but again, I never stopped to look at their architecture and learn their history. 

But for this year, that will all change (provided we are not subjected to a total Corona-virus lockdown). So far, I've been going about this project in sort of a scattershot way, and that will probably continue. I want to take a weekend down on the lower Eastern Shore, and maybe one in Southern Maryland, but other than that, it's basically throwing a dart at the map of the Chesapeake and seeing what's there. 

Where I can find a listing, I will add a link to Medusa, Maryland's Cultural Resource Information System and Database. That will give you all of the details you will need about the building.

I am going to go backward and post the churches I've visited so far. Some of them are open to see the interiors, but most are not. Thanks for following along.