HISTORICAL MOMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER 1-26-13

The Catholic Church in Salisbury

A report to the Maryland Provincial Council in 1708 listed eighty-one Catholics in Old Somerset. Old Somerset was comprised of what is now Somerset, Worcester and Wicomico counties in Maryland and part of Sussex County in Delaware. A large area, to be sure. Catholicism made little progress on the Eastern Shore during the next one and a half centuries.

Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, Roman Catholics vacationing on the Eastern Shore in the summer began registering complaints with Archbishop Spalding that there was no place on the Shore for them to worship. In 1860 he sent a priest to Salisbury and he started preaching and offering Mass in the old court house. The distractions of the war years evidently prevented any further organizational efforts until 1868 when the parish was founded. In 1869, a redemptionist emissary was sent to Salisbury to look over the condition of Catholicism in this area. Though he found only two or three local families adhering to that faith, he conducted a service in the town hall. Attending the service was young Miss Kate Tracy, a daughter of John Tracy, owner of the Peninsula Hotel at Main and St. Peter Streets. She induced her father to donate the lot at the rear of the hotel on which a $2,000 Catholic chapel was erected. It burned ten years later and a second chapel was built on the site. That chapel met the same fate as the first. A third chapel was built at that location in 1890 and served the congregation until 1910.

In 1910, the former Trinity Methodist chapel at Bond and Water (more recently Calvert) Streets was acquired and made the mother church of St. Francis de Sales parish.

The congregation had grown to about 200 by 1938 when Rev. Eugene T. Stout was assigned the pastorate. Under his leadership the church made remarkable progress in the 2,300 square mile parish. Missions were established at Delmar, Pocomoke City, Westover and Crisfield. AtOcean City the church was enlarged and a second one erected.

In 1941, Father Stout bought for the church the residence and seven acres of land on Camden Avenue from the estate of William H. Jackson for $14,000. During WWII the parish turned over the building to community organizations for use as a USO recreation center where thousands of service men were fed and many were provided overnight accommodations. A fire did considerable damage to the building on September 10, 1946. A brick garage at the rear of the property was renovated for church activities.

The first Catholic school in Salisbury was dedicated on the property on April 2, 1950 and opened in September with 105 students in grades one through six. I was one of those 105. In later years the school was enlarged and other grades added. I went there through the 8th grade.

The adjoining residence of the late congressman William P. Jackson was bought for use as a rectory in 1960. The mansion of many rooms was later razed for a new rectory.

In 1961, the property at the corner of Wicomico Street and Riverside Drive was given to the parish by Salisbury businessman John E. Morris. It became the site for the present church which was dedicated on May 31, 1964.