Final respects paid to forgotten Catholics of 300 years ago who valued religious liberty: See the photos

Maryland officials reinterred 65 of the state’s earliest settlers in a powerful ceremony more than 300 years after the settlers’ first burials.

The reinterment was held at Historic St. Mary’s City, a colonial town off the western shore of Chesapeake Bay, on Sept. 20. Earlier this year, the site drew national headlines when it opened up a reconstructed 17th-century Catholic church. 

The Brick Chapel was the center of Catholic worship in Maryland until 1704, when the Protestant governor of Maryland shuttered the building’s doors. 

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The recent reinterment marked the chapel’s most meaningful use yet. Henry Miller, Ph.D., a senior research fellow at Historic St. Mary’s City, spoke to Fox News Digital about the observance.

Sept. 20 marked the day the 65 individuals were finally returned to a new burial vault after their remains had been respectfully studied and preserved.

The event, attended by Archbishop of Baltimore William E. Lori, included a procession, a chapel blessing and the reburial.

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Miller painstakingly planned all the period-accurate details, he said, such as the horse-drawn hearse, the cannon salute and the inclusion of “Salve Regina,” a hymn that settlers would have known well.

“Having the archbishop was important, as these [settlers] were almost all Catholics,” he said. 

“My goal was to honor these long-forgotten men and women and children, showing them dignity and respect.”

“The parts were all planned to create a dignified, memorable and honorable ceremony to return these people to their resting place.”

Miller said it took six hours to place all the remains in the vault. To save time, the public ceremony focused on what he called “the most forgotten” — the babies left out of historical records.

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“We placed the remains of eight of them in small black boxes wrapped with black ribbon and a sprig of rosemary attached,” he said. “They were in the coffin [we carried].” 

He went on, “I found eight pallbearers who are descendants of 17th-century Maryland immigrants …. Once the coffin was brought into the chapel with an honor guard, the archbishop blessed their remains, and each pallbearer was given a box to carry to the burial vault for interment.”

The historic service featured hymns settlers once sang, including the well-known Catholic prayer “Salve Regina.” (Jenn Dorsey, Historic St. Mary’s City)

Miller added, “I named the pallbearer and their ancestor, and then said what we could about the little baby they were holding.” 

All of the details, down to the coffin, were as accurate and respectful as possible, he said.

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“The coffin itself is a precise reconstruction of one we excavated at the site,” Miller said. “We also carefully measured the locations and orientations of all the nails and the soil stains from the coffin wood, so that it was possible to fully and accurately reconstruct it.

“My goal was to honor these long-forgotten men, women and children, showing them dignity and respect at the place they had been buried over three centuries ago,” he added. 

The service was both a personal obligation and a professional duty to respect colonial ancestors, said an archaeologist. (Jenn Dorsey, Historic St. Mary’s City)

Miller also said, “As an archaeologist who helped excavate them, I felt both a professional and personal obligation to see them properly reinterred. It was the proper and respectful way to treat them.”

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Before the burial, researchers studied the remains and gleaned insights on everything from chronic illnesses and dental care to lead ingestion and diet in colonial America — something that Miller says will be the subject of a future book.

He also said the event could serve as a model for how excavated remains are treated elsewhere in the U.S., noting that respecting ancestors “is a deeply seated human tradition.”

“I feel we honored them as the founders of Maryland,” said an archaeologist.  (Jenn Dorsey, Historic St. Mary’s City)

“I feel we honored them as the founders of Maryland, and as individuals who sacrificed much to do that, giving up all they knew to try for a new life in an unfamiliar land,” he said. 

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“All of them have been forgotten for centuries, except by a few historians, and this has allowed us to return them to memory.”

Beyond Maryland’s history, the archaeologist also used the event to deliver a national message about tolerance and coexistence.

“That should place St. Mary’s on a par with Jamestown and Plymouth as founding places of the American experience.”