On December 29, 1833, the fourth bishop of Baltimore, James Whitfield, dedicated to St. Ignatius a second church at Arnold's Settlement (now Mount Savage) in the western mountains of Maryland. (These are in West Virginia along the new Route 48)
The historian doesn't say when the first church was built, but in an 1817 list of missions in the diocese Arnold's Settlement and Cumberland are the only places mentioned in Western Maryland.
Archibald and Fanny Arnold were my great-great-great-great grandparents. It is a source of pride and encouragement for me to know that some of my ancestors were among the earliest Catholics in the far western part of the oldest diocese in the United States. I am also impressed that the bishop traveled that far by horse or coach.
(Click on picture to enlarge it)
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