Family ties still strong at Golden Hill’s 250th anniversary

1050

For The Dialog
 
GOLDEN HILL, Md. — The scene at St. Mary Star of the Sea Church on Aug. 27 was reminiscent of 250 years earlier when members of the Applegarth, Gootee, Stapleforte, Tubman and Meekins families gathered for Mass in the small chapel across the street.
Then, early settlers of southern Dorchester County celebrated their new church, built on land donated by the Tubman family. Sunday, their descendants celebrated the legacy of their Catholic presence on the Delmarva Peninsula.
Bishop Malooly noted that some of the more than 200 people at the Mass were descendants of those early-day Catholics “who set the standard for us.”
“It’s not unlike what happened in the early church,” Bishop Malooly said of their efforts that culminated in the chapel and church.

Bishop Malooly greets members of the St. Mary Star of the Sea congregation who attended this historic mission’s 250th anniversary Mass. (Gary Morton for The Dialog)

They would meet in their homes to pass along the faith, and sometimes crossed the Chesapeake Bay to attend Mass and receive the sacraments. Later, priests from across the bay would stay at Catholic families’ homes, where Mass was celebrated. In 1767, a church named St. Mary Star of the Sea was built on land donated by the Tubman family.
The original church, now called Tubman Chapel, stands near the current church, built in 1872.
The Mass readings were for the dedication of a church, which Bishop Malooly called fitting. “What we are doing is not dedicating a church, but giving thanks” for those who built the two churches and the Catholic community at Golden Hill.
Father Bruce Byrolly, retired pastor of St. Mary Refuge of Sinners Parish in Cambridge, that includes the Golden Hill church, concelebrated the special Sunday morning Mass with Bishop Malooly. Weekend Mass is normally at 4 p.m. Saturday.
Afterward, the congregation lingered in the churchyard. Some visited graves of family members, or walked to Tubman Chapel. The reunion atmosphere continued at a luncheon at Old Salty’s restaurant on Hooper Island, where mementoes of the church and its history were displayed.
More than 150 people filled the church, which seats 156, said Mary Jo Bosley, who co-chaired the anniversary celebration with Colleen Curran Bromwell. The rest of the congregation was in the church hall, where an audio/video feed aired.
Older descendants of early families sat in pews toward the front, with younger members sprinkled throughout the assembly. Among them was Henry Gootee, 75. Land records of his ancestors that mentioned the church were used to document its founding in 1767, Bosley said. “Four members of this same family — Henry and Judy Gootee, and Jenny Gootee Whitten and her husband Steve Whitten — are sitting in our pews most every week after 250 years.”
Descendants of other founding families also continue to be active in the church.
Bishop Malooly noted that St. Mary Star of the Sea was a pioneer of the Catholic faith on the Delmarva Peninsula and in Colonial America. It was built before the erection of the first diocese in what is now the United States, in Baltimore, and a century before the Diocese of Wilmington was formed in 1868. Only two other church communities in the Diocese of Wilmington still used on a regular basis are older: St. Joseph in Cordova and St. Peter in Queenstown, both formed in 1765 by Father Joseph Mosley from Old Bohemia, a Jesuit mission at Warwick. Old Bohemia, which includes St. Francis Xavier Chapel, also predates St. Mary Star of the Sea but is used only for special occasions.
The church also predates the establishment of a Catholic mission presence in Delaware, which was at Coffee Run near Hockessin, formed in 1792.
Indicative of the deep roots many have to this area, Gootee said: “We’re still on the old farm that they had in 1689, 1690, something like that.”
John Stapleforte “Pat” Neild Jr. provided Bosley another example of those roots. His “seventh great-grandfather,” Raymond Stapleforte, was the first sheriff of Dorchester County. Raymond Stapleforte’s daughter, Eleanor, married Richard Tubman, Pat Stapleforte’s “sixth GG father.”
“The Tubmans and the Staplefortes were close family back in those days,” he wrote.
The current Golden Hill church was financed with funds from a bequest of Malinda Gootee on land provided by the Dunnock family. Improvements have been made over the years, thanks in part to Annita Applegarth France, who with her husband founded the France-Merrick Foundation, and the Star of the Sea Golden Hill Foundation, established in 1999.
Sara Applegarth, first president of the Star of the Sea foundation, said its purpose is to preserve the two church buildings and grounds. Asked her feelings about the foundation’s work, she said, “It’s pride in what in what we’ve been able to do over the years.”
Her husband’s ancestors, who helped found St. Mary Star of the Sea community two and a half centuries ago, may well have said something similar, were they around today.